Fixing a lousy shooter

[Eric Krewson]

I made a beautiful BBO a while back, with a recent shoulder injury I decided to drop its poundage to a comfortable level for me to shoot. I never really shot the bow in as I was making it for someone else and missed poundage.

It was one of those bows that the tiller would look really good for a while then one limb would start to creep negative and get out of tiller. I would correct the errant limb with sandpaper only but it just wouldn't hold tiller.

When tillered the bow was hard to shoot, when the tiller got out even slightly it was a really lousy shooter, 1/8" positive or negative and made a world of difference.

I pride myself in being able to correct or fix just about anything but this one had me stumped. I could run the gizmo within a hair of each limb and not make a mark.

Today I took a closer look and realized the fade on the bottom limb wasn't quite as active as the fade on the top limb, we are talking microns here. I also noticed in my hand the grip felt a little too sharp at the peak which made the bow easy to torque. I had used a contour gage to shape the curve and get it even, it was perfectly round but at too high an arc.

Out with my orbital sander for the limb and a scraper for the handle. I took off a tiny bit of wood from the fade and lowered the arch on the handle.

Out for a test shot and I couldn't believe the difference, suddenly my loser became a winner with every arrow going right where I looked, a difficult bow suddenly became forgiving.

The light spots indicate where I corrected things with almost no wood removal required.

What have you guys stumbled into to make a dog of a shooter into a winner?

 

 

[Woodely]

"What have you guys stumbled into to make a dog of a shooter into a winner? "  Have not done that yet but I ran into the same problem once that you did, but only to end up with firewood in the end.

"It was one of those bows that the tiller would look really good for a while then one limb would start to creep negative and get out of tiller. I would correct the errant limb with sandpaper only but it just wouldn't hold tiller. "  That's great you over came such a tough bow. 

[George Tsoukalas]

Good fix! Jawge

[paulsemp]

 same for me always just a couple of scrapes somewhere. It's funny though how it always seems like when you put something down and come back to it it's so obvious but you couldn't see it before. 

[bradsmith2010]

Nice save

[Del the cat]

Yeah... it's what I call the fiddling and fettling... you just don't get that on commercial or poorly made bows yet a minute or twos work can make all the difference.
Personally I suspect a lot of "hand shock" is just a poorly shaped grips. I see it a lot on Backed ELBs, the backing is dead flat, so you get knuckle jarring corners.
Del

[leonwood]

Nice fix! I am really into Del's "fiddling and fettling". It still amazes me how these small ten minute jobs can make a ton of difference!

[Bob Barnes]

been there done that... scraped the finish and took a few scrapes off of the lower limb belly just hours before shooting the Tenn. Classic... it looks like you finally got yours finished.     

[Eric Krewson]

I remember now that the above bow was an experiment to see if some of the extra lightweight osage I had in my stash would make an extra fast BBO, it made a screamer but the wood wouldn't hold tiller. The wood is not like normal osage and about half the density of the good stuff.

[Jim Davis]

I make all my wood handles straight from top to bottom and rounded on the belly side like a segment of a cylinder. I  round the edges on the back, but don't make the  back  entirely rounded like the belly.

I now mostly make take-downs with steel tubing handles. I even modified my Bear Polar handle to this configuration--no swells or  bumps.

All my bows shoot well and all feel exactly the same in my hand.