Back Elasticity, Overwhelming Rawhide; Tillering Reflexed Bows

[bradsmith2010]

 

[Hamish]

Korey you need some decent bow wood. If you can get some you will find out that its nowhere near as hard making a successful bow from most Australian timbers. I lost quite a bit of confidence in my early years persisting with local timbers that weren't really suited to bows.
Easier said than done though getting some decent timbers. I don't know if I mentioned to you before but my friend Steve has a supply of timber that we harvested. PM me if you are interested and I will put you in touch with him. He has proven native bow timbers like, desert acacias(brigalow), red ash, and osage, grown in Aus. Even ordering some osage or yew billets from the States is worthwhile, despite the expense of shipping.

[Bryce]

No need to rush amigo. Make small heavy bends and tiller as you go. If it takes you a week or two to do it right then so be it. After awhile your eye will get trained up up and you'll tiller a bow in a short afternoon.
Perfect practice.

[kbear]

So, I did this........

Tiller by Korey Aitkenhead, on Flickr

Not wanting to ruin another 20+hrs work (x3) on guessing, I developed a spreadsheet that displays the reflexed profile at various stages of tillering, to full draw. It took a lot of math, and several prototypes to get it right.

Now transferring this to a board that I will hang on my tiller tree. The bow will be painstakingly tillered to match. 

If that doesn't work, I will know for sure it is the wood!