Tillering and Final Draw Weight

[IrishJay]

I've been tillering my selfbows to my target final draw weight, knowing that toasting the belly afterward will raise it a few pounds, after shooting the bow in (couple hundred arrows), it's going to lose a few pounds before settling in at its "permanent" draw weight. 

In short, tiller right to where I want it, toasting takes it up a little, shooting it in brings it back down a little,  typically ends up right about where I tillered it to.

I'm starting to play around with some laminate bows, so where should I target my tiller? Since I won't be toasting it's not going to go back up after tiller, but I'm not sure if a laminate is going to lose as much from shooting in as a selfbow either.

[peacefullymadewarbows]

I would tend to say a laminate will act much like a self bow without heat treatment. So say an Osage self bow drops 5 lbs then a hickory backed Osage of similar design probably will drop about 5 as well. The 5 is just a hypothetical number. Point is it’s not that it’s a laminate that makes it different but rather picking your lamination species to minimize set. Like when someone makes a hickory backed ipe. The ipe is very good in compression and the hickory good in tension so it hopefully takes little set for an efficient design. BUT if that same piece of ipe could make it to full draw in the same dimensions without a backing, that “self” ipe bow would probably take a similar amount of set to it’s backed sister. So I guess I would head a few pounds above target to allow shooting in to settle it at target weight since you won’t be able to heat treat. I’ve made a few but not a pile of laminates so hopefully someone more experienced comes in to correct me where needed. Hope this is better than nothing haha.