Tillering and humidity(and some other stuff)

[maitus]

Did you use epoxy? I'm wondering if the heat allowed the glue to creep and as a result you ended up with a little more reflex. Can't think of any way to test that.

Make one experimental limb from some scraps. It won't take much time .

[DC]

Got one sitting on my bench

[DC]

  DC, if you got a little bit more limb working that could possibly count for a speed loss due to vibration. The more working limb you have the more opportunity for vibration. Thats why very few glass bows are hitting 190. Really more like distortion than vibration I think.

This opens up a whole bag of thought. I remember Alan commenting on this but I'd forgotten. So now we're leaning toward Molles or whip tillered maybe. Is there a chance that uneven tiller could help cancel out vibrations?

[Mesophilic]

DC, not sure if you've followed some of my posts but dryness is a huge PITA for me.

I've found that when I get to the short string, I have to exercise the limbs a bit, string the bow, exercise a bit more, and let it sit under tension for about a half hour to a full hour, to let things kind of settle and relax.  If I skip this, I'll tiller what I think is a stiff spot, and it will end up being a weak spot when next I string the bow. 

It's frustrating and time consuming, and maybe it's just coincidence and it forces me to slow down and take more time, but whichever it is, it helps.

[DC]

DC, not sure if you've followed some of my posts but dryness is a huge PITA for me.

I've found that when I get to the short string, I have to exercise the limbs a bit, string the bow, exercise a bit more, and let it sit under tension for about a half hour to a full hour, to let things kind of settle and relax.  If I skip this, I'll tiller what I think is a stiff spot, and it will end up being a weak spot when next I string the bow. 

It's frustrating and time consuming, and maybe it's just coincidence and it forces me to slow down and take more time, but whichever it is, it helps.

Interesting. There's no way that my MC should be as low as yours as I live 100yds from the ocean but the heated shop does get dry. Sometimes 20-25%RH.

[The Zen Master]

What is the best humidity range to tiller a bow?

[DC]

 It's not so much the RH that you're tillering in, it's the moisture content of the wood. It should be around 10%. If you store your wood in 45-50%RH it will equalise at about 10% MC. As long as the wood spends most of it's time at 45-50%RH you're fine. These numbers are ballpark, there's quite a bit of leeway. My shop goes from around 50%RH at night to 25-50% during the day so it should average out OK. All this assumes the wood is already dry.