68" Hickory Longbow - Comments on Tiller and Build

[JDL]

Hey Guys,

I'm building a 68" Hickory Longbow and aiming for a 50 lb draw. In the pic I have weighted it to 40lbs. The string is para chord. Oh, I have been using the gizmo and it is really fantastic!!! How does the tiller look and am I ready for the short string?

Thanks!
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[dutchwarbow]

JDL, it's bending a little too much in the right midlimb. Remove some wood from the left limb, and the right inner-and outterlimbs. If you want a 50# bow, you should be drawing 55-60# right now. this will keep you from coming in underweight.

I think it's ready to be strung !

Nick

btw, I love your tillering setup! but don't stress the bow for too long(a few seconds only).

[Eric Krewson]

you need to get the first foot out of the fades working then the rest will look pretty good.

[Pat B]

Hanging a dead weight on a bow being tillered is a no no...and especially with hickory in humid Arkansas. You are adding undue stress to an untrained bow.

[JDL]

To combat the humidity I only take the bow out of the air conditioning to hit it with the tiller and the rasp and then quickly take it back inside to evaluate. I am curious though about your dead weight theory. Could you or someone please explain that to me? Is this time dependent?

[Pat B]

Wood bows should not be held at any draw length for more that a few seconds and especially while tillering. It causes undue stress and strain on an organic material(wood) that we are asking to do an unnatural task. The reason I use a long rope on my tiller tree is so I can exercise the wood and educate it to bend while standing back so I can see the complete bow and it's bend. I gradually extend the exercising length as the tillering processes to educate the wood but never hold it still for more than a few seconds.
  Once the bow is tillered I do brace it and let it sit braced for 4 to 6 hours. This is no longer than it would be braced while hunting or at 3D shoots. If it is going to be damaged by this I would rather it happen before I get out in the field.

[JDL]

Hey guys, thanks for all of your help! I took off a little more material and strung it and it looked pretty good but felt like it was still to heavy to string so I kept using the long string on it. Anyway, what I figured out after about ten iterations of checking the tiller and scraping was that with the long string, the bow doesn't bend near as far with the same amount of weight. It really never bent much past 9in on the long string but when I put the short string on it, it bent 21in with the same amount of weight...

I guess next time I won't worry so much about overstressing it with the short string.

[Dano]

One of the things I find most important about the long string is: it shouldn't be too long, just long enough to string the bow easily, it's all about leverage.

[Pat B]

...and I never use a long string after about 8" of tip movement. Beyond that you will get a false reading that will put you under weight later.