Advice for a novice on tillering please

[Silvius]

Hi Guys,
I came here around new year and asked a question about preparing Ash staves. I followed all the good advice you kindly gave me about taking the bark off, shellacking the back, sealing the ends and reducing to bow blank size. The bow blanks are good and dry now and so I have made an attempt at making my very first bow. I still am a way off target weight at draw length but that is probably as well because I have realised that I am not certain what I am looking for. This is the first time I have done anything like this. I wondered if you could give me some advice from a photo please?

To my untutored eye, it looks like the right hand limb is too stiff from about half way? Is this right? is there anything else you can spot that I need to know please. Also, have I made the tillering tree OK please? 

Thank you in advance.

[George Tsoukalas]

I would scrape the right limb from mid limb on.
The last 8" of the left limb is bending too much.
Leave that area alone and scrape from the fades to mid limb.
Take 10 or so scrapes, pull at a short length10 times  and check tiller.
Jawge

[Silvius]

Thank you George. That weak spot I had not seen at the end of the bottom limb really gave me trouble. I wish I had spotted it. I have got the bottom limb back to being ok and just slightly stronger than the top. 42 lbs at 24 inches. Hoping for 40-45 at 28 inches when finished. I might not have ruined it … yet.

[Eric Krewson]

Make a tillering gizmo, it will solve a lot of problems for you. I can't post a link but you can find a complete description for making one and using it on the Primitive Archer website in the how to section.

I had the same instructions here but got banned and had all my stuff was deleted, later my banning was reversed but my numerous pictorial how to's vanished forever.

Gizmo;

[Silvius]

Thanks Eric. You have done me a big favour there. I made a gismo up after work today and it clearly shows both tips are too weak.

The amusing thing is that I was looking at an old longbow I had for an example of tiller. I do not have a decent stick bow to copy. My return to archery is recent after shooting deer with a rifle was getting too easy and I wanted to learn something new. I just bought a cheap recurve to practise with and thought I would make my own primitive bows (because if I am going to put modern technology away, I might as well do it thoroughly). 30 odd years ago an amateur bowyer sold me the bow I was copying cheaply. He was a very kind man who helped a young boy learn a bit about archery but I now know why he sold the bow and why he sold it cheaply. Its tips are too weak! It has taken hideous amounts of set.

I will see if I can save this one. I guess I can shorten it an inch or give it to some enthusiastic kid if it comes out too weak.

[Silvius]

I had better report back on this one with another question please.

The Gismo was very handy thanks. It sort of saved the bow. The bow balanced out a bit light but still a usable weight for someone, even if not a hunting bow -32lbs. I made the mistake of pulling it to 30 inches to get a round weight of 35lbs. When I put linseed oil on the bow, I noticed that there were crysals on the belly in a couple of spots and 2.5 inches of set. 

So I made attempt 2. This time I was careful about how far I drew the bow and used the gismo from early, never getting very unbalanced. I ended up with a bow that was 50lbs at 28 inches and had a shade less than 2 inches of set. There were no crysals. I then cut a rest in it, rasped out the handle and shot a few trial arrows to try the feel of the handle before finishing it. I then notices a couple of little crysals had developed in the edges of the belly. I had not rounded these more than minimally as I had feared to disturb what I had thought was my first successful tiller.

Is it just bad tillering again? would oiling the bow lessen the cracking? can it be saved?

Thanks.

[Eric Krewson]

It appears to me that your bow is very short, for a 28" draw you need at least 64" nock to nock and 66" would be better.

[Silvius]

Thanks Eric. I did make a bit of a mistake there. I measured 67 inch bows out not 67 inches knock to knock. The bows are 65 inches knock to knock.

[Eric Krewson]

65" should be enough, bow wood varies from tree to tree in the same species, perhaps you have some that is not up to par.

[Silvius]

Interesting... could be. I chose a tree that was clean and straight, that had struggled for light in a pretty much closed canopy. I got a lot of staves out of it but my experience as an arborist is that European Ash is very much weaker when slow grown. When you try to directionally fell branches and sections of slow grown Ash the hinges are rubbish and you can't ask it to go more than 20 or 30 degrees from where gravity is pointing it, same is true with English Oak that makes the best of hinges when fast grown. Its the opposite of the conifers where a Yew grown on a rocky hill top that has rings that strain your eyes will make an awesome hinge.

I had wondered about the doctrine that "wood is wood, its all in the tiller" just because I know that where trees have ring porousity and they grow slowly, they end up being mostly porous wood (which I guess would not handle compression as well).

I also had a sentimental desire to use one of my own trees but my land is a mixture of overstood coppice and conifers that are past their rotation and would have been felled a long time ago if it were not for the fact that they are great cover for deer. The Ash that is there is a local native tree that has punched through the imported conifers that never really took. Its all going to be thin and have fairly close rings.

I will get some more staves from somewhere else.

Can I do anything to slow the crysaling?

Thanks for your advice Eric. Its been a good learning experience.

[Mad Max]

Ash need to be wide and heat treated and long--this one is 68" long and 2-1/2" wide at the fades
I did a slow heat treat---it took about and hour to do one limb

[Silvius]

That is a beautiful looking bow. Thanks for showing it. I love the snakeskin. I hope I can make something as nice as that one day.

[Bowjunkie]

Sure they can be, but I don't think ash 'needs to be' made like that. I've made them no more than 1 5/8" wide, not heat treated, fully radiused belly, 60# @ 28", and they were fine.

[Stagmitis]

Hey Bowjunkie how long were the 1.5/8 ash bows you made?

[Silvius]

I have probably felled or sectionally dismantled at least a myriad European Ash trees. Its the most dominant local tree where I come from (though that may change soon with Ash Die Back disease) and I have cut trees for a living for 20 years. I don't know about making bows but I do know about Ash wood. It varies greatly depending of the speed of its growth. Sometimes you can just nick a two inch thick branch on a normal looking tree with a hand saw (just cut 1/4 to 1/2 inch) and then just snap the rest in your hand. Other times it is beautifully chewy and if you fail to overlap a step cut up by 1/8 of an inch the branch will not snap no matter what.

So I think both views may well be correct -that it can make short bows and that it needs to be used longer and wider in some cases.

Next time I will get staves from a tree that is really growing fast. Its been a good experience anyway. I am not as ignorant as I was and I have two bows to experiment with.

[Mad Max]

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Re: Ash Snake bow (MoJam)

Quote
Great job. You did just what ash wants. Wide, long and tempered. Real nice tiller as well.