Recurve tiller question

[Chesapeake]

A few years back I bought a recurve in the classifieds. It was listed as a Sauk Valley but I've bean able to find no info on it. I played arround and shot it for a year or so and the finish began to show some age. So I decided to refinish it. First I had a friend who is into bows finish it with Tru oil. The finish looked nice enough, but didnt bond well. You could scrape it off with a thumb nail. I'm guessing the original finish didnt play well with the Tru oil. So I decided to sand it down and redo it with Spar Urithane. In my haste I didnt think ahead and take a pre measurement of the tiller. (It has wood cores and overlays with clear glass lams back and front) I was real carefull and sanded with 220 and 320 grit sand paper and tried to only remove the finish. So after I'm all done I decide to measure the tiller. Why, I have no idea. Its only brought questions.

The tiller when set at a 7.5" brace is 5/16 more on the upper limb. Meaning the lower limb is stronger, as expected. I did the "find the center of the bow and measure at equadistand points at the fade outs". All the documents I can find seem to mention 3/16 to 0 tiller for split finger. No real mention of 3 under except that 0 tiller is good for both?

My question is; Is 5/16 tiller something to think about or concern myself with correcting?

I havent shot it since the work, I will this weekend. Problem is unless its real bad out of time I likely wont know. I'm new to this Trad stuff. I decided on Trad to avoid the arms race that Compounds have become, and now I find myself concerned about 1/8 of a inch of tiller!!!!! Should have never measured and just shot the thing.

[Trux Turning]

Well you do have a couple of options- if you were fairly careful when you sanded each limb then it may well have been 5/16's the whole time- shoot a few arrows through it and see if you notice a difference- if not I wouldn't worry. If you are worried- sanding the lower limb will make it bend more- you need to check the bend at more than just brace. Bet you don't need to worry about it.

[John Scifres]

I wouldn't worry too much about it unless it shoots like crap and you can't get it tuned.  I doubt you changed tiller by refinishing it.  Can you give us some pics?

[Chesapeake]

Thanks for the input guys. I put the bow back together last night and shot it several times.

It felt just like before, it also seemed to exibit the same habit of knock high arrow impact, though I didnt play with tuning much.

In the past its always bean a fight to get it to not shoot knock high. I had thought this was my release or lack of tuning skills, and it may still be. But maybe its that the tiller is off slightly on this bow.

At this point I'm going to leave well enough alone and try and tune her up and go have fun. I bought this bow ($250) as a stepping stone into Trad. I'll play with it till I am ready to step up into a more exspensive, better built bow.

About pics; It doesnt seem this site has a gallery, or personal galleries (???). I dont have a picture hosting site other than other chat boards that have personal galleries. I dont think It would be right to use another chat site to host pics for use on this chat site. I dont plan on signing up with a pic hosting site, so for now, I think, no pictures.