Its cracking near the knot - will have to start again.

[Don Drake]

I am finishing up a youth bow for my nine year old grand daughter.  It is 44" nock to nock and is currently shooting about 25# at 20".  I have shot about 50 arrows with it at various distances from about 10 feet out to about 65 feet.  I am hitting within about 8" of center at 65 feet and getting decent penetration in a dead-stop target, so its probably okay for her. She will love it no matter how bad its tillered.  But its driving me crazy.

There was a large knot in the stave running diagonal from the right front of the back to the left rear of the belly.  I knocked it out and was able to carve around it but it left a bend in the limb (I made that limb the lower limb).  Here are two pix of the knot area unstrung.

   

   

As for the tiller:

The upper limb is not perfect, but I feel I can use the gizmo and finish that up.

The lower limb has a huuuuggggeee hinge near the fade.  I don't know if I can redo the fade to fix it or if I need to take more off of the nock end of the limb.  Maybe the knot is causing the problem.  I am home alone so I can't get a pic at full draw.

It shoots fine, it just looks reaaallly baaaad.

Here is a pic on the tiller tree with the final bow-string and drawn to 20".

   

Thanks for the help guys.

Don

[Pat B]

I would clamp this bow to a caul(2x4 will work), belly side up and heat treat that back to belly bend out of it then retiller. When you notice a hinge you should not pull the bow but unbrace it and deal with the hinge first before going farther.

[Don Drake]

Pat, thanks for the advice, but I notice its starting to crack at the hinge and I don't want to take the chance of giving her a bow that might break on her.

Back to the old shaving horse!!

[Pat B]

Don, take the next one slow and easy and don't over pull the final draw length or weight. Exercise the wood well between each wood removal to help educate the wood to bend.

[Eric Krewson]

You need to put your gizmo to use right after you floor tiller, with the limbs only bending about 3" or less. Slow and careful wood removal will keep your limbs from hinging.

Looks like you rushed to the short string without getting the limbs bending correctly on the long string.

I did the same thing a couple years ago. Strung a bow I was making a little early, noticed a slight hinge but didn't unstring the bow immediately. Bottom line, that slight hinge developed into a major hinge. I was making a high poundage bow that turned into a sissy bow by the time I got the hinge corrected.