my first bow

[JkChenault]

Well I Guess I will introduce myself.

 My name is Justin Chenault and I am a Bladesmith / custom knife maker and I have been into archery most of my life. I have a Ben Pearson collegiate and an Indian archery Cochise along with some pse compound bows.

Well my wife decided she wanted to get into archery also so I decided to try and make my first bow this last week. It went mostly well there were some issues with the smooth on being a little thicker than I expected but it went ok.

Specs:

3 piece recurve take down
Riser: figured bubinga with osage inlay
Limbs: Osage under glass with Jade G10 overlays

I think im getting the tillering close but I dont know take a look at the pic and let me know.

   

Uploaded with  ImageShack.us

[KellyG]

Looks good but that bottom limb looks to be bending more then the top. Make a grid if you can; try and draw the bow on a tillering tree or stick. then take pics from straight on and that will tell you how close the tilller is.

[SportHunter]

I'm no pro with glass bows but your bottom limb looks weak and the riser sections where the limbs attach look like they would easily fail unless you have some type of I beam construction or other strength feature built into the riser design. Looks cool though.

[JkChenault]

So with that bottom limb being a little weaker can I fix it by taking some off the upper limb?

Also the riser is full width at the transition between limb attachment point and handle, the limb insert also goes through all 3 layers at that point so im hoping it will be alright with a light draw weight.

It is about 45 lbs right now at 27" draw which I am shooting for between 35-45 lbs at 26-27 for the wife so hopefully I get close. Honestly I will be happy with whatever weight it ends up at as long as it shoots.

[Steve B.]

Its a really good job for a first bow and yes you want to weaken the top limb to match the bottom.  Make sure you are not randomly grabbing the string but instead are pulling from the spot where your arrow will be and with three fingers, when you are judging tiller.