I built a recurve of the same length but it was a binghams design, when I first shot it; it had a terrible buzz to it. I called binghams and asked about it and Elmont said to adjust the brace height. on his design he recommends about 10-12" from the back of the bow, not sure what your design will come out to be, but 8 1/4" off the back of the bow sounds real low for a recurve so I would start by raising the brace height a little at a time and it should get better, my guess would be that you want at least 10" from the back of the bow that will give you around 8-9" to the throat of the grip which is where most people measure to.