why is one limb longer??

[PEARL DRUMS]

Is that pink dye Royboy?

[Roy from Pa]

Nope, why ya looking for some?

[J.F. Miller]

oneraindog, the reason you would make the lower limb shorter than the upper is to place the static(the geographic center of the bow between the nocks) and dynamic(the working center of the bow when drawn) fulcrums in essentially the same place right out of the gate, making it simpler to achieve properly balanced limbs in the drawn bow.

if you make bows with limbs of equal length outside of a 4" handle, you will likely need slight negative tiller(lower limb weaker, i.e., the upper limb stiffer) to achieve proper balance, not the other way around, which is a regretfully common misconception.

[Art B]

Originally posted by J.F. Miller:


if you make bows with limbs of equal length outside of a 4" handle, you will likely need slight negative tiller(lower limb weaker, i.e., the upper limb stiffer) to achieve proper balance, not the other way around, which is a regretfully common misconception.

 Art

[George Tsoukalas]

My bow limbs are of equal length with the bottom limb 1/4" stiffer at full draw. But the deciding factor is how she feels when I draw her.  If she's balanced we are good to go.    Jawge

[SEMO_HUNTER]

Originally posted by Art B:
   

quote:Originally posted by J.F. Miller:


if you make bows with limbs of equal length outside of a 4" handle, you will likely need slight negative tiller(lower limb weaker, i.e., the upper limb stiffer) to achieve proper balance, not the other way around, which is a regretfully common misconception.

[SEMO_HUNTER]

Originally posted by PEARL DRUMS:
Is that pink dye Royboy?

     
You kids play nice.

[oneraindog]

wow. this has become very informative.
waaaaaaay better than any math class i ever took, pink dye and all.

thanks.

[Shaun]

"I think by the position of my hand and putting the arrow pass 1 1/4" above actual center of the bow"  SEMO_HUNTER

Unless your hand is 2.5" wide at the grip... you are making the top limb longer.

[SEMO_HUNTER]

How can that be if my hand is dead center of the bow? Then the arrow is 1 1/4" closer to the top limb than the bottom limb.

Doesn't really matter, I'll still keep building them the way it works for me no matter what theory claims to be "correct" depending on who came up with it.

[J.F. Miller]

Originally posted by SEMO_HUNTER:
Doesn't really matter, I'll still keep building them the way it works for me no matter what theory claims to be "correct" depending on who came up with it.

one of the best things, to me, about building and shooting wooden bows is the myriad of possibilities. seeking out the cost/benefit relationships of bow designs that best serve the purpose is half the fun

there is no shortage of correct ways to tiller a bow, and there is no shortage of incorrect ways, either. I'm not sure we are all talking about the same things all the time when we discuss balance, timing, tiller, etc.

one thing I am sure of is that the laws of physics work the same in your shop as they do mine. we all work within those confines.

put your bow on a tillering tree with a single point of contact, taking care to rest the handle on the contact point as near you can to the place where the pressure of your hand grip is centered  and see where it balances at full draw, making sure to pull the bowstring from the place where your middle finger would be if you were pulling it yourself, and see what you need to do to make it balance where you want it to.


balance, it ain't just for teeter-totters, fellas.

[Art B]

I truly understand your thinking on this subject J.F. and where you line of thinking comes from. But do you only build bulbous handle bows only? Only shoot with a low contact grip? I'm not saying that what you're doing isn't for you and a few others. It's that for the vast majority of us, what you're describing can't and won't work.  

You need only to study the many full draw pics that folks post to understand that the greater strain is on the lower limb. Be it even limbs or longer upper limbs. For many of us, a tillering tree is considered a lying tree. We can't mimic by hand what we see on the board by what the tree tells us. Our thinking on this subject will continue to evolve, as I'm sure yours will too. Just keep an open mind to everyone's thoughts.....Art

[J.F. Miller]

you speak for the vast majority of people who make wooden bows? really?

to each his own. my thinking on the subject never stops evolving. lots of right ways to make a bow. this thread started a question as to why anyone would make a bow with a shorter lower limb, I offered an explanation based on the facts as I see them. I'm not challenging anyone elses opinion. after 15 solid years of making and shooting wooden bows, and with well over 200 successful bows of various designs and materials to my credit, I thought I had enough perspective to offer some of my experience as viable input on this forum. my mistake.

happy tillering everyone.

[Roy from Pa]

Well raindog, how ya gonna make your bow?    Best of luck on it..

[SEMO_HUNTER]

JF that's why we are all here is to offer our "Own" perspective on how we do it, not necessarily the right way or the wrong way and there are many different ways to make a good shootable bow.
I appreciate everyone's opinion and I usually take a little something from all of you. I'm still fairly new at this and if it weren't for some of these guys I would never have gotten as far as I have in such a short time.

Even you Roybert!        

Only thing that ever gets under my skin is when somebody starts quoting from books or tries to tell me that what I'm doing doesn't work when I've proven that it does.
I think everybody needs to understand that there's many different ways to arrive at the same destination whether it seems right to them or not and we all have our own style of how we get to the same end.

Afterall, if it weren't for evolving ideas and thinking in a different direction we may still think the world was flat?

[Art B]

Since I obvious don't speak for the vast majority we'll let them speak then Miller. What are they telling you?  Art

[Roy from Pa]

Jamie, I don't believe I've ever seen anyone make a bow with a positive tiller on the lower limb. Can you go into more detail for me in your theory? Thanks, Roy

[Tiabnogard]

Isn't it just possible that traditional warbows, as we call them English longbows, were built accordingly with the lower limb stiffer than the upper. I'm sure our ancestors developed these bows after quite a bit of research, thus making them so effective in battle. Keep in mind that the original English archers which were to shoot these bows trained for 10 years, generally speaking, pulling 120 lbs. These men would have had massive upper body strength.  All this aside, I think the point here is that perhaps the lower limb being an inch shorter, and a bit stiffer was how these bows were originally designed to be supremely effective with massive penetrating forces at long distances using heavy, bodkin tipped, ash arrows.

[George Tsoukalas]

Yes, the laws of physics always apply but which laws? Because I taught science and chem for 35 years I had access to physicists. I asked   a pHD in physics once how much force is on the nocks at full draw. He said that is easy. If it is a 50 # bow then 25 # at each nock. Not true as we know from experience there is  not that much force on the nock ends or the skinny little nocks most favor would snap like twigs. This is a very complex issue. No one is right or wrong. For example conceptualizing the bow as a lever only describes half of the way it actually behaves. It is also a spring. The force is spread out on a properly tillered bow along the whole limb. Here's the way I think of it. If the arrow pass is 1.25 in above center and if you use the Med. (split finger) draw then you are gripping the bow in the center as Tim Baker would say. However there are still 2 fingers  under center putting the bottom limb under just a little more strain. However, Art is so right when he states that how you grip the bow makes a gigantic difference. For years, I would tiller the limbs even on the tiller tree only to find the bottom limb significantly weaker than the top. Then I started making the bottom limb a little stiffer at full draw and that seemed to solve the problem. I started checking draw in front of a mirror and still do. With the advent of digi cams I now have my wife snap a pic as I draw after the bow is tillered. Drives her crazy but I'm worth it. Nothing can approximate how the bow is held. That's why how it feels when you draw is important. I've written too much. I feel like most what make it to the end of this post. Art, you still there? Hello!  Shall I continue? How about bows that bend in the handle? So we make those with 2 in shorter limbs? I think not. My poor students ...having to listen to me for 53 minutes.    Jawge

[George Tsoukalas]

Whoa! I did write a long post. Sorry about that. Just read the first sentence.    Jawge