After roughing out the bow with a bandsaw and trimming the edges to final width, I then use a drawknife, spokeshave, long handled sureform rasp, or farrier's rasp to bring a uniform taper to the belly, leaving it fairly thick. I then mark and cut facets with a drawknife and sureform rasp. (I usually make radiused bellies.) From there, I start floor tillering, alternating between reducing the flat belly and the facets, mostly with a sureform rasp. (I normally don't use a long tillering string.)
When I give it all the muscle I have and can "almost" push-pull string the thing, I put away the sureform, and use a #49 Nicholson and heavy Mystik scraper (or sometimes a spokeshave or Bowyer's Edge) to begin rounding over the facets. After rounding the facets, I can usually just barely manage to push-pull string the bow at around a 5" brace. (I try not to brace much less than that because the severe angle of the bowstring loops tend to dig lengthwise into the wood and try to split it.)
At the first brace, I'll check the tiller and make any major course corrections to get the limbs bending evenly. Then I do the heat gun magic to create uniform reflex and bring the bowstring roughly in line with the handle.
I proceed from there, exchanging coarse tools for fine, alternating between rasp and scraper, and fine tuning string tracking with a heat gun. (The repetetive heat gun work is a time killing and frustrating, but necessary evil to perfect string tracking, since I don't like to take shortcuts and offset handles or even tip widths to compensate.) After each bit of wood removal, I exercise the limbs on a tillering tree 20, 30, or 40 times. It's interesting to see how the wood removal often won't register a change in weight or tiller until several pulls are made.
At some point after string tracking is nailed, I finish the grip. This often involves gluing down two layers of suede leather on the back side of the grip, which I soak in superglue and rasp to a comfortably round shape (done in 2 or 3 rounds of superglue/rasping) to be sure the final outside surface of the leather is sealed in hardened superglue).
As I'm closing in on full draw, I start to alternate between scraper and 80 grit sandpaper. When the tiller looks good and I'm several pounds overweight, I like to let the bow stand at full brace for at least 6, and often 12 or 15 hours. I know some people cringe at that thought, but my motives typically lie in producing long lasting, predictable, and durable hunting bows that can withstand being braced long periods for days upon days of hunting. My experience has been that once they're put through this boot camp, they don't budge later. (Plus it saves the equivalent of scores of arrows for shoot in.)
The long sweat often drops the weight slightly. If I'm doing any kind of rawhide or snakeskin backing or tip overlays, etc, I add them now (if not just before).
I do my final tillering with a fine cabinet scraper and 80 to sometimes 120 grit sandpaper, shedding the last pound or two with just the sandpaper. I use the sandpaper in the final stages not so much for tillering precision, so much as to have established a very cleaned up bow before final shoot in. (Sandpaper cleanup "after" tillering often sheds weight and may affect the tiller.)
Next is shooting in. I've shot as few as 50 arrows, but prefer at least 100, and sometimes 200. If the bow has undergone an endurance brace nearing final tiller, the shoot in seldom affects anything. Still, I shoot in to be sure. I shed any final weight (if any, just a pound or two at most) with sandpaper.
Then I fine sand down to 320, burnish, steel wool any horn overlays, and dye and finish.
None of that is hard and fast to the "T", but that's my normal procedure.
Topic: Please describe your tillering process... (Read 694 times)
