First Time Bowyer Advice

[fujimo]

i would be very careful with the tillering stick- as you get further down the draw length, drawing the bow, getting it all level, stepping back to take a pic- is way to long for a wooden bow to sit under strain. if you are lucky- all this will do is introduce a lot of set, if not, it will be the death of your bow- think when you are at full draw- it no longer than a second.
 build a tillering tree with a pulley- lots on here- but check out "Roy from Pa".
get camera ready- get to full draw- snap pic, and let down.
a glass bow can handle this type of extended strain , a wooden bow sure doesnt like it.
 cheers
wayne

[LittleBen]

I agree with Wayne. Try to reduce how long you're at full draw. But I also treat my bows badly and hold them drawn like a target archer so I can relate.

The limbs look to be bending much better.

In your PM you said the tilleri gizmo shows only stiff 8" at the tips. If you twist the pencil so it's sticking out a hair more at a time it will keep showing the stiff areas. In other words get the pencil sticking out a bit more and see if any other parts of the limb are stiff at all.

It looks from the pics that the fades (area near the riser) on both limbs is still a small bit stiff. I would give a bit more work to the outer 2/3 or both limbs. Then take it to a higher brace height, like 4" and post a pic so we can see what it looks like.

I know it seems grueling, but trust me, the first one is always the toughest. It comes much faster as your experience goes up.

[deadsilence]

Sorry guys been hunting the past few days and don't have internet access there. I continued with your last advice and kept pushing on. I hope I have done correctly. I think the bend looks pretty good but that could be me being naive. The issue I have now is that I am stuck at 26 inches I'm drawing 52lbs and I need to get down to 28.5 or 29 for my draw length. Is there any particular place to concentrate on when trying to make weight or just overall scraping. Sorry for the bad background but I took the picture quickly and didn't have a better spot.
 

[mikkekeswick]

I think you've reacheed max draw with that bow. Look at the string angle - close to 90. It's gonna be stacking hard with anymore drawlength. After going back and checking all your drawn pictures it looks to me like you pulled too far early on when the lower limb was weak near the handle. This damaged the belly cells here and the area hasn't been able to 'catch up' because of this. As you can see in your last pic the left inner limb is bending too much and looks on the edge of being a bit hingey to me.
A good tempering may help but it won't make as much difference as it could've now.

[deadsilence]

I guess there is nothing that can be done to lighten the poundage, more scraping or maybe scraping at the limb fades?  I have a pretty uniform thickness of just under 1/2 all the way down the limbs

[John Scifres]

Scrape the inner two thirds of both limbs.  Leave the outer portion stiffer.  You can always reflex the tips to get the string angle down and reduce stack some.

The right limb is slightly stiffer than the left.

[deadsilence]

Originally posted by John Scifres:
Scrape the inner two thirds of both limbs.  Leave the outer portion stiffer.  You can always reflex the tips to get the string angle down and reduce stack some.

The right limb is slightly stiffer than the left.

What method would you use to reflex the limb tips?

[LittleBen]

How long is the bow?

[deadsilence]

Originally posted by LittleBen:
How long is the bow?

68 tip to tip and 66 nock to nock

[LittleBen]

Are you drawing 26" from the back of the bow, or from the belly side of the grip?

Draw length is usually measured from the back of the bow. So if you're measuring 26" from the belly of the grip, you're actually at more like 28"

If you need to squeeze out a bit more draw, you can work the inner 2/3 of both limbs slightly as Macbow said and also weaken the right limb a bit. It is slightly stringer than the left.

[deadsilence]

Originally posted by LittleBen:
Are you drawing 26" from the back of the bow, or from the belly side of the grip?

Draw length is usually measured from the back of the bow. So if you're measuring 26" from the belly of the grip, you're actually at more like 28"

If you need to squeeze out a bit more draw, you can work the inner 2/3 of both limbs slightly as Macbow said and also weaken the right limb a bit. It is slightly stringer than the left.

I discovered this yesterday, my tree is measing from the belly of the bow, I am getting my arrows to proper draw and the bow is holding about 52 lbs at my full draw. I have a 1/16 of negative tiller so i will work the inner 2/3 of the top limb(right limb in picture above).  Would it be worth backing this bow with rawhide, just for safety not poundage? I've heard you could use the large 36in dog bone rawhides, is this true? Is it dyable?  Got to make a pretty bow right!?

[deadsilence]

I have question that might hijack my own thread but the bow is about done so i will go ahead and ask.  Is there any reason why you cannot take a hickory board, split it in have along the thickness and plane them down to 1/4.  then run fades out from a riser block and laminate one to back of handle and the other to the limb belly and handle fades.  Or could you laminate the two 1/4 strips together and laminate many 1/8 pieces for the riser on the belly, with each piece getting some dimension shorter than the previous.  Sorry if these are dumb question but I am new and all of these build alongs and posts I seen have the cogs turning.  Both scenarios above would be straight limbed bows.

[deadsilence]

Well here she is, still have to put some poly on tonight but, she is done in my book. I did a darker walnut stain on the front and a lighter stain on the back and let it blend on the sides.  I shot her some before the stain and while she isn't a speed demon, my judo was consistently hitting a tennis ball from 15 to 25. I'm sure the tiller isn't perfect and the 68ttt beauty took about 1.75 inches of set.  I don't know if that is good or bad.  I got my tiller to zero so I am certain the full draw picture looks like the tiller isn't quite right.  I did rotate it some bc I had the bow unlevel when the picture was taken.  Thanks everyone one for all your help.  I am sure I will be back with more questions as I already have plans to make some more.
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

[deadsilence]

Sorry about the thumb, copied the wrong link from photo bucket
 

[deadsilence]

as to my hijacking questions. this is what i was meaning.  The black lines would taper from 1/4 at the tips to 3/8 in the middle.  Riser block would be 9 inches and the belly lams, green in the picture would be 1/8 flat.  Is this feasible or do i have this backwards and the belly lam should be a backing? Terrible picture to help.
 

[LittleBen]

Nice job finishing the bow up.

Check out Sam Harper's site, poorfolkbows. Check out his bamboo backed ipe build, he discusse the various ways to add a riser/ prevent the handle popping off.

 http://poorfolkbows.com/ipe1.htm

IMO the easier way is to sandwich a thin (1/4" or so)  short 12-16" lamination between the lams in the handle area, then just glue on a riser the same as with a board bow on the belly side.

[deadsilence]

I should have clarified that the back lamination would taper from 3/8 from the fades to 1/4 at the tip.

[deadsilence]

Originally posted by LittleBen:
Nice job finishing the bow up.

Check out Sam Harper's site, poorfolkbows. Check out his bamboo backed ipe build, he discusse the various ways to add a riser/ prevent the handle popping off.

  http://poorfolkbows.com/ipe1.htm  

IMO the easier way is to sandwich a thin (1/4" or so)  short 12-16" lamination between the lams in the handle area, then just glue on a riser the same as with a board bow on the belly side.

Would this short lam have to be tapered? I'm guessing it would.

[John Scifres]

I would boil hickory for the reflexed tips.  Might be  too late for this one I see.  Bow looks great.  Good job.

I'm not really following your lamination question but it looks like you have it backwards.  Genrally you glue a thin, tension strong, material on the back to increase performance and protect the back from lifting a splinter.  Adding thin material to the belly is counter intuitive since we want to prevent compression and the thin material would seem to compress more easily.

[deadsilence]

Originally posted by LittleBen:
Nice job finishing the bow up.

Check out Sam Harper's site, poorfolkbows. Check out his bamboo backed ipe build, he discusse the various ways to add a riser/ prevent the handle popping off.

  http://poorfolkbows.com/ipe1.htm  

IMO the easier way is to sandwich a thin (1/4" or so)  short 12-16" lamination between the lams in the handle area, then just glue on a riser the same as with a board bow on the belly side.

Ok so we have easy access to hickory and white oak. If make a tri lam like same does in the link little ben provided, what are acceptable woods for the belly?  would a hickory backed white oak work?