Just got my yew staves, now what?? Pictures included.

[rascal]

Thanks Ferret that helps a lot, guess its back to the woodshop to make another caul.  Already made a 74" caul with 5" of reflex as suggested earlier, Oh well may yet use that on some wild experiment another day.

I did make the caul with a 12" flat for this bow, Im a bit curious as to what affect the extra 4 inches of limb I have will do to the measurements on the caul.  If yours is 68 I have an additional 4 inches in length to consider wouldnt this require slightly more reflex?  Perhaps 3" would do it?

Well Ill have to make a trip to the lumber yard and get more material for the caul and will need to take a touch more off the bow limbs, busy day.  Ill get a few more pics up today as well, I know Ive gotten behind  

[Eric Garza]

Yeah, I see that what I wrote is easy to misinterpret.  I didn't mean that you should reflex the bow five inches.  What I meant was that you should tiller the limbs down until you could bend them five inches, with the idea that this level of "bendi-ness" would make them easier to heat and bend as needed.  I didn't say how much you should reflex the limbs, as that'll depend on what you want your bow to look like.

Five inches of reflex would be radical overkill!  Sorry for the confusion!

All the best,

ELG

[the Ferret]

3" over 72" wouldn't hurt a thing, and would probably give you 2 1/2 at 68". You'll lose about 25% of any induced reflex when you pull it off the caul.The nice thing about a 72" stave is if you do happen to miss weight you can shorten it and make some of your weight back.

and I agree with Eric....  get the limbs bending a few inches before inducing your reflex.

[rascal]

Yup spent some time with the draw knife earlier and took a bit of meat off the limbs, got it bending pretty well now.  Just checking to see that they are bending somewhat evenly now before I heat and form them.

[rascal]

Well Ive been lazy but I finally got around to some pictures again, mostly things have went well since the last update.  Thanks again Ferret your advice and your site have been a real asset.  Eric dont sweat the confusion, Im easily confused and quick to recover =).

Speaking of confusion heres what a 5" reflex caul would look like if anyone were silly enough to build one.
 

Now on to more serious matters this is what a 3" x 74" caul looks like, seems a bit more manageable dont it?
 

I also took the time since last posting to build a simple tiller frame just so I could stretch this thing out a bit.
 

Here is a quick look at what the stave looks like roughed out and getting "bendy".  The blue painters tape is a real help for me, I mark approximately where I wanna be and cut the tape off to that line.  Then I can work my way to the tape.
 

I managed to get the stave to flex about 5" as suggested before going after the reflexing step.  The left limb was pretty stiff due to a couple of knots I was avoiding, I took more off of them before trying it on the Caul.
 

[rascal]

Now I dont own a heat gun, the closest I could get was a radiant heater and a propane torch to heat this up, I tried to make sure not to scorch the wood while getting it hot but there was a little.  Good thing Im not down to final dimensions eh?  It went fairly well and I think the one "OOPS" is repairable, maybe you can tell me for sure.

Heres the left side getting the heat and form treatment.
 

Heres the right side getting its heat and form treatment.
 

Ands heres the "OOPS" I mentioned earlier.
 

I managed to crack the handle just up from the fade while forming the left side.  That was the side I had to work the knots down on but apparently it was still a little on the stiff side.  Not sure what the best repair is for this but since it is in the nonbending portion of the bow I gotta believe it is repairable.  Ive got some nice Brazilian Koa that I can glue up for the handle if I have to cut this portion off.

Any advice on this one?

[the Ferret]

Geez a heat gun is $10 at Harbor freight

I'd CA glue and clamp the handle. I think it will be alright. Bummer.

Nice job on the caul. That should leave you with a pleasing profile.

[Shaun]

Coming along nicely. Yeah, heat guns are cheap, get one for the next bow. In the pic on your tiller tree, you are getting a "hinge" just past the stiff handle section on the right. This is a place where it bends too much in one spot. Look out for these and mark the area "NO" to keep from removing any more wood there till the rest of the limb catches up.

[rascal]

It came off the caul with just a bit of reflex, perhaps an inch is all.  I did some sanding and shaping to the limb and handle profile just to get into a basic shape that I wanted and went back to the tiller tree.  I flexed it a few times just to get an idea of how that stiff limb was acting.  After flexing a few times it has under an inch of follow, I can live with that.

Shaun I see that hinge now that you point it out, Ill make sure to pay special attention to that area as I try to get the other limb bending.  This is the part that Im dreading the most.  I think I still have lots of meat left on the limbs, its not real easy to bend or even close to weight so I should get lots of practice fixing my mistakes.

Ferret thanks Ill try that CA glue, I dont think its even gonna show to be honest.  It was disappointing to hear that pop while I was clamping it up though.

[rascal]

The handle turned out quite well after applying a little glue and clamping it up.  Im confident its not gotta be an issue. I had to do some pretty good prying to open it up just to get glue into it.

[rascal]

Well it took a trip out of town but I managed to purchase another bow scale (you just know Ill find the old one now that Ive driven to Des Moines and back).  Luckily I slipped in a little family fun in the process so I could keep in the good graces here at home.

Ill be starting the tillering process straight away the next chance I get.  Gotta get a little more stock off the limbs for sure as its still way to stiff.  I dont think Ill be using much more than the scraper at this point though and Ill get some pics up with this bent on my tiller tree for your review.

[rascal]

Ok I think I am going to have some time to do some tiller work on this soon and wanted to drop a couple of pictures here for advice yet again.

Here I used a tight string and pulled it down to 22" and 43#.  I didnt excercise the bow much before this one.

 

Here again a tight string and pulled down to 22" went 40# after excercising the limbs 40 times.

 

I could probably brace this to 3" and take some more pics but I think there is some work I can see by looking at the current pictures.  Lemme know what the experts think on this one. Im taking baby steps here, I dont wanna go under weight or snap a limb by rushing.

[the Ferret]

Yeow    :eek:   First off there is no way this bow should be on a tight string or pulled to 20" yet. You are asking for follow big time.

Never draw it ONE INCH further than you see a problem and correct that problem.

You are near a hinge wher I have marked red (write NO in this area and stay away from it. You need to work on the areas I have marked green

 

[rascal]

Thanks Ferret, Ill work those areas you mentioned and get some more pics up after that.  Now when I say tight string its not like the string I have on it is flexing the bow without my assistance (drawing).  Ill mind drawing it past the first peg (12") on the tiller tree after this as well.

Also the area you have marked in red has a significant hump in the wood, natural imperfection not by my hand.  Is there anything special I need to consider for that?

[rascal]

Im only using a scraper to work the limbs so I dont know that this made a lot of difference.  I marked the hinge with blue tape so I would stay well away from it and took a close up of that area just so you could get a good look at it.

I pulled this down to the 12" mark to check it which was about 20#.  If thats still too much I can modify my tiller tree so it has more pegs.

Heres that natural hump in the wood.

 

Heres a pic pulled at 12"  I dont think I changed much with what little scraping I did.  

 

How much should I be removing in order to see a change in the profile?

[rascal]

Not sure Ive accomplished a lot here but wanted to gather some opinions on how this is looking after working the limbs a bit as suggested by Ferret.  I took some pictures with the limbs unflexed and some with just to give a more complete picture of what I have going on.

This is unflexed

 

Unflexed right limb

 

Unflexed left limb

 

Flexed to 12"

 

Flexed right limb

 

Flexed left limb

 

Im hoping that gives a better scope of what Im working with but if the unflexed pictures arent helpful I wont bother with them anymore.  I didnt take any weight measurements this time but it seemed a lot easier to pull down and I feel as if Ive taken a fair bit of wood off the areas suggested.

Any thaughts on what I need to do next would be appreciated.

[John Scifres]

Tillering uneven limbs is a lot more difficult than it has to be.  If it were me, I'd take another run at it with the heat except this time use a heatgun and really take your time.  

What kind of weight are you getting at 12"?  I don't heat bend until I am real close to floor tillered.  For me that means weighing 10# under my desired draw at 16" or so.  That put's me close to desired draw weight at 20" although I rarely bend it that far this early in the game.  This makes it a lot easier to heat bend.

[rascal]

I guess Im not completely sure what you are getting at when you say "take another run at it with the heat".  Do you mean to straighten out all the uneven spots in the limbs?  I was getting about 20# last time I checked at 12" John.  I want a final weight of about 55-60 @ 28", from what Ive gathered here that will eventually leave me with closer to 50-55 after some initial break in period.  Not sure what weight that means I should expect at 12" though.

[Bert Frelink]

Looks to me that you are not following the contour of the sapwood, go very slow as you are getting some of the heart wood pretty thin in spots.
Good luck, Bert.

[rascal]

Ill take some measurements tomorrow on the limbs and see if I can even them out, I guess I was more concerned with getting them to bend correctly.  One spot on the left limb has a pin knot that Ive been leaving extra wood around so that might be part of it.