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Newbie Ash backed red Elm bow - need a hand with tillering

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Del the cat:
The key thing is to decide on your target draw weight!
ease off the right limb a tad so they both start to flex and pull it back to about 50% of your target weight, if it's still bending evenly pull it to 90% target weight, watchin it as you do it. See how far it pulls back, and then start adjusting the tiller.
If you keep pulling it to 20# you'll just end up with a 20# bow!!!
Better to put some weight on early when it won't break as it's still pretty stiff and you'll only get a small deflection.
They don't break early... they wait until you've nearly finished...  >:(
BTW I don't round off the corners until it's about half way tillered, some adjustment of the belly can help prevent twist or sideways bend... can't do it if you've already removed the wood. Prob not as important on backed or laminated bows... just sayin'
Del

adb:
You need to shorten the block holding the bow on the tiller tree. It's getting in the way of you putting your bow up on the tiller with a short brace. Look at the pic of my tiller tree setup.

dobson:
Thanks again guys some really helpful advice in there!

Dark soul I agree there does appear to be a hinge there ill make sure I don't touch that area! By shorter string do you mean I should brace the bow or just use a very short long string (as in the same length of the bow)?

Yes the weight ill be aiming for (decided on 60 pounds that way if it ends up being under I wont be disappointed) is far below Warbow weights but I thought this section would be the best place for advice on English longbows that bend "full compass" but in future ill post in the regular bows  section.

Del ill make sure to try that out, should i have the bow braced at that point of can I try that with the long string?  Cheers for the advice on corners ill keep that in mind if i ever try to make a self bow!

Ill also alter my tillering setup so i can get a shorter string on there

toomanyknots:

--- Quote from: dobson on May 06, 2013, 07:57:54 am --- By shorter string do you mean I should brace the bow or just use a very short long string (as in the same length of the bow)?

--- End quote ---

I would guess he means shorter longstring, as in the same length nock to nock as the bow. I even use a little shorter if I can, so much that you have to bend the stave and stretch the tiller string just a tiny little bit to get it on there. Just a tiny bit though, so when it is on there the string is flat against the belly with zero brace height, but taut. My favorite cord material for tiller strings so far is 550 paracord. It has very little stretch, is strong enough for the heaviest bows, but is small diameter enough to fit in small nocks. Also, you can retie just normal knots in it over and over again without any harm to the cord, where normal bowstring material don't work like that. So you can use one longer string to tiller 78" bows to 40" bows.

dobson:
Ok so I had a go at trying to tiller the bow with a cabinet scraper, as I'm being cautious I only removed small amounts from the entire bow apart from the 12 inches from the bottom (left) limb tip. I also did a few more passes on the entire right (top) limb as it seems too stiff. However I am unsure how to proceed



The long string is as short as I can get it without bracing the bow, in the picture the bow is pulling about 25- 30 pounds

In my opinion the left limb looks like still not bending towards the handle and i cant tell if the bend is a hinge or that is correct. The right limb looks like it needs more work on it but as I said I'm being cautious at the moment .

Where should I be focusing?

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