Main Discussion Area > English Warbow

130lb elm bow

<< < (5/6) > >>

RBLusthaus:
BTW - awesome bow!!!!!   I don't think I could even draw it. 

WillS:

--- Quote from: Marc St Louis on August 03, 2017, 08:27:02 am ---I have used this method of heat-treating to touch up the tiller before but find it too unreliable.  It looks good at first but the tiller changes over time

--- End quote ---

I've had it happen once, with a yew bow that I "tillered" using mainly heat, and after the bow had settled the tiller began looking worse and worse.  I re-heated the problem areas and it held the second time.  White woods seem to respond superbly however, and I've not noticed any changes happening 100s of shots in with the rest that I've done this way.  That being said, it is a relatively new technique for me, so there's every chance it'll catch up to me at some point! 

meanewood:
Very interesting technique Will.

I will be keen to try that with my next bow (probably Ash).

I must admit, I have never been too fussy with trying to get a perfect shape from a bow that isn't straight to begin with!
I also start with tapers that experience has shown me to work well with a particular wood type.
The point of tillering is to share the bending strain equally to as much of the bow as you can.
 Obviously if your working a wood to its limits, it's best to include the center area, resulting in a circular shape.

If I try to remove a natural re flexed area in order to achieve a perfect shape, it means that area is bending more (working harder) than the rest of the bow.

What I like about your technique is with a de flexed area, instead of leaving it thicker, you can just stiffen it up a bit rather than have an area that may look like a hinge but is really an area working just as hard as everywhere else!

It's not often I find dead straight staves, so I don't think I have any with a 'Perfect Tiller'!

Anyway, it's always nice to hear people share their knowledge.
I am guilty of repeating mistakes I've made before but overall, I think I'm heading in the right direction being open-minded about things.
 

WillS:
It does work very well with ash - I think you'll be quite pleased.  My latest heavy ash (150lb) was made almost entirely using the heat method, but I did do a bit of scraping here and there to get some small areas working. 

I've always thought that the quicker you can make a bow the better that bow is.  Hours (or days in some cases!) of torturous bending and checking and bending and checking and tweaking and bending and "exercising" just shoots the bow out before you've even held the thing, and really just isn't necessary.  Also, I can't help thinking that "back then" there wouldn't have been any of that, just good quality staves being tapered by an experienced bowyer, checked at brace height and chucked on the pile.  If you're making 2 or 3 a day, you can't be messing around with all the rest of it.  Whether they used heat we can't know, sadly.  There are a couple of MR bows that show really dark patches of something on the belly which could be scorch marks, but that's just supposition on my part.

mikekeswick:
Why do deflexed areas act weak and reflexed areas act stiff when you have a perfect taper? ;) What does this mean in terms of strain?

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page