Looking for a bow without breaking the bank

[Ddean]

Hey guys, I've got a problem. I'm working on an ash bow project, but I feel like I'm risking my life with every stroke of the plane. It's a bit like gambling it's hit or miss and given the price of wood at the moment, I don't really want to lose my stake straight away. Honestly, I don't know everything, and I feel like I'm gambling with my tillering. Do you guys have any tips or tricks to make sure it works? Something to make it a little stronger without costing me an arm and a leg in equipment. If anyone has a reliable tip, I'm all ears, because I admit I'm stuck a bit and I don't want to end up with a toothpick.

[Eric Krewson]

You should probably post this in the bow making section. My only suggestion it to make yourself a tillering gizmo to tell you where to remove wood during tillering. The instructions are the first post in the "How Too and Build Along" section on the main menu.

[bjrogg]

Agree with Eric. You should post this in bow section. I did a thread once titled “Starting Small”. The theme of it was showing how much you can learn from scrap wood that you aren’t afraid to learn on. You might try searching it. I’d post a link but I don’t know how to do that.

I also would agree with Eric about the tillering gizmo. Eric has helped a lot of new and experienced bowyers with his gizmos.

Also I wonder about your tools. You mentioned a plain. Really wouldn’t suggest using a plain for tillering.

I hope you can get to a point where you feel comfortable with trying. We’re all routing for you.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Dean if you look in bow section I brought back a thread I posted a while back. I hope it gives you the confidence to try some scary stuff in a not so scary way.

It’s titled “Starting Small”

Bjrogg

[Eric Krewson]

My progression on bow making is to bandsaw out a blank, I could do the same with a draw knife and horse shoe rasp but I have a bandsaw. It is very important to draw out a perfect bow pattern on the back of your stave before you start cutting it down and don't cut inside your lines, I trim to the lines with less agressive rasp or a large half round file. I draw out side lines on the sides of every limb as well before I start tillering, the roughed out the stave is too thick to bend.

I use the circle method to lay out a bow after I draw a centerline.

I use this;



To achieve this;



Handle layout with circles;



The sidelines keep your limbs exactly the same, I almost never have a limb dogleg to the side after I layout and cut to my sidelines. I start at some random depth at the end of the fade, usually 5/8" for osage, a little more for white woods, I drop the depth 1/16" every 6" until I get to 1/4" and carry that depth to the tip. I leave my bow bellies rounded to start, they flatten out a lot during the tillering process but are still rounded for the last 8" or so. If I have too much poundage when I cut the limbs down to my sidelines I drop the lines another 1/16" except for the 1/4" measurement and start the process over. My limb tips are never less than 1/2" thick with a 1/4" sideline and 1/4" of rounded wood above the line.

This limb tip is very narrow but deep in thickness. Wood is 7 times stronger in depth than width so you can make your limb tips very narrow, just leave them thicker.



This tip looks scary thin but it is 1/2" thick and plenty strong, the extra groove is for a bow simple parachute cord bow stringer.



Sidelines to keep everything uniform and controllable, free hand wood removal without a plan just doesn't work.



I use a rasp to get the limbs bending at which point I switch to a scraper and follow the scraper with various grits of sand paper for the final tillering. The key to success is NOT to get in hurry. The longest part of the process for me is the shoot-in (several hundred arrows) and the final tillering adjustments with sandpaper and an occasional light pass with a scraper.