Reflex - What's Optimal?

[Burnsie]

I introduced reflex into this stave.  No science or formulas involved, I just eyeballed and traced a smooth curve with a piece of PEX tubing on a 2x6 and cut out a caul.
The back profile is pretty narrow tapering to some rather narrow tips.  I'm trying to somewhat mimic a back profile of a typical ASL.
I just got it bending a bit at floor tiller, going to work the long string.  Any tips for tillering something like this? I'm thinking I want to leave the last 6-8" of the tips pretty stiff.

[Hamish]

Optimal depends upon what your goal is. Flight, hunting, target shooting etc?

Most designs especially with narrow tips, do well with stiff outer limbs. When you get to where you can tiller with the bow strung at brace height, you automatically
get stiff tips because using a tool too close to the tips will result in the string getting cut.

My favourite tool for tillering whilst strung is a Bowyer's edge, or some similar type of scraper shave.

Your overhead view looks like a pyramid taper, or perhaps a little parallel, and then pyramid. so relatively circular tiller with stiffer at least 8" sounds good to me.

I always go by how the bow is taking set. You want to avoid obvious set near the fades, or near the reflex.

Your last bow was good, so you'll do just fine. looking forward to see how it turns out.

[sleek]

What is optimal is the most you can get without loosing any or taking set. How much that is depends on everything. Draw length, bow length, bow width, thickness, and all those relationships to the draw weight and the specific gravity of the wood.

[Selfbowman]

Burnsie I work the ends to about 4-5 inches from the ends on that design. I think you have one of my bows. Put it on the tiller tree and watch how it works. That will give you a good idea on that design. Also do the bigger loops and let the string ride on each side of the tips and it will work fine.

[jameswoodmot]

I always find that when I heat treat in reflex that I always get some initial se getting to brace and the first few inches of draw, almost like the bend is settling, and then it stays where it is for the rest of the majority of the tiller unless I do a bad job. So I always put a little bit more in that I think the wood can take, maybe an extra 20-30% to account for this