Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => English Warbow => Topic started by: Goose Fletch on May 25, 2014, 06:42:50 pm
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Hi everyone
I just started tillering a warbow. It measures 7' and my projected weight is 80# at 28 or 100# at 32".
The issue is that one limb is excessively stiff while the appears to be responding to scraping and filing. The stiff limb is showing little improvement and im not sure if its me or the wood. I try to scrape both sides and the belly equally on this hickory board warbow. Any one have any suggestions?
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Keep scraping. I'd say Work on the right inner two thirds. Is this your first?
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If I may offer some info I've picked up recently while making the same mistake - forget being even at this stage. If the wood is denser on one limb, you'll need less wood on that limb. It really is that simple. You might end up with one limb being a good few mm thinner than the other, but if that means both limbs are working the same, and the bow is balanced you've done your job. Be aware of it getting TOO thin of course, but there's nothing wrong with the limbs being different thicknesses up to a point.
Is the stiff limb reflexed at all? If it is, you'll need to keep it stiffer in relation to the other because that's what the stave will want to do, but if both limbs are straight then basically keep working the stiff limb down until it balances out. Make sure you're really exercising the bow as you work - often it takes a while for the changes to become obvious and they can suddenly show up at once causing a hinge.
Let somebody with more experience guide you through this but this is stuff I've been told and hopefully some of it helps a bit!
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New Indian, thanks for the advice, this is my 4th bow now. but ive been lurking here forever haha
Will, if I balance it, I think I will have an unusually thin limb. I assume that if both limbs match in shape, then they should in theory match in weight, which supports what you are telling me. however, will this have unwelcome performance characteristics? wouldnt one limb be heavier in mass? after examining the growth rings on both ends, it looks like the stiffer limb has thicker latewood rings.
the blank had about 1 inch of reflex which i had tried to induce by leaving the hickory in a perry reflex for a little while, allowing time and ambient moisture to do its thing. this has been reduced to a little over 1/2" at the moment.
what about the handle area? i was hoping for a full compass tiller. do you think the bow will need more work done near the waves?
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You just gotta bring the stiff limb along to meet the weaker limb is all. Just keep scraping. If the limb is getting thin, it is still better to have a well tillered bow with an oval / funky cross section than a bad tillered bow with an even cross section. My advice is to just worry about the tiller for now, don't worry about it being thin or thick, etc. Looking like a good bend on the left limb though, now to bring that right limb along, ;D.
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Haha thanks. I suppose patience does help as well.
Here is the most recent tillering check. The stiff limb is becoming increasingly thin, its a little frightening, still not sure where to remove wood now.
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Is the bow braced to a full brace height? It should be, by now. What weight are you drawing it to, in the last picture? The tiller looks pretty good, but the right limb is just stiffer than the left limb. I'd scrape the full length of the right limb with a scraper for three minutes and check again. Make sure to exercise the limbs at least thirty times after each tiller correction is made.
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72" is pretty short for 100 @ 32 in most cases anyway, so I would just pike the weaker limb and just let the bow come out however it wants to come out. That would get your tiller to come around, you might have to lob off a good couple inches though. I wouldn't brace it till it looks even, just me.
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Is the bow braced to a full brace height? It should be, by now. What weight are you drawing it to, in the last picture?...
Thanks, and yes, it is braced to full height at the moment. It pulls to about 75# right now. Just gotta keep scraping and exercising but I am planning to pike it as well. Its pretty long right now.
Knots, I agree with you, 72" is too short. thankfully its 84" long haha ;) (sorry for not indicating its length in inches, I just lazily wrote 7 feet in the original post). If I pike it, would I need to grip it in the center of the new length or should I hold the bow where I used to hold it before piking?
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Have a look at this post from my blog, it shows how you can experiment with piking a limb by different ammounts without taking off any wood!
I had exactly the same 'weak limb' problem.
http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/drat-lost-some-weight.html (http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/drat-lost-some-weight.html)
Del
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Is the bow braced to a full brace height? It should be, by now. What weight are you drawing it to, in the last picture?...
Thanks, and yes, it is braced to full height at the moment. It pulls to about 75# right now. Just gotta keep scraping and exercising but I am planning to pike it as well. Its pretty long right now.
Knots, I agree with you, 72" is too short. thankfully its 84" long haha ;) (sorry for not indicating its length in inches, I just lazily wrote 7 feet in the original post). If I pike it, would I need to grip it in the center of the new length or should I hold the bow where I used to hold it before piking?
LOL sorry, my mistake! I'm about retarded, ;D. (No idea where I got 72") Yeah, you got plenty of length to pike the weaker limb! I'd go about an inch at a time until the tiller looks even and then see what weight I was working with.
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Was the bow stored in such a way that you are confident that the moisture is equal on both sides of the bow. I used to store all my bows in a big drum and the bottom limbs were always showing weaker after setting in the drum for some time.
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Have a look at this post from my blog, it shows how you can experiment with piking a limb by different ammounts without taking off any wood!
I had exactly the same 'wak limb' problem.
http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/drat-lost-some-weight.html (http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/drat-lost-some-weight.html)
Del
Haha thanks del, I know exactly what you mean when you say you've had a belly full of belly. Brilliant idea, i don't know how you come up with these.
Is the bow braced to a full brace height? It should be, by now. What weight are you drawing it to, in the last picture?...
Thanks, and yes, it is braced to full height at the moment. It pulls to about 75# right now. Just gotta keep scraping and exercising but I am planning to pike it as well. Its pretty long right now.
Knots, I agree with you, 72" is too short. thankfully its 84" long haha ;) (sorry for not indicating its length in inches, I just lazily wrote 7 feet in the original post). If I pike it, would I need to grip it in the center of the new length or should I hold the bow where I used to hold it before piking?
LOL sorry, my mistake! I'm about retarded, ;D. (No idea where I got 72") Yeah, you got plenty of length to pike the weaker limb! I'd go about an inch at a time until the tiller looks even and then see what weight I was working with.
Not at all man. Thanks, I'll give it a go and try it out tomorrow. I really want to get this bow overwith. Its been agonisingly unresponsive. Unfortunately i have 2 more blanks just like it. Maybe I'll splice and match them, though i doubt it will yield the kinda bows we like in this thread.
Was the bow stored in such a way that you are confident that the moisture is equal on both sides of the bow. I used to store all my bows in a big drum and the bottom limbs were always showing weaker after setting in the drum for some time.
Unfortunately i have no way of knowing, except that it was kiln dried. Since it was purchased, its been stored indoors and we are just recovering from a very dreadful winter. So no ambient moisture to be worried about. Never thought about moisture, but i will be attempting to heat treat this bow as well. Btw, im planning to use the mass formula you sent me a little while ago!
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Don't forget you do want one limb stiffer than the other at the end. The bottom limb should be slightly stiff because of the way it's actually shot as compared to how it's held on a tiller.
Are you pulling the string from the middle and supporting the bow in the middle? If you are, leave one limb stiff and draw the bow in front of a mirror (or get somebody to draw it while you watch) and you'll be surprised how different it looks. It will come round nicely in the hand if it's slightly stiff now.
If you've accounted for this, and you're pulling the string say an inch above center and supporting the bow slightly below center then you do want to be going for an even bend on the tiller tree, but it's still incredibly hard to emulate a real draw on a tiller.
It.probably isn't the woods "fault" per se - all wood is different and as a result it all throws up different challenges every time. There's no such thing as a perfect stave - the next one might not have as obvious density issues, but instead might have grain run out, hidden rot, knots, pins, spalting, twist, deflex..... And so on. You just gotta go with it each time and beat it. For what it's worth though, there's no reason not to splice your next one - a few really talented bowyers have made super heavy warbows (160# plus) that bend full compass despite being spliced.
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Don't forget you do want one limb stiffer than the other at the end. The bottom limb should be slightly stiff because of the way it's actually shot as compared to how it's held on a tiller.
Are you pulling the string from the middle and supporting the bow in the middle? If you are, leave one limb stiff and draw the bow in front of a mirror (or get somebody to draw it while you watch) and you'll be surprised how different it looks. It will come round nicely in the hand if it's slightly stiff now.
If you've accounted for this, and you're pulling the string say an inch above center and supporting the bow slightly below center then you do want to be going for an even bend on the tiller tree, but it's still incredibly hard to emulate a real draw on a tiller.
It.probably isn't the woods "fault" per se - all wood is different and as a result it all throws up different challenges every time. There's no such thing as a perfect stave - the next one might not have as obvious density issues, but instead might have grain run out, hidden rot, knots, pins, spalting, twist, deflex..... And so on. You just gotta go with it each time and beat it. For what it's worth though, there's no reason not to splice your next one - a few really talented bowyers have made super heavy warbows (160# plus) that bend full compass despite being spliced.
no problem, I have learned about intentionally stiffening the bottom limb here. actually. and yes, pulling the bow and the string from the middle. YEAH! it absolutely looks different in someone else's hands, in this case, my much larger younger brother. haha.I see, thanks for sharing, until now I thought a tree tiller replicates the human drawing the bow.
yeah yeah i know :( :( its never actually really the woods fault. really? 160# despite being spliced? do you have any links by some chance? i'll look around on this forum as well. thanks for the help Will.
i just cut an inch off the bottom and suddenly the bow looks great. still underweight but i will probably continue pruning it.
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Glad it helped a bit. Bit of heat tempering and piking and you might get a solid weight from it.
As for links - I don't have any I'm afraid. Joe Gibbs has made some for sure that weight, and I have a feeling that somebody posted years ago in here a yew longbow spliced and tillered full compass. As I'm sure you'll know, some glue types claim to be stronger than the wood itself, so provided it's glued properly you should theoretically be able to pretend it doesn't exist and just proceed as usual! Theoretically...
(Joe Gibbs isn't human, it's worth noting that. He's making 177# horsebows and flatbows at the moment. Splicing and achieving 160# would be a walk in the park for him haha!)
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Thanks for the guidance folks. So i piked an inch off the bottom first and checked it. I think its just about done... =D I can't believe it was that easy.
Now its 83" long and not at my target weight so I will have to continue trimming it. Besides that there is a lot of hand shock. I mean this thing kicks like a mule... I think I should just keep scraping mass off the limbs after gradual piking and constant retillering)
edit* i am shooting an arrow which most resembles the english standard arrow (this one is a tapered poplar shaft, 54 grams, a tip i forged myself, and 7.5" goose feathers)
too bad joe doesnt have a blog or something. =/ in the meantime I will search the various forums for more info on spliced round compass bows
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Joe doesn't even use Facebook, it would have to snow in hell before he wrote a blog haha!
On the English Warbow Society forum, he did write that he uses a single 7" Z-splice, for bows over 100# that bend in the handle. He also mentioned as above that the splice is stronger than the rest of the bow, so it's "easy" if you know what you're doing!
By the way, the arrow you've described (tapered poplar, 7.5" fletchings) is not a Standard arrow, it would fall into the category of a Livery arrow. The Livery arrow is a specification owned and designed by the English Warbow Society as the closest attainable replica of one found on the Mary Rose. It's very different to the Westminster arrow which is the only extant medieval arrow. The Standard arrow - if you were to use the BL-BS/EWBS specification created by Hugh Soar - would be 3/8" parallel shaft, 6" fletchings and a type 16 head or bodkin at a push.
However, if your arrow is 54 grams, that IS the right weight for a Standard arrow. The Livery arrow should come out at around 63 grams. I'm surprised you managed to get tapered poplar to 54 grams! That's super light even for poplar.
Anyway, that's an aside - the bow looks great! If you're getting handshock it generally means one of the tips is coming back faster than the other, resulting in an uneven snap to brace height. A few tweaks to sort out the timing of the limbs and you should be good.
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gahh. seriously, you archers who are right at the source of cooperative experimentation should consider getting him to do a couple articles :P any glue recommendations?
i see, so basically a light livery arrow is what ive got.. as for the arrow, hah not sure what i did wrong ;) this 54 gram one was a particularly low density shaft, 31" long, very soft spine, and the lightest in the batch of 40 shafts, so that could be it. the next half dozen that are about to be made into arrows have much denser grain. at 32" long they each weigh 45 grams, and with the rest of the arrow parts, they should come out to between 60 or 65 grams. should be pretty fun soon.
thanks. uneven snap! I'll follow up with the final product and some specs soon! cheers
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That's a gorgeous head - is that one you forged yourself? It's a spitting image of the Type 10s made by Milos Lasky or Mark Stretton. Perfect for a Standard arrow in fact if the socket was 3/8 ;)
As a point of interest, for those tapered poplar arrows, the head wants to be a Tudor bodkin (in fact, the only way a Livery arrow can be allowed within the regulations is if it has a hand forged Tudor bodkin)
Here are a couple of Tudor bods, have a go at these next, unless you've already made some!
(http://www.theenglishwarbowsociety.com/images/bv01044.png)
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Thank you! Yeah. It took hours though, still need to practice. Funny you should say so, i followed the instructions of mark Stretton on those youtube clips, just watched them over and over again. Unfortunately these are the only ones i know how to make so far.
Brother, i cant for the life of me, figure out how those are made. Ive searched everywhere for the technique. Besides buying the dvd, do you know where one could look? Looking at the sockets edges im wondering if most of the tip is just bulk metal left at the tip of a socket and just ground down. The one in the middle is what i would try to replicate.
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They're forged through a specialised form and then ground down as you said. This is a good clip of Simon Stanley making one. I've skipped the video on for you to the interesting bit!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR0pvYkZy7A#t=2m34s
In that pic, the one on the far left is Mark's, and is probably the closest you'll ever get to the Tudor head found that dates to the same sort of period as the MR.
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updates!
so this is the bow nearing the final stages. at this point i piked 7", four from the bottom and three from the top. in the photo the left limb is the bottom one. so it looks like its finally come true, except now i am in the process of really thinning the tips out, the bow weighs 893 grams. it does however look a tad stiff in the top (right) tip and a bit near the fades. the bottom (left) looks a little stiff in the middle and it bends just about an inch more than the top. any suggestions for improvement?
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Personally at this stage I'd leave it, and flip it upside down. Make the right limb in that picture the bottom as it's stiffer anyway, and shoot it for a bit to work out any problems, then re-tiller if you feel it's necessary.
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alright, we'll i'll give it a go. should i taper the tips after shooting it in a few hundred times? also should i bother with a wood finish at this stage, just as a preventative measure? its hickory afterall..
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What are the tips like at the moment?
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Get the lower limb a little more stiff than the upper. Then you get a nice tiller. Warbows likes a little bit of assymetrical tiller. Thats beautiful. :-)
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What are the tips like at the moment?
The tip on the right limb is 14mm x 14mm, the tip on the left limb is 15mm wide by 17mm thick
Get the lower limb a little more stiff than the upper. Then you get a nice tiller. Warbows likes a little bit of assymetrical tiller. Thats beautiful. :-)
gotcha ;) thank you. it is a little stiffer, but the grain on that side was more dense, so its actually thinner and has less mass on it. i hope warbows dont mind that! as you can see, its only partially more stiff.
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What's the weight at the moment? It doesn't look particularly heavy, so you're probably fine either way, but I discovered (luckily!) that heavy bows can tolerate a single thinner limb. My 125# yew warbow had such a stiff and naturally recurved bottom limb that the tip is just over 9mm wide and 10mm thick and it's not caused any problems!
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What's the weight at the moment? It doesn't look particularly heavy, so you're probably fine either way, but I discovered (luckily!) that heavy bows can tolerate a single thinner limb. My 125# yew warbow had such a stiff and naturally recurved bottom limb that the tip is just over 9mm wide and 10mm thick and it's not caused any problems!
phew! excellent! pretty lucky to have a natural recurved limb. do you have pictures of that yew on the forums?
update!
so i dont have a reliable way of measuring weight except to hang weight from the string and pull the bow. it fell short of the target weight. its 75# at 75" long at 32" of draw.. so i chopped off another inch off each side, fixed on some antler overlay and called it quits, oh well, it will make a good training bow....but from now on, im splicing a board whenever i can....now the fun begins and i'll start shooting it, just waiting for the polyurethane on the next set of tapered poplar shafts to cure! :D
also, i found a giant steel spike (like 3cm x 3cm by 45 cm long) from which i plan to make a press to produce the tudor points. id be happy to trade these if they turn out well.
Goose
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for anyone still following: this bow now weighs 85#@28 inches, it is shot in, and tips are tapered and it is giving me a bloody good elbow thrashing LOL. actually, the string almost took a nipple off after the first shot.... :o it casts a barreled poplar arrow about 150 yards, but i think i can get a bit more out of it with better form and longer draw. lost that arrow in tall hay unfortunately.
the most useful lesson i learned was flipping the bow and letting the wood choose the top limb, knowing when to leave it and finally, understanding the value of perseverance. thanks, bowyers.
cheers!
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for anyone still following: this bow now weighs 85#@28 inches, it is shot in, and tips are tapered and it is giving me a bloody good elbow thrashing LOL. actually, the string almost took a nipple off after the first shot.... :o it casts a barreled poplar arrow about 150 yards, but i think i can get a bit more out of it with better form and longer draw. lost that arrow in tall hay unfortunately.
the most useful lesson i learned was flipping the bow and letting the wood choose the top limb, knowing when to leave it and finally, understanding the value of perseverance. thanks, bowyers.
cheers!
Thank YOU fellow bowyer for sharing your bow and your "bowyering", ;).