ok...finally got one on the short string...
tillering with a scraper and rasp were taking too long and eating up too much energy...so I switched to rasp and orbital sander...awesome combo...fast wood removal where needed, plus smoothing in very little time....
You see I have a clamp on my tiller stick...I originally had it at about 13", and drew heavy on the long string to get the string into the groove. That was a couple sessions ago. Yesterday I had the long string at about 16" pulling the same effort. Then I tillered some more, getting the hinge out and evening up the bend, to find that with the long string and the clamp at 16", very little real effort was required to hitch the string on the groove.
Here is a picture of that....
So I made a string about 2" shorter than the bow, and put the clamp back at 10" or so. This forced me to exert more energy to get it set up on the tillering stick. Here is where it sits now...
So, now that I've got it to this point: where it is evenly bending at the high weight I want out of this bow...is now the time to put the bamboo backing on? I mean, it feels to me like I could get this bow to full draw and full weight without any backing at all, despite grain runoffs...but common advice goes against this, right? If I tiller it to full draw and then back it, i'll raise the weight 5 or 10 pounds, I guess, and have to touch up the tiller...
What do you say, guys, now or later?