tillering

oldnut

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evening all, a couple of weeks ago I managed to get a 2m length of hardwood to make a pyramid bow. I managed to work out how to join the 2 halves and cut them out ready to glue up with cascamite. a week later the glue hasnt arrived, I remembered a elb laminated stave I bought about 4 years ago ( cant remember where from) found it and decided to try that. 2 hours later its marked and roughed out to the dimensions that came with it ( a copy from a 1941 popular mechanics ) set to tillering it, this thing would barely move! after a bit of an attack with a spoke shave it now pulls 25# at 6", the paper said it would be 40 to 50 at 28". is it possible that the stave has somehow dried and stiffend? I am not sure where to take the shaving from the side or belly as it looks pretty much right in bend
 
D

Deleted member 7654

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Taking it off the side won't make much difference, and is mainly done to get the shape back view of the bow looking how you want and to correct the string line.
Remove wood from the belly. In theory, tillering is very simple...
Always pull to your full target draw weight unless the tiller isn't looking right, in which case remove wood until the bend is looking bette rand repeat.Loads of tillering vids on my youtube channel... latest one here:-
Del
 

oldnut

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well after spending about 5 hours cutting joining and backing the pyramid bow I was ready to tiller. kept it slow and steady, gradually got to 50# at 22 and a crack was heard. I half expected it as the timber I was using has the grain running at 90 degrees to what was needed. the crack starts just to the side of the handle and runs about 3 inches down the blade. after a bit of thinking I might try and rescue it by cutting the 4" width down to 2"ish, worth a go. have now gone back to the elb...
 
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