Trying to save a stupid mistake...

[KShip85]

Ok, well I have had this one up before for a tiller check and now I've got a bit of a problem.  Genius that I am I tried to string it by myself real quick by pushing in the center and bracing the end against the floor while drawing the other back with my hand...problem is that I was probably about 10 inches above center putting all the strain on the midlimb and it popped and pulled up a large splinter in the back.  I let it sit for a long time figuring it was in the scrap pile or at best might get a take down from it and then decided to see what I could do to repair it.  So I took some epoxy, filled in the splinter area and wrapped it up tight with twine.  After it dried I scraped off the excess glue and twine scraps.  Then I took some small diameter hemp twine, wrapped it tight around the spot and then brushed on some poly to keep it in place.  Decided I did not like the look of just the one side so I did the other side to match.  Then I decided to use some larger diameter twine to fill in the area in between and sealed both of those with some more poly.  Let it dry some and gave it a couple shots and it seams to be holding together, for now at least.  Curious of a couple things at this point; How long do you all thing this will hold and also I am still not satisfied with the tiller, the outer limbs feel entirely too stiff to me and I think I need to remove a lot of mass because she kicks like a mule right now when she shoots.  The nocks are a couple inches inside the outer limb tips and I will probably pike the bow to there or shorter to keep the weight high.  As she is, pulling just over 100# at 32 inches.  I'll most likely add some leather for the handle over the center twine wrap when I am done because I just do not care for the feeling of polyurethaned twine, especially when it is still a little damp, lol.  Thanks for looking all.

Kip

P.S.  Oh yeah, almost forgot, the bow is hackberry, heat treated belly about 1 3/8 inch center out to 5/8 inch tips 77 inches tip to tip 72 3/4 inch NTN...think thats all for now

[Keenan]

Kip wrap repairs will useally hold up well sinew or something that would shrink and tighten would have been better but that should work OK. With that much poundage taking some weight off would also help on the life expectancy and The more off the outer thirds will also help with hand shock. Weight in the outer thirds is the biggest cause of handshock and poor performance.  I would get the outer third bending more and lighten the tips a bit more. Anything past the nock is dead weight so keep that in mind.   you will probably find that even though it will be lighter it may have better cast.

[KShip85]

Thanks Keenan, I scraped and sanded a little tonight and cut off 2 1/8 inches on each tip to lose the dead weight.  I'm trying to decide what to do on the nocks, do I need to do the traditional horn nocks or would it work just to cut them in?  Or should I narrow the tips even more and just do some built up nocks?  Would tip overlays work just as well as the solid carved tips?  Right now I have got it back in a form after steaming it to try and get the string to track a bit better, but I will try to take a look at it again soon to see if I removed enough wood from the outer third and see if the shock has gone down.  Thanks for the help!

Kip