Might as well talk about tillering while I am waiting for the glue to cure. This year I started using the long string method of tillering a bit but got back away from it. I still use the long string for a couple of things. The long string is a good way to tell at what weight your bow is at for a given draw length. It is also a good way to tell if you fades are going to bend too much for the weight of the bow you are building, this is particualry useful for glueups. The look at your tiller on r/d bows especially is too misleading on a long string to be of much value. Now days I simply sight down the limbs looking at the bend of each limb as I floor tiller and then right before I go to brace the bow I hook it up to a string about the same length as the bow and pull it to full draw weight, when I am with in 4" of full draw weight with a long string I go a ahead and brace it. I then hold the bow on my lap braced and use a scraper to get both limbs looking the same at brace, excercising it inbetween scapes. Once the braced tiller looks good i proceed to the tiller tree to finish it off at final weight. Every time I pull the bow an additional inch of draw length I note before that pull the draw weight at a lower drawn length, after the pull to the new longer length I go back and check the weight at that lower draw length and see if it changed, if it changed the bow is picking up some stresses and the wood is fatiquing, tipping me off to getting some more wood bending usually near the fades. The particualr bow I am working on right now has more reflex than I actually wanted but at the same time I don't like to reduce reflex by breaking a bow down too much. I will try to limit the set the bow takes to less than 1 1/4" giving me a net reflex of about 1 1/2". I like to look at every bow as potentialy the best or fastest bow I have ever built, this keeps the adrenalin flowing until the bow is actually tested. Steve
