Black cherry recommendations, And boom she goes

[Mo_coon-catcher]

Sorry I havmt got those numbers to you yet. I've been in the hospital the last couple of days after a head on collision. and am not allowed to bend over. So it might be a few more days until I can get the peices off the floor and weigh them. I might have someone do it for me this weekend.

Kyle

[penderbender]

Sorry to hear that. Hope you recover soon! Cheers- Brendan

[Badger]

 Sorry to hear that, take care of yourself!

[meanewood]

Yes, hope you have a quick recovery.

I hope you weren't distracted looking at potential trees as you were driving. I do that all the time in order feed the habit!

[Mo_coon-catcher]

I finally weighed those peices. It's was 1025.6g with all the peices I could find.

Kyle

[Badger]

 If the bow would have been an arc of the circle tiller bending through the handle evenly I think you had almost enough mass, but not enough for the stiff center you were showing.

[Mo_coon-catcher]

The worst part was that te areas mentioned were the places I was going to rasp to drop the weight to bring it around more. I was sort of mimicking the yew bows I was shown by John at MoJam in getting the handle to moving towards the end f the draw cycle. The next one wil be bend more evenly early on. Along with being on the long string to a bit further in the draw so the inital brace will be a bit closer to the final weight I'm after. Think it's worth a thin backing like flooring paper to assist in te tension or try to get it to work as a self bow. Atleast at the distance I had it pulled, there were no frets before the tension failed.

Kyle

[WillS]

Personally I'd go with a backing.  Get a working bow out of it first, then remove the backing and see if it holds, then make one without.

Your tillering process would work fine for yew as it's such a forgiving wood, but with these funky meanewoods you have to be so careful to spread those stresses early and evenly.

The long string is a bit of a controversial one as well - many bowyers who make superb heavy bows don't use long strings, especially not for a 100lb bow.  Something that light can be floor / vice tillered to begin with, then braced as soon as possible. 

If you watch Ian Sturgess' recent video you can see the process clearly.  It's a case of ensuring perfect tapers and watching the mass, getting the bow virtually finished before it even sees the tillering tree.  This minimises set, and drastically reduces the strain put on a bow early on, while many other bow makers drag it down on a long string to see where the problems are - by which point those problems have already damaged the bow.

However, all of that said, with unknown woods and unfamiliar draw weights a long string does keep things safe, at the risk of having a lower performing bow.  I think for what you're doing (at this stage just trying to make the thing work!) a long string is wise, but perhaps only to brace height.  Provided the bow is fairly even at brace height, you should be able to see almost all the problems with the tiller from the full brace shape.

[willie]

It's a case of ensuring perfect tapers and watching the mass, getting the bow virtually finished before it even sees the tillering tree.

Will, I agree with getting the bow close to finished before bending it much. How close do you like to get yours before stringing?

[WillS]

As close as possible! 

For example, I just finished up a 50lb self yew, and it was on the tiller for about 10 minutes entirely.  I took the stave down to the finished bow size straight away, establishing all the tapers, rounded corners and fitting the horn nocks, braced it and checked it looked ok at brace and when I was happy I took it to about 20" I think.  Some tweaking here and there and it was taken to 28", sanded and ready to sell.

I'm nowhere near experienced enough to pull that off with a heavy bow yet, so I'll take much longer on stuff over about 120lb, but the process remains the same. 

I used to keep the staves huge for ages, drawing them on a long string over and over again, checking with circles drawn on the PC and so on and it just always resulted in disappointing bows.  It also doesn't seem remotely "medieval" which is where my interest lies.  I can't imagine thousands of bows being tentatively drawn on long strings, they'd have been cut out according to ratios depending on the timber quality, finished up and checked at the last minute I reckon.

[Del the cat]

...
The long string is a bit of a controversial one as well - many bowyers who make superb heavy bows don't use long strings, especially not for a 100lb bow.  Something that light can be floor / vice tillered to begin with, then braced as soon as possible. 

If you watch Ian Sturgess' recent video you can see the process clearly.  It's a case of ensuring perfect tapers and watching the mass, getting the bow virtually finished before it even sees the tillering tree.  This minimises set, and drastically reduces the strain put on a bow early on, while many other bow makers drag it down on a long string to see where the problems are - by which point those problems have already damaged the bow.

However, all of that said, with unknown woods and unfamiliar draw weights a long string does keep things safe, at the risk of having a lower performing bow.  I think for what you're doing (at this stage just trying to make the thing work!) a long string is wise, but perhaps only to brace height.  Provided the bow is fairly even at brace height, you should be able to see almost all the problems with the tiller from the full brace shape.

Will raises some interesting and very fair points which I've mused upon on my blog.(In a non argumentative, non critical way)
In the interest of politeness (as I've quoted him) here's a link to the post:-
http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/emilys-return-and-musing-on-tillering.html
I think the main point is that thre isn't really much difference in the tillering techniques and that any method done well will produce a good bow and any method done badly will result in failure.
Del

[Badger]

  Del, I struggle with the elb style more than others simply because I have made a lot less elbs than I have other bows. In recent years my elbs have improved mainly because I changed the process. I now do as others have suggested. I shape the bow how I figure its going to look, my tapers and approx. mass etc before I start bending. Always surprises me how close it comes to finish weight even before bending.

[Del the cat]

  Del, I struggle with the elb style more than others simply because I have made a lot less elbs than I have other bows. In recent years my elbs have improved mainly because I changed the process. I now do as others have suggested. I shape the bow how I figure its going to look, my tapers and approx. mass etc before I start bending. Always surprises me how close it comes to finish weight even before bending.

Yes it's an interesting subject, and it's down to what works best for the individual.
Being pragmatic, to get from stave to a good finished bow means a certain amount of wood must have been removed from the right place. Does it matter how and when it was removed as long as the wood wasn't overstrained during the process?
I reviewed that video that Will mentioned and the process wasn't far from what I do except in the detail of finishing tips. The key similarity is that in my video series I say that with a warbow once it's braced it's very close to being finished, which is why you need to get it braced and bending evenly very early.
I don't see that it makes much difference whether this is done by long string by making by numbers/eye or flexing it on the bench (it's V difficult to floor tiller haeavy bow). I'm not sure why eith method should strain the wood more than any other unless it's by the inexperience of the bowyer.
I think it's all much of a muchness until you get to character staves... not sure that Wonky Warbow I did could have been done by making it first and then putting it on the tiller.
We all get a bit obsessive and tend to end up discussing whcih end oth the boiled egg should be cut off, this seem even more so on the warbow forum.

Hopefully I may get some other insightful comments (like yours) on the blog post.
Del

[DC]

 I think the difference is whether you are going for a particular weight or maximum weight. I think this works better for warbows because you're going for maximum weight(within reason). If you have a decent piece of wood and make both sides the same they are probably going to bend equally. A quick look in the early tiller will tell you that. After that it's just pull until you reach your draw length and then read the scales. If you are going for a particular weight you have to monitor it all the way and make sure you don't overshoot your weight.
For one it's a surprise attack and the other you sneak up on it.

[WillS]

Couldn't agree more 

I figured I didn't need to specify that because we're in the warbow section, but I absolutely agree that if aiming for a specific weight, getting the bow virtually finished before bending is incredibly risky.  I certainly couldn't do it, and I don't know many who could. 

My comments about over stressing are, as Del said, more to do with beginners struggling to "see" problems by drawing the bow until they're obvious.  I guess the more bows you make, the earlier you see the issues, and the less you stress the bow by looking for them, or something like that.

I would say as an addition however that unless the stave is VERY unusual, the process should still work.  Even something with uneven reflex, knots, dips, twist etc can be taken to 99℅ before ever seeing a bowstring.  In fact sometimes it's better to do that with unusual staves, as your eye can be given a complete run-around trying to see the right bend on a long string, whereas if you have confidence in your roughing out process, you can trust that the bow is even and correct before you brace it.