Tiller Check: 63" Hickory D-bow

[ajbruggink]

Hey guys,

I recently made this bow. It was a Rudderbows hickory stave that was already roughed out, I backed it with rawhide and tillered it, I shortened it from its original length at 65" ttt to 63" ttt to pick up more weight. It pulls 46#@29" right now and I was wondering if I could get your thoughts on its tiller. I personally think its okay, I think the tips might be a little stiff and maybe the handle could work a little more, since this bow is intended to be a bendy handle D-bow. I have shot 59 arrows through this bow so far and there is some handshock on the release, I don't know if it that's because of the tiller or because the tips are relatively wide at 15/16", and in case you're wondering I made a proper bowstring for this bow to shoot with, I did not shoot the bow with the tillering string shown in the picture so I don't think that's the problem. Your advice and/or critiques are greatly appreciated. 

https://imgur.com/3AM9wOG

Thanks,

Aaron 

[Pat B]

To me the handle is working a bit too much but the outer limbs could bend a bit more.

[upstatenybowyer]

I agree with Pat, but not bad at all if you're new to this. 

[Julian]

definitely thin the tips. Almost 1" is far too thick.

[Pat B]

Julian, are you saying narrow or thin?

[k-hat]

About middle third of the rt limb is bending more than the rest, i'd get that outer part of that limb bending a bit more and hopefully that is the top limb.  Narrowing the tips would certainly be a good idea. 

[Sidewinder]

I think your hand shock is coming from a combination of a little too much bend in handle and the the tips being too heavy/wide. I would take the last 4-5" and taper to 1/2" just to be safe. You could probably go narrower but I bet your most of your shock goes away. Just my thoughts.

[PEARL DRUMS]

I think it looks just fine. Those bows have hand shock. I've never shot a working handle like this that didn't have some. That's why risers and fades came along.

[tattoo dave]

That comment confirms what someone else just said in a different post Anyway...not every bendy handle has hand shock, just like not every stiff handle bow doesn't.

Tattoo Dave

[PEARL DRUMS]

I don't agree you, like you don't agree with me. And that's ok. I think we can still use the same website? Right?


As far as the "different" thread you referred to. Its fortunate to have stayed civil thus far. Lets leave it that way.

[ksnow]

I think hand shock in a bow is like recoil in a gun. Some like it, some don't. Some notice it, some don't. Some designs have more, nothing can be done about it. Can it be lessened? Yep. Made worse? Definitely.

That said, narrowing the tips some, and having a more rigid (less working) handle would REDUCE the shock.

Shoot the bow, have fun with it, try something different on the next one.

Kyle

[ajbruggink]

I think your hand shock is coming from a combination of a little too much bend in handle and the the tips being too heavy/wide. I would take the last 4-5" and taper to 1/2" just to be safe. You could probably go narrower but I bet your most of your shock goes away. Just my thoughts.

If I do narrow the tips, do have to remove a little wood, exercise the limbs to see if the tiller changes, take off some more wood, and do it all over again or can I just go straight to 1/2" and only check the tiller once? Something tells me the former is what I'd have to do but I thought I'd ask anyway.

Thanks

[Bob W.]

Outer mid limb and outer thirds need more bend. Bendy handle bows tilllered right doesn't have hand shock, thats ridiculous lol.

[Eric Krewson]

Like has been said, properly tillered bows don't have much handshock, I agree with the handle working too much assessment, the outer limbs look flat to me. 

[ajbruggink]

I took off some wood off of the tips, tapered the last 5" of each limb down to 1/2" nocks and this is what the tiller looks like now. I don't think it looks that different. The handshock never really bothered me to begin with but I know that well tillered bows don't have much handshock so I figured that was a sign that improvements could be made, but the handshock has decreased with the now narrower tips but the draw weight has decreased as well. It used to pull 46#@29" but now it pulls 43#@29". My draw length is 28 1/4" and I tiller my bows to 29" just for good measure, at 28" it pulls 41#. I included some other pictures that I didn't before, such as the bow braced and what the bow layout looks like. This was a bow Rudderbows roughed out, I bought this almost 2 years ago now and I would never buy this style again because of those scalloped edges. Those scalloped edges make it hard to keep a flat surface when using a scraper to remove wood from the belly, what happened was I had multiple stiff spots from places I couldn't keep flat and I knew that was going to be a problem so I gave up on using a scraper and used a 49 Nicholson rasp for tillering instead. The rasp did a better job keeping the belly flat but I don't like the rasp marks, I don't know how I'm going to get those out without losing even more draw weight. What do you guys think?

Thanks,

Aaron
  https://imgur.com/4ppgJTR
https://imgur.com/EYIP1yF
https://imgur.com/UpMKpXn