My first bow...a few questions

[kowishto]

    Well, first of all, hi guys! Glad to make my first post.  I'm in the process of building the Poor Folk Bows website's "Red Oak Board Bow" build-a-long, and I've hit a bit of a stutter. I guess my main question is, what do I do next?  I have TTBB Volume 1 and the chapter on tillering makes it sound so simple, but I'm hesitant to throw away hours of work with 30 minutes of cluelessness.  Other questions I have are 1.)  How do I know when my bow is ready to actually be braced and put on the short string? 2.)  I know there is no set measurement, but how thick would y'all recommend a 72" red oak board bow be from handle to tip? As you can (hopefully) see in the picture, I left the area near the handle very thick on both sides out of fear of making a huge mistake.  On that note, these pictures aren't great, if they're not good enough to see the issues I will gladly take more.  I'm not really shooting for any specific draw weight, but obviously I would like to be able to hunt this season with it, even if only small game.  It is backed with linen, if that changes anything. I would greatly appreciate any help, tips, opinions, and criticism I can coax out of y'all 

P.S. Dont laugh too hard at my...."tillering device"......LOL I plan on building a better one when this bow is finished.  Also, I can stretch the bow further than in these pictures, but I figured there are enough problems at this stage to let y'all take a look before I get ahead of myself.  I plan on building a couple more before winter and its exciting to see how much experience and this forum has been teaching me. Thanks, take care

[kowishto]

Another note, there is a shadow in the pictures that makes the right limb look a little weird, and the bow is NOT straight on the tree because I have yet to build a good stand.  And 3 out of my 4 pictures were to large too attach, I'll have to work on that somehow.  Thanks guys

[kowishto]

Here we go

[kowishto]

Just saw the 'more attachments' button sorry about that I know now

[bushboy]

Go to build alongs and check out a few board build alongs ,I know bubby's and georges are two to look. For!

[Bryce]

http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php?topic=35312.0

[randman]

Welcome to the addiction Kowisto. Looks like you're off to a good start. Your taper looks fine from what I can see. She should be real close to bracing right now. Time to get off the long string. And having a proper tree can help cuz it's harder to see the curve proper if it's canted unlevel like that which means you're not pulling from the proper spot on the string. Couple of minor flaws in the left limb and the right limb looks pretty good. I think it is the stronger limb at this point. You may have to scrape it some to equalize but just do it equally along the whole length so you maintain the same thickness taper you got going there already. Show us a back view profile showing the width and width taper Because that will give us an idea of how elliptical the tiller should be.

[kowishto]

thank you all so much for responding and randman,  I will twist up a string tonight and take better pictures tomorrow. I hope I start to get the feel for tillering...i own a recurve so I thought id be able to sort of feel out the process better, but when the bows in front me it becomes a completely different story lol. When you say ' flatten this section out' are u saying shave wood off or just make sure the taper is even with light sanding? I will make sure to take close ups of the taper tomorrow. Thank you so much for your help, take care

[kowishto]

Close up of taper on both limbs for randman. How do these look, and what more should I do at this time besides switch to short string? The area next to the handle LOOKS thick to my eye, but I quite frankly don't know hardly anything about how that will hurt or help performance.  Thanks guys

[crooketarrow]

  Start out by building a tillering tree that holds your handle area more stable. Then stableize the whole tree to something more solid.

  While pulling the string look and where ever you see a stiff spot. Take wood away from that spot. I mark the ends of the flat spot and color or penical in between. This way when I rasp the color,penical away it's done evenly. And the bow limb beens where their use to be a flat spot. Do all your flat spots untill you have a even tiller.

  Starting out it's hard to do this to where to get the right weight to draw lenth. I use to do this. I make my bow 4 inchs long. Tiller untill you have the tiller you want. Then lap off some of each limb untill I get the weight I wanted. Reshape my knocks and tips.
 
  After a while using a scale on your tillering tree you can get the weight to ther draw lenth you need. This just takes time   and building a lot of bows.
 
  As far as when I put the string on. It's as soon as you can. I have a line drawn across my tillering  tree where the string should be at brace height. So when  I long sting and pulling the bow down when it's so far and the tips are as low as the line on my tillering tree is. I know I can get a string on it.
  The you have all the way from 6"s to where ever your draw lenth. To even the tiller out.

[mikekeswick]

1st step - Make a straight tillering stick  This is essential.

[kowishto]

Lol yea I really need to badly it's almost impossible to get a good look at it. Thank you all a bunch I will post pics when it's finished. Thanks

[Cameroo]

Some good advice given so far, but I thought I could address a couple comments you made to hopefully help get you on the right track.

I'm not really shooting for any specific draw weight...

Also, I can stretch the bow further than in these pictures, but I figured there are enough problems at this stage to let y'all take a look before I get ahead of myself.

The desired draw weight and draw length should be determined before you even begin, because if you are at all concerned with getting the best performance possible from your bow, you will not exceed either of those limits during the tillering process.  This will eliminate unnecessary damage to the belly wood, which will rob your bow of cast  A scale mounted in-line with your pulley is helpful for this, as well as marking the inches on your tiller tree.  If you are going to be building bows on a regular basis, it is a very small investment.  I bought one on a famous auction site for about $10 plus shipping.

You are on the right track with not pulling it back any farther.  There is no need to draw the bow any farther than is required to show reveal a problem.  What constitutes a problem is something you will pick up with experience. 

Happy scraping!

[dbb]

You are on the right track and getting sound advice above.
My advice would be to round the edges,it is all too common to have a splinter raising from a sharp edge. (Been there ,done that!    )