Question???????????

[M3]

I have a recurve and longbow. Why is it that if the limbs should do equal work, the shelf is not in the center? On mine, the shelf is 1.5 - 1.75 inches above center. Seems to me that more direct power would be delivered to arrow if it is centered between the limb nocks???

[Dano]

I'm sure someone else can explain it better than me, but The bow is tillered so that when the bow is drawn the limbs center in your bow hand, and with positive tiller the arrow is delivered with equal force.

[Justin Snyder]

Some people make one limb longer to compensate, some of us make one limb weaker to compensate. This is what we refer to as positive tiller.  This is why most of the expert bowyers shoot a bow before they do the final tiller. They want to make sure the bow has the right amount of pressure from each limb to shoot perfect.  This is also the difference between the expert bowyers and the rest of us.  Justin

[tom sawyer]

Technically you don't want the two limbs to do equal work, you want them to be under equal stress.  This stress should be equally distributed throughout a good portion of the limbs too.

There is no such thing as perfect symmetry with a bow.  You can't shoot through the pivot point (your hand), the arrow comes off above.  You usually don't grasp with two fingers so that isn't symmetrical either.  It doesn't matter though, as long as your bow is stable and you can hit what you are aiming at.

The most important thing is not to overstress an area of wood so it breaks down.  After this, everything else is simply attempting to get the most out of a given piece of wood.