Hi all,

I am creating my first bow. Its a red oak board bow. I am done tillering with a long string. I have braced it at about three inches and am ready to tiller again. Question is, do I need to destring the bow everytime I go to shave a limb or would I leave the string on? If I did, I would be thinning the limbs while the bow was braced?


Thanks a lot!

I usually never unstring the bow while I'm tillering on the short string unless I'm taking off a lot of wood or can't reach a particular area, such as near the tips.  However, I usually leave the tips stiff, so it's rarely an issue.

I unstring each time but I'm still wet behind the ears.

I don't

I get it bending pretty well to 20" and then take tiller home from there while the bow is strung.  I have a 10" board (curved on one end, notched on the other) that I put between the handle and the string to partially draw the bow to keep the string from getting damaged with the scraper.

I'm with Joel. I take the string off because I am not very experienced. But I did leave the string on for the last few tillering scrapes on the last bow I made.
Stan

Unless the stave is about to be a bow and unless most of the work is on the inner third I unstrung. I use a stringer. Only takes a sec and Iwo t nick the string. Jawge

I keep mine strung, just watch ya do not nick the string.

I unbrace my bows to scrape and when I get close to full draw I keep it braced while scraping.

I take the string off several times during the tiller process so I can check the set that the bow is taking or hopefully not taking. Especially with wood that I have any question about the moisture content.

Mark