I have started my inital tiller on my red oak board bow that I am building along with 4est trekker's build-a-long.

How does this look? Do I need to pull it a little further on the long string for the inital tiller? It was hard to get it pulled as far as i did.



Thanks in advance.

Looks pretty thick to me.  Any idea how heavy she is?  I think I'd get her bending some more but shorten that string until it just barely sags.

looks thick to me too- but I'm no expert- weigh it before you pull it any farther-  welcome to the club- watch out- this is an addiction, but you are in good hands here

I cut the limbs down to 15/32 but I didn't have calipers to check the thickness I just got it as close as I could by touch. I will shorten the string and try to get the weight tonight.

all i can say is just take it slow slow slow. ood luck

I put the bow on my bathroom scale today and it looked like it pulled between 55-60 lbs at about 10".  I tightened the strong up until it sagged just a little.

I'm not sure if I did my tillering tree right or not but I measured down 6" from the seat where the bow sits and then started marking my inch marks from there. Is this right? I read in a book to do it that way.

yeah needs a lil more taken off. but take a lil at a time and check, and again, and again. my first red oak board bow turned out to be a kids bow. learned the hard way. like johnscrifes said shorten the string until it sags. use that until you can get it braced.