I'm just finishing up a bow that's already a little heavy for me.  I took some pics and noticed that mid-limb to tip on both limbs are bending more than mid-limb to fade.  By reducing from mid-limb to fade, will that fix my whip tiller?  This is the 2nd bow I've made and both have whip tiller, the 1st was too light to reduce.  It's obvious my tiller tree needs some work.  Help would be appreciated.  If I can get some pics up I'll try and post them.  Hopefully I explained it well enough for everyone to understand.

From midlimb to fade would only help. I hear that a tillering gizmo helps when you are starting out. I dont have one, but they sure helped out alot of guys on here. I'd recomend one.

I have a tillering gizmo, and I was going great with it.  My tips were stiff, I got in a hurry, did some excessive wood removal, and then WHAMO....whip tiller city!  Dangnabit!

GO SLOW. What, you have something you would rather be doing? Haha.  

I'm sure slower would've helped.  I'm assuming then, that if I take wood off from mid-limb to fades, that will correct the problem???

You actually do not want the last 8 inches of your limb tips bending hardly at all. Yes removing wood from mid limb to fades will help. Can you post pictures of the bow?

QuoteOriginally posted by Roy from Pa:
You actualy do not want the last 8 inches of your limb tips bending hardly at all. Yes removing wood from mid limb to fades will help. Can you post pictures of the bow?

I'm learning lessons by leaps and bounds.  Some harder than others.  Another reason why its whipped too, is that I tried reducing wood at the tips because of handshock.  Guess I went a little over board.  I did eliminate some of the handshock though.  I took some pics.  I'll try and post them this evening.

From the last page of the instructions for using the Gizmo properly.

"If you ever get the urge to grab a course rasp or use a belt sander to speed things up even more, take a coffee break and come back when these thoughts have passed".

Eric,
LOL.  All I can say is "yep".

The one thing I didn't know was keeping the tips stiffer....I would've continued doing the same thing had I not been informed of that by Roy.  Being self-taught and without supervision can be a real learning curve sometimes.  Lesson learned.

Yes, that would fix it. At that point I would use a scraper like tool so wood removal is slow and easy. Count your passes with the tool, exercise at partial draw, check tiller. Check my site. Jawge
 http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni

Yes, that would fix it. At that point I would use a scraper like tool so wood removal is slow and easy. Count your passes with the tool, exercise at partial draw, check tiller. Check my site. Jawge
http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/simplearrow.html

Here is a bow I just finished, notice the limb tips. However, I flipped the tips 1 1/8 inches before gluing it up. Flipping the tips means I induced reflex with heat at the limb tips. I flipped them at 8 inches from the end of the limbs.

 

Nathan your gonna have to learn the hardest lesson I had to learn. SLOW DOWN LOL! It'll get you every time you get in a hurry.

I ruined a lot of good bow wood when I first started by getting in a hurry.

Give me a holler and we'll get together soon.

Kris

Thanks for everyone's advice.  It's much appreciated.  Kris, I'll be in touch sometime.

Ran into a guy nicknamed Buzzy, he told me he couldn't make a bow, had tried about 50 times and every one of them broke.

I invited him to my house for a bow making session, gave him a nice osage stave, some direction, and turned him loose to work on his stave while I was working on one of my own.

I had my back to him when I heard him start cussing. I thought he was using my belt sander to straighten up the sides of his limbs, turns out he was using it to shape the fades, it got away from him and he ground one fade to about 1/4" thickness on one side.

I asked him why he used the belt sander when he should have used a file. He said he had always tried to start a bow in the morning and shoot it in the afternoon. Now I understood why he couldn't make a bow.

It took me a month or so to alter his thought process and get him to slow down. When he made his first shooting bow he was so proud of it getting in a hurry was never a problem again.

He went on to make 30 or 40 fine bows before overwhelming life issues forced him to put up his tools.

Eric,
That story speaks volumes.  Thanks for sharing