I have tried every possible tillering
method and I came up with one and today
I'm revealing to you what I call the
magical tillering method. I wrote all
about it in my book and it's
underwhelming because it's so easy to
get a really good shooting bow. If you
want to struggle in tillering, do it all
by eye. Try to visualize what it should
look like and then just slowly tweak it
for a couple of days and you can get a
great bow. But if you want guaranteed
success, this is how to do it. My
original idea around this method was how
can we make this as easy as possible.
And what I found out through some
extensive testing is that where the bow
rests with a string on it is the same
how it bends with it pulled back with
this design. What that means is we can
do all the tillering right here at rest
and we don't have to draw it. Now, once
you remove wood, you must exercise the
limbs to give it a new memory. Wood has
a memory to it. And so, if you just
remove wood, nothing's going to change.
That's why you want to pull it back 25
times or draw it on a tillering tree or
tillering stick. But once it's
exercised, you can retake your
measurements. I've done this with
multiple multiple bows and found that if
you're precise with those measurements
and you have your positive tiller at its
brace height, it's going to shoot good.
Now, with this style, it'll be like a 67
or 68 inch bow string with this design.
Here's the one that I've completely
finished already. It has a half inch
limb thickness in the center of the
limb, and that is a 48lb bow. Just as a
rough rule, keep it above a/ inch if you
want more than 50 lb, below/ in for
less. I'm going to try to do this on a
40 and I'll give you that measurement.
But tillering is going to be a little
different here. I'm going to tiller by
using some measurements. Okay, so here's
the setup. I'm going to go every five
inches and I'm going to put it in the
same saw. So five inches and then we'll
go out to 10. We'll go out to 15 and
we'll go out to 20. Then we'll repeat
that on the other limb. This is a
tillering method I've been toying around
with with all types of bow designs. From
here I'm going to measure on the 5- in
mark. Now you want to be on the exact
spot. So I put the left end of the tape
measure on the inside and then I'll go
to the inside of this mark as well so
that you're in the same spot. But here
I've got and you want to be precise 5
and 9/16.
And here I've got on the inside 5 and
716.
Okay. So that right there at the 5 in
marks telling me I have a negative
tiller. I'll continue on with each mark.
And what I'm looking for is that the
marks are the same all the way along.
Once I get it the same all the way
along, I'll adjust the upper limb only.
If it's the same at the five, but it's
not the same at the 20, the stiffer limb
just needs material removed near that
20-inch mark. As you may know, my tool
of choice is my cabinet scraper,
lowquality one that I've had for 12
years,
but you can just sharpen, resharpen it
forever.
The one thing to pay attention to is the
left and right side of your limb to make
sure you're removing material evenly. So
the most precise way is calipers 4745.
That's pretty close. But what I can do
is just tilt this slightly
to knock down the more of the side with
47 and keep those even. It's not too
difficult to get 110 or 20 thou off and
then you can start having some limb
twist problems.
And if you don't have calipers, you can
use a tape measure. But I will say I
found this one on Amazon. It's like $4
and it's good enough to measure this
stuff. It doesn't have the nice features
of the metal ones where you can lock it
in place, all that. But just to check
stuff and just have a I bought four of
them so I can just have them everywhere
and I always have them on hand. I found
that to be useful. And then I keep my
nice pair for when I'm doing super
precision stuff.
My limb was bending evenly throughout.
It was just needing more off this limb.
So I'm doing full passes.
Then you end up with these good guys.
20 passes later, let's test it again. I
built out this tillering tree, but you
can also do it with a tillering stick.
This is a 2x4 with some screws screwed
in. And you do the same thing. I
actually really enjoy using
screw it right into the workbench. And
then you can put your bow up here. And
then when you pull it along the screws,
it stays in place. This is looking good.
It's not supposed to be an even bend
like a like a normal self bow. I guess
because of the reflex, it's not going to
visually look like a typical bend.
That's where the math really helps
because it'll look like it's bending
less in the middle where we reflexed it
the most. And that's okay. I think that
helps with the speed to fling the tips
forward further and sooner. So, the
thickness of the limbs as well as this
distance is going to matter more for
you. Before you retake your
measurements, you want to exercise the
limbs, which is just going to be drawing
it. You can do it like that. You can
grab it and pull it. You can also put it
over here and draw it down. I fully
expect some people who will build this
will probably have a setup like this,
get it dialed in using their calipers,
checking everything, spend two days on
the tillering to get it perfect, where
there's going to be other people who
take this to a belt sander and do the
entire tillering on the belt sander and
call it good. Not one way is better than
the other. I do both depending on the
bow I'm making and depending on my goals
for the bow, but I'd like to present you
many different options so that you can
make it your own. But because we kept
the limbs pretty even the entire way and
because of the 8 in fade out, we have a
natural tiller in the bow already.
Mostly we just need to remove wood on
the outside. Okay, so 45 lbs at like 21
in. I want to remove some more material,
but it's looking really good.
[Music]
Okay, sweet. 2 minutes of removing wood
gave me slightly positive tiller
actually.
We've got some good news. It's tered
really nicely. So, here's a sneak peek
shot. The handle's still terrible as far
as not being finished out yet. So, we'll
do that. But I like to shoot it as soon
as I can.
To finish out the handle, I'm going to
round the shelf so the arrow only
touches in one spot. I'm also going to
round this a little bit more. Smooth
everything out. Get it feeling proper in
my hand. Proper is personal opinion, but
is how I like it at least. We'll do
final sanding. the back of the bamboo.
You can lightly sand that to make it
smooth and look how you would like it
to. I'm going to round over the corners
gently and sand everything down. Then
I'll do makaker mark spray finish. Now
that you have the positive tiller, the
final step is to shoot your bow.
And if it shoots smooth and it checks
out and you like it, you're done. If
not, double check your measurements,
exercise the limbs, and retailer it as
needed. Okay, for finishing the bow, I'm
not going to go super deep here. uh
YouTube Kramer ammons finishing a bow or
refinishing a bow and you will see some
videos uh dedicated just to finishing.
But the simplest thing to do is just to
get a spray-on polyurethon. Just get a
can of this stuff and spray the boat.
That's the simplest way. The idea is you
want to use finishes that are good on
high contact. You want to use something
that's waterproof and it's basically any
other type of wood finish. Uh
additionally, you can write on the bow
what you want. I often will write the
draw weight. I'll do it at the draw
length. So, this one is 48 lbs at 28 in.
Um, and then I do my signature. You can
also put on the ammo if you want, which
is for a long bow going to be 3 in
longer than the string. So, technically,
this would have a 71 JMO with a 68 in
bow string. Now, in the next video,
we're going to shoot this thing, but I
do want to say a big thank you to
everyone who's picked up my book so far.
And if you're building this bow, thank
you so much. A five-star review on this
book would mean a lot to me if it's
adding the value that you expected.
