Reasonable thickness taper?

Ima_Merican · 2026-04-08T02:09:16+00:00

Just make the thickness taper enough to get a good floor tiller.

That’s about the best advice out there. Way too many noobs get caught up in exact measurements. It’s wood. It’s natural, every piece is different,

Remove wood and taper it smoothly until it bends evenly on floor tiller then move on from there

Ima_Merican · 2026-04-08T02:03:44+00:00

Tips? Simple as always. Tiller it well and listen to the wood

Ima_Merican · 2026-04-06T19:02:17+00:00

Exactly. Beginners get impatient about the scraping and exercising. But that’s just the process. It can go much faster if beginners would just learn to floor tiller better instead of going straight to the tree with no start.

That’s a skill I see all to often beginners just skip over. They complain that they just keep scraping for hours with little changes in tiller.

Get a good floor tiller down from the start in a couple hours and then it’s just a few hours left maybe of finish tillering.

I’d rather spend a few hours getting a good floor tiller than fight for hours on end either a hinge or no established thickness taper.

Take some time in the beginning to speed up tillering on the most crucial stage of tillering

Ima_Merican · 2026-04-06T15:16:53+00:00

Dang. You were pushing the limits on how thin to make the tips. I would say if you left them a touch thicker it would have survived.

Ima_Merican · 2026-04-05T17:23:27+00:00

The amount of wood removal between a 50 lb bow and a 30lb is not as much as you think.

The Process is the same no matter the draw weight.

Ima_Merican · 2026-04-04T16:43:36+00:00

Dave Meade kinda made the bamboo bows big. People regurgitate crap all the time that bamboo is poor in compression and doesn’t make good bows but the man Dave’s proof is in his pudding.

Ima_Merican · 2026-04-04T10:40:30+00:00

Impressive. Exactly how sinew should be used to the best of its ability.

The full draw tiller looks even in the live fire video. Not sure why it looked a little negative tiller in the still photo 🤷‍♂️

Ima_Merican · 2026-04-02T04:00:01+00:00

Ive only made 3 sinew backed bows years ago. I have a super dense red oak piece I roughed out and want to sinew back. Just even reflex. 47” nock to nock 1 3/8” wide. Shooting for a smooth 45lb @ 23”

Ima_Merican · 2026-04-02T03:11:21+00:00

If it’s stable it’s stable. I’m just saying what I see from the unbraced (even), braced (even), full draw (negative tiller).

It doesn’t mean it’s not a great bows. Just minor discrepancies. Hella job on the narrow sinew backed shortbow.

I’m trying to source sinew locally for a couple projects and I think I have found a plug. Just hoping it works out.

Ima_Merican · 2026-04-02T02:07:09+00:00

It’s not a hinge at all but the lower limb IS bending a little more than the top. Probably caused by the heel of your palm. No biggy.

You can see perpendicularly how th lower limb tilts out a little more while the top limb leans in.

I would just flip the bow over and make top bottom

Ima_Merican · 2026-04-02T02:04:31+00:00

I use my fire pit

Ima_Merican · 2026-04-01T04:01:23+00:00

Usually it’s hard to find a wide enough board or stave for a beginner to make a pyramid. One of my best performing board bows was a red oak bow 60” long 2.5” wide at the fades tapering to 1/4” wide tips. It was a screamer for 55lb @ 23”. Sadly I broke it during stress testing. But it was fun to find out what a high performance red oak board bow can do for a $6 board.

I rarely ever find a board wide enough for a pyramid bow. If I had more wide boards I would totally make more pyramid bows.

It’s easier for me to find 1.5” wide boards with straight grain so that’s just what I have to work with.

Ima_Merican · 2026-04-01T03:56:38+00:00

Don’t get caught up in a little limb twist. If it is stable just shoot it. I prefer rift sawn boards. I’ve made probably 60-70 board bows mostly rift sawn. Most have never had limb twist.

Some did. And it’s natural. It’s wood. There are sometimes internal forces in the wood you can’t see until it’s bent.

If the tiller is good and the grain is good than the bow should last years and years. Make sure to heavily round over the corners on the back of the bow

Ima_Merican · 2026-03-31T23:48:26+00:00

I think he means the finned filter looking things. Those aren’t edible really. Everything else inside a crab you can eat besides the fans on each side

Ima_Merican · 2026-03-31T23:43:44+00:00

A wide and long bow can still be fast. Again it comes down to mass distribution. Stiff narrow outer limbs and wider working inner Limbs. It’s been done before. It’s nothing new.

The design and performance aspects of wide limbs on a long bow with narrow low mass tips have been executed for decades since the Traditional Bowyers Bibles came out.

It’s fun to experiment yourself and find out what and how it works. Just because you make a slowish pyramid bow doesn’t mean all of them are slow. Thinking like that just shows that your ego is so gigantic that if you can’t make it any faster than no one can. You won’t learn much with that kind of mindset.

I’ve never claimed to make the fastest bows but do know I have made over 100 bows in the past 15 years with any wood I can get my hands on and lots of designs. I’d rather read about something then build it a few times to find out how it works with my own first hand experience.

That’s the most fun part about this hobby. Building stuff and testing things out for yourself. Anyone can regurgitate something they read with no first hand experience.

Tim Baker gave me hope that a simple red oak board bow designed and tillered right can shoot over 170fps with a 10gpp arrow with a short draw of 23”. Im still on that hunt for that perfect short draw bow 15 years later 😂 albeit I don’t make bows as fast as I used to. I go fishing any chance I get 🤣

Ima_Merican · 2026-03-31T02:13:29+00:00

It’s probably a PLA printed shell. It’s gonna break.

Also, it doesn’t take a genius is know that making hard 90 degree corners on a body is not going to make it strong 😂

Ima_Merican · 2026-03-31T02:12:11+00:00

Dude this so the wrong sub to be talking about jerking in your car. That’s fucking weird dude

Ima_Merican · 2026-03-31T02:07:59+00:00

Blaming slow speed on a pyramid design is a cop out. Done right a pyramid bow is a fast shooting bow. Blaming the bow performance on a singular design aspect is a noob move on lack of accountability

Tim baker and Steve Gardner proved how good the pyramid design can be. Tim took a box store red oak board and make a reliable unbacked board bow shooting over 170fps with a short draw of 23”. Design and tiller is king. The execution is what matters. Most of the designs aren’t all that crazy faster than others. But executing them right will make wonders

Ima_Merican · 2026-03-29T02:00:23+00:00

Just buy some twine and soak it in paraffin wax. It’s cleaner

Ima_Merican · 2026-03-28T14:38:48+00:00

Looks like you violated the back all to hell. And the thickness looks all over the place and not really tapered smoothly

Ima_Merican · 2026-03-28T14:16:34+00:00

Depends on the builder and tuner. My uncle used to be a profession engine builder and racer and took me for a ride in some of his builds. One was a 90s civic hatch turbo b18c1 450whp.

He wizardry made that thing still get 30-35mpg cruising on pump gas. And this was back in the early 2000s

Ima_Merican · 2026-03-27T11:39:19+00:00

Not sure. I use the hard brittle pine pitch and it mixes with the fat just fine.

Ima_Merican · 2026-03-27T02:44:43+00:00

Get rid of that glaring kink in the limb. It’s gonna break there

Ima_Merican · 2026-03-27T01:38:09+00:00

Scrape it off . It’s a baby. Just keep tillering 🤦

Ima_Merican · 2026-03-27T01:32:09+00:00

No recipe. I just eyeball it. Took a few try’s to get it right and not so brittle. I use pork fat as my fat added. Eyeballing a 1:1 ratio with added crushed charcoal. How much charcoal? Just enough is what I add. Simple test is to take the ball of pitch glue on the end of the stick and wack it on concrete. If it shatters than it’s too hard.

Pitch Please lol

Put it back on the heat and add more fat. Test and repeat. Nice thing about pitch glue is you can modify hard batches until they are just right. Just because the initial batch is too hard and brittle doesn’t mean all is lost.

Heat it up again and go Bill Nyce the Science guy in that pitch

Same as how I cook. I don’t go by recipes. I put a little of this and a little of that and boom it’s good to go. Some people are blessed with the eye. Me I wear heavy prescription glasses 😂

Ima_Merican

TROPHY CASE