This is the fourth installment of this bow making course.
That's what you've clicked on today.
We'll get into the course in just a second,
but first I've got a playlist down below this video
in the description that you can click on
to go through every single video
from start to finish if you would like.
I just wanna wish you happy bow building.
Thanks for clicking on this video,
and if you're interested in supporting Shatterproof Archery,
well, go to shatterproofarchery.com,
get your bow making gear, your archery gear.
New products are being added all the time.
I am very grateful for everyone who has ordered
and who will order.
I'll see you guys around.
Enjoy the course.
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Specialized bow making tools.
We've got a couple of them.
Some of them are really, really useful.
Others are kind of in the middle.
So the first thing is the tillering gizmo.
Now, there's a gentleman who came up with this concept.
I don't know when, but I made a video giving him credit
and how I would build one of these.
It's a really handy little tool.
Basically, the pencil sticks right in the middle,
and you'll rub this on the belly of the bow,
and where the bow's bending the least,
the pencil marks it, and there you have it.
Now you have an automatic mark on the bow
where you should remove wood.
This works fantastic for debows and recurve bows.
Reflex-deflex bows, this isn't quite as good.
You can still use it,
but not for the entire part of the bow.
So keep that in mind.
A substitute for this is to use your scraper.
If you've got a little six-inch scraper,
my favorite bow making tool,
you can use that and eyeball the biggest gap.
Where that biggest gap is,
you just manually mark that with a pencil or a Sharpie,
depending on where you're at in the process,
and you'll be good to go.
So the scraper can be used multiple different ways.
I do think a tillering gizmo's super easy.
I made a fancy one like this,
but these basic ones here made out of two-by-four
are the ones that I saw on the website,
and they just have a little nut in it.
I'll link the YouTube video
to how to build this if you want it,
or if you don't wanna go to the trouble of building it,
you could also pick one up from our website,
but it's a handy tool, super simple to build
if you wanna build your own,
and it's worth having around.
We'll touch more on the tillering gizmos
and the case studies where we build
the reflex bow and the D-bow.
The tillering string, here's three of them
that I've been using for a really, really long time,
and here's a much newer one
that is packaged up for a customer.
The tillering string is a must, it just is.
You don't have to get a nice one like this,
and let me share the purpose of it.
The purpose of the tillering string
is so that you can make adjustments on your string length
before you get it to brace height.
The nice thing about the tillering string
is that with a bowier's knot,
you can continually shorten and shorten and shorten
the string until you're at brace height,
and then you can even tiller the bow all the way out
and shoot it with the tillering string on,
and then you can measure the tillering string
that's on the bow at the brace height you like
and make your bow string or buy a bow string
of the length exactly what you need.
That's what's really nice about the tillering string.
I get asked all the time,
can you use paracord as a tillering string?
Yes, you can, but keep in mind,
it's going to stretch about four times more
than a normal tillering string,
which will give you a little bit of headache.
It would be better to use something
that's more like a cable.
I'd rather use something that has zero stretch
than a bunch of stretch,
and so that's where the actual bow string,
tillering string comes into play.
If you want to make one of these, it's quite simple.
You just do a normal Flemish twist loop
and then continue that Flemish twist down
for about 75 inches, tie a knot,
and then at the knotted end, I throw some glue on it.
It's real simple to make, it just takes 15, 20 minutes
or so, but it is very, very handy
and well worth the investment in some bow string material
or buying a tillering string.
It's gonna be well worth it
if you plan on making multiple bows.
And the third specified tool we'll want for bow making
is either a tillering stick or a tillering tree.
I recommend, if you're just getting started,
to use a tillering stick.
Well, you can use a tillering tree as well.
It depends your personality.
Are you going all in, gung-ho?
Are you kind of stepping back?
I built my first 20 bows with a tillering stick
before I even built a tillering tree.
I have a video if you want to know
all about tillering sticks and tillering trees
linked below this video, so you can go check that out
if you want the in-depth of tillering sticks
and tillering trees.
You can also substitute both of those,
if you want to, for a mirror.
Some people will literally use a mirror
and they pull, look in the mirror,
and decide where to take off the wood.
That is a difficult method, I believe,
and I think it's plenty worth it to do a tillering stick
or a tillering tree.
It doesn't cost anything but a piece of scrap wood.
The one advantage we've got with the tillering stick
over the tillering tree is that it's immobile,
it's portable, it's small.
You can move it anywhere and build bows anywhere with it.
Now, the advantage of the tillering tree,
it has pulleys.
You can step away from the bow so that when you break it,
or if you break it, it shoots up in the air
and it's not near you.
That's really, that feels much safer.
The second advantage of the tillering tree
over the tillering stick is that you can exercise the limbs
by moving the wood up and down much easier this way.
The substitute, when you're using the tillering stick
for exercising the limbs,
is gonna be pulling it back with your hands,
which is a good practice here and there
so that you can get the feel for the strength,
but it's much safer and easier on your muscles over there.
But again, I've built many, many, many bows
by exercising the limbs
just by pulling it back with your hand.
So it's up to you what you use.
Now, this here is a legitimate tillering cable.
It's literally a cable.
And I use this on fiberglass bows to check limb twist
before I shave down the sides of the limbs.
So this is a pretty advanced technique.
I would not use a cable
unless you actually have a fiberglass bow.
I would use some sort of material
that can stretch a little bit,
like D97 or B55 or something like that.
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