Hi Dan

Welcome to the forum

I am not very Knowledgeable on self bows. However a number of our members have quite a bit of experience with them. Hopefully Steve will comment as he builds them.

Scout aka Ray

Actually, while I have made a few self bows, I mostly build glass backed bows.  That said, making a bow bend, tillering, is tillering no matter what the bow is made from.

I have made several bows that had the arrow shelf centered in the bow.  They shoot well.  Here is a video of my nephew shooting a bow made with the arrow shelf in the center of the bow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y84yk3AwB-g

A bow is made of 2 components, the wooden part and the string part.  I think we don’t spend enough time thinking about the bow from the perspective of the string.  When we shoot a bow with our bowhand centered in the wood, it forces our string hand to hold the string 4 inches off center.  That means the top half of the string is 4 inches shorter than the bottom half.  This can lead to all sorts of imbalance.

Should you finish the bow? For sure.  It will turn out better than you think.  I would encourage you to read Dean Torges book Hunting the Osage Bow.  Dean had a way with words and his advice is ageless.  To get a taste, visit his website:  http://www.bowyersedge.com/

Good luck with your bow! But be warned, making bows becomes a compulsion for them that want to connect with the universe.

I don’t claim to know squat about bow builds, ……………just thinking out loud.

With the arrow rest in the center, wouldn’t shooting with a high wrist on a built up grip and the arrow nock right up under the eye be the hot ticket ???

Richard

Yes – the closer the better one would think, in theory anyway. Some of those exotic small recurves seem built with that in mind….

Scout aka Ray

And on the other hand, we have our Kyudo brethren shooting bows so far from center that I have no idea how they even begin to tiller.

This is why I don’t build bows ………………… after almost six decades of building arrows I’m still amazed at the amount of physics involved in a simple pointed stick with bird feathers on the end.   The variables involved with reflex / deflex , straight limb / recurve limb, riser shapes & length, materials and tapers in bow builds must be endless.

The whole thing gives me a headache and I may go up on the mountain this afternoon and hunt the wiley feral pinecone.  (Plus, it’s 108* down here in the desert today).

Dan

Glad it worked out ok. Learning by doing . I hope it turns into a good Shooter. Send us some pics when you get the bow finished.

Scout aka Ray