Busy Weekend

I've had 3 visitors over the weekend. Twister2 has been collected and is fine, one of the guys from the club bought a bow over to have it's draw weight reduced a bit, and a fellow bowyer from Cambridge way came over to pick up some bamboo we'd gone halves on to save on postage. We had a good old natter and swapped a few bits and bobs.
I've been working on the Elm Warbow... it's tricky to tiller as the draw weight is so high initially you can't really flex it on the floor, so it needs trying on a short string as soon as possible. A long string gives a false idea of the weight, so a low brace is a good idea. The problem then is it takes a lot of force to winch it back to get a string on it, especially a stretchy Dacron string.
I made a new 'long string' from Dacron, but it's a tad short as I'd allowed about an inch for stretch, but I also pulled it tight when I wound it on the string making jig.
This meant I had to winch it back to about 110# on a long rope before I could slip the Dacron string on. This maybe over stressed it a tad and caused a little set.
So I've got it to a low brace and a reasonably even tiller, but it's probably not far off target weight already, about 70# at 21". It's taken a little set. but I'll probably heat treat the belly with it clamped back flat.
I'm pleased I decided to do this one before the Yew as it's giving me a feel for it.
On a heavier bow the draw weight increases faster too, say 4 or 5 pounds per inch, so it's a completely different feel to tillering something you can flex by hand.
So if it's 70# at 21" it's got another 11" to go and if we call it 4# per inch, that's another 44# which would give a total of 114# which isn't much over the 100-110# I'm aiming for.
Now it's moving more I can string it using an ordinary stringer rather than winching it back.
from the pics you can see the left tip is a bit stiff and the kink in the right tip is a tad weak, over all it's not bad. I just need to take care not to end up under weight.
It's close enough to do the heat treating without wasting the time of heat treating wood which will then get rasped off.

My shoulders are sore from trying to pull the bow and also some decorating... I've been sanding down a ceiling. About this time last year I put up some plasterboard faced insulation board to keep the house warmer. I'm just getting round to filling and sanding the seams etc and painting it.