Can anyone here give me a link to a build-a-long for Eric Krewson's tillering gizmo? I think it would help a lot in tillering. Thanks in advance.

Jesse

Here you go. 1x1x6" with a nut stuck in the center that fits a pencil.

Are you supposed to bevel the ends?

no

I don't even bother with the nut and pencil. I just use a 1x1x6 piece of hardwood. The gap between the limb and gizmo changes from dip to tip and I can gauge it better with my eye.

On the latest model I cut the ends at a 45 degree angle so the gizmo will go a little further up the limbs. Here is the old link on making and using a gizmo.

http://tradgang.com/noncgi/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=033419#000000

Spider, the gizmo marks exactly where you need to scrape, beats eyeballing hands down.

What I do now opposed to what it shows in the link is to drill the 1/2" hole deeper, about half way through the block and tap the nut to the bottom of the hole. I put the pencil in from the nut side and have more threads cut in the pencil than I did from my earlier versions.

Here is the new version, a real fancy one.

I just realized I still had the pics.

Step one, cut a 1" square block somewhere around 6" long, length is not critical.

Mark the center in the block.

Dril a 5/16" hole through the block on your mark.

Drill a 1/2" hole on top of the 5/16" hole, drill half way through the block.

Cut the ends at a 45 degree angle.

Tap a 5/16 nut into the 1/2" hole until it bottoms out. No glue necessary as it will be a very tight fit.

Ok, so how do you use it and what is the actual purpose? Pics?

Finished and ready to tiller.

OOPS! the last picture is one of my senior moments with the 45s cut in the wrong direction. should have looked closer before I hit submit. Here is the correctly cut gizmo.

Screw the pencil out until it is below the block. Run the gizmo up your limb until you find the widest gap between the gizmo and belly of your bow. Screw the pencil up until it is near the limb but not touching.

Holding the gizmo centered on the limb, run it up and down the limb. It will mark all the stiff spots where you need to scrape.

When you are on the long string and just starting your tillering process you use a course setting on the gizmo with the pencil further away from the limb so it just hits the highest spots. Later in the tillering process you can adjust the pencil to almost touching the limb for fine tuning the tiller.

The gizmo won't tell you anything about bending in the fades. You still have to eyeball this area to see if it is bending.

I use a drill press to make gizmos just because I have one. The hole drilling does not have to be precise to make a perfectly functional gizmo, use what ever you have to drill and the gizmo will come out just fine.

Eric, great build along (even the senior moment part, lol). I'm sure the pencil helps a bunch, and I have used it before. Never saw the need for it personally. I guess 30+ years as a machinist has given me an edge when it comes to eyeballing such things.

Eric

Thanks for the build-a-long. I'm going to make one for my first osage self bow I'm starting on.

thanks

><>

Chief

I just use the same pencil I mark with as a straight edge some osage I have used you couldn't use a gizmo on if you did you would surly fail cutting the belly all even like. would work great on board bows. To bad you can't install some kind of spring loaded arm to adjust for back contour and limb thickness with a floating pencil point.

Thank you so much Eric. How do you put the pencil in? Does it screw into the nut?

I use a golf pencil for the gizmo, just the right size to screw into the nut. I put the pencil in my vise and screw the gizmo on it, goes in real quickly that way.

Thank you so much. Do you sell these things?

I tried to sell them once at a tournament, ended up giving them all away. I am on my second box of 100 brass nuts so I have given a bunch away at tournaments to anyone who is in the process of building a selfbow.

FYI...Eric likes right-winged turkey feathers (primary ones).

Thanx much for sharing

Thanks for the tip, but I only have like 10 turkey feathers.

Just make one, Jesse. Mine is so ugly I'll never post a picture of it, made out of scrap pine with two nuts hammered into the hole and it works fine.....

We owe Erik for this one, though....

Left wing Russell, left wing......

lol, you guys want to make bows, but you want to pay someone to drill a hole in a stick and hammer a nut into it?

Ya, I don't have a drill press so the hole would be off and I still don't know how to put the nut and pencil in.

Darn Eric...messed that up....that's right, Buz and you both like the lefties.

Jesse, My first tiller stick was pine, hole drilled approx center with my hand-drill. Added tape to the golf pencil for a snug fit. No nuts, drill presses, etc. Wasn’t pretty, but it worked.

Eric makes nice tools.

I propose folks mail Eric all your extra left feathers. He's made and given away tons of these tools. Consider it an early Christmas present.

Cheers Eric!

Russell

"I tried to sell them once at a tournament, ended up giving them all away. I am on my second box of 100 brass nuts so I have given a bunch away at tournaments to anyone who is in the process of building a selfbow."

Very True, I and my BNL go one a couple of years ago at the Alabama Trad. Bow Championship shoot at Tanney Hill...

Maybe we will cross paths again this year Eric and Thanks again for the Gizmo

I tried a slight variation of Erics Gizmo to see if it would work on my elyptical tillers. I used a felt pen with the angled soft point. The line starts out heavy near the fades where I want a slight bend then becomes very thin mid limb where it bends the most and starts getting thick as it nears the stiffer tips. If I make the line on both lims match it works pretty good. Only tried this a couple of times but I like it.

Eric was kind enough to send me the directions when I started on my first selbow. I didn't completely understand it but caught the drift. The bow didn't turn out exactly as planned, but then neither again did I.

Erics gizmo really does work. Their are a lot of benefits to it not mentioned here. I can use the gizmo sitting in my lawn chair with the brace height set just slightly higher than normal. I keep a couple of sharp cabinet scrapers near me and tiller the entire bow without the use of a tiller tree. I run the gizmo and make my marks, scrape away the pencil marks give it a few excersize pulls and then repeat the process until I am pulling almost my full draw length and the bow feels about the right weight. I have always felt the tiller tree makes it too easy to damage a bow by pulling it too far. If the bow is kept in proper tiller throughout the process a lot less wood is damaged and performance will be significantly better. I don't put it on the tree until I am at about 25" draw. I like my tillers slightly elyptical so make the last few final adjustments in the mid limb area. Tillering a bow this way seldom takes an hour. I have cut my gizmo down to 3 1/2" long.

If you have already registered, please

sign in now

For new registrations

Click Here