"Looking terribly out of tiller, only because our eyes have habits." Tim Baker

A couple of questions.

Can you have asymmetrical perfect tiller?

What is perfect tiller?

Both tips arriving at the same point upon full draw, or a perfect arc?

Actually to me perfect tiller is both limbs arriving at brace height at the same time after releasbregardless of what the static tiller either braced or drawn looks like.

Bows have been asymmetrically tillered for hundreds of not thousands of years.

Are you asking the LW or just Tim?

I'll give my version anyway

There's no easy answer, reuse. Perfect tiller depends on the stave.

For example, If there is knot in the bending part of a limb that area should be left a little stiff in relation to the rest of the limb just to relieve some stress. Therefore the tiller appears a little off but it is not.

Also, the tiller of a pyramid bow will appear rounded allowing for bending where there is wood while a bow with parallel limbs should appear elliptical.

Thee are other examples but I can't think of any at this time.

Jawge

Frank nailed it. A perfectly tuned bow has the limbs return to brace height "together". If you think about it you can see why. "Tiller" is just a way to measure how to make that happen based on individual limb strength and how we draw the bow. It's just a physical measurement for "timing".

Perfect tiller will look way imperfect on different but perfectly good designs, the Japanese Yumi for example, or its possible ancient ancestor: 

"Actually to me perfect tiller is both limbs arriving at brace height at the same time after releasbregardless of what the static tiller either braced or drawn looks like.

Bows have been asymmetrically tillered for hundreds of not thousands of years."

Actually, you could make a horrible bow that did that. Say it bends only in the handle, and both tips return to brace at the same time.

That picture got me thinkin'. I have an old deep sea fishing rod out in the shed. Bout the same length as that Yumi! HMMM?

"Actually, you could make a horrible bow that did that. Say it bends only in the handle, and both tips return to brace at the same time."

That would be called a "bendy" handle bow and that design has been used in the past to some degree. But that said you can make a crappy bow using any design and any tiller profile.

The OP didn't ask about bow "design" only tiller and what it LOOKS like.

"Actually to me perfect tiller is both limbs arriving at brace height at the same time after release regardless of what the static tiller either braced or drawn looks like."

Yes. That is how I would describe good tiller, when tiller is meant to reference relative limb strength. But it has a few other meanings as well.

I agree with Frank

I learned the hard way on my first few all wood bows. I made a common mistake. I tried to make the bow look perfect and learned one limb may not need to “look” perfect for the limbs to be timed correctly.

I tried to build what looked like a fiberglass bow and wondered why they had shock and didn’t shoot that well.

And I eventually learned it really doesn’t matter what the limbs look like. it’s just a beginning guide, or a starting/ reference point . Or for perfect wood.

A well tillered selfbow can look wonky as hell with character staves with roller coaster limbs that leave the handle at different angles. Monitoring the set being induced, while also insuring that each limb is doing it’s share of bending and ending up with good cast equals a good tiller for me. It doesn’t have to look like a fiberglass bow.

The Bear Polar from the mid-50s was a semi-recurve that had a pretty wonky looking tillering. They called it a breasted tiller.

I just learned a few things here.

I always thought tiller was a static measurement, now it seems it is much more complicated.

Two people can shoot the same bow and have vastly different impressions.

Tiller is mostly about where you are gripping the string and handle.

Tillering is about making the limbs match that. :)

True.An archer can make a well tillered bow seem way out of tiller.

You will know good tiller by the way it feels when you shoot it not by how it looks.

I think of well tillered as spreading the stresses out evenly on each limb over the intended working area of each limb. No one area bending to much or to little. Some designs are intended to make certain parts of the limbs work harder than others.

A bow that has a wonky unbraced profile will have a wonky full brace profile.

A area that is deflexed looks like it is bending more than it actually is.

A area that is reflexed may look stiff when it’s actually bending plenty already

Bjrogg

Perfect tiller is when every inch of both limbs is working exactly as it should. Its not always even and smooth.

That’s it in a nutshell Chris

Bjrogg

There wasn’t a lot of science to tiller by early man. Top limb a bit softer than bottom. Works today. You can basically mess around with material removal to change it, but the next guy will grip the bow differently and might need a different tiller. So when you buy a new bow sometimes it takes a bit to figure out how it likes you to shoot it.

2x what runner said. That is it in a nut shell.

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