I've heard that selfbow weight can be reduced while at the same time I've heard while building one it shouldn't be drawn above its intended finished weight. Could someone explain how reduction would be effectively accomplished? Thanks

Depends a little on how much weight you want to drop. If it's about 10# or so, then just mark the belly with a pencil from fade to about 3" from the tip and evenly scrape away the marks. So the same on both limbs should keep the balance and bend. Depending on how heavy of curls you take, you'll lose 2-4# of draw weight each time. If you're not comfortable scraping, then some coarse sand paper to sand away the marks then clean up with the finer grits to refinish.

If you want to drop more weight then that then you should reduce a little width as well to maintain efficiency.at a 10# reduction I would sand the sides a little as well to slightly reduce the width by about 1/16" - 1/8". If you wanted to reduce from let's say a 55# to 40# draw, I would reduce width by 1/4-3/8" depending on starting width then belly scrape/ sand to desired weight. Just check after each scrape/sanding session to check progress.

Make sense?

Kyle

I agree totally with what Kyle said. Also, during your wood reduction, whether the belly or the side, exercise the limbs by gradually drawing the bow a few times, then recheck your tiller. This will help the limbs to react to the reduction. Otherwise you could overshoot your goal weight.

The two of you make perfect sense with the method of reduction and I thank you for it. I'm struggling with why it is said that the bow shouldn't be drawn past its intended finished weight. The bow is currently 52#@28. I have drawn it to 52#. With that said let's say I reduce it to 46# then at that point, it's been drawn above its intended finished weight.

Quote from: Possum Head on June 19, 2026, 09:07:52 AMThe two of you make perfect sense with the method of reduction and I thank you for it. I'm struggling with why it is said that the bow shouldn't be drawn past its intended finished weight. The bow is currently 52#@28. I have drawn it to 52#. With that said let's say I reduce it to 46# then at that point, it's been drawn above its intended finished weight.

You don't want to draw past the goal weight because it can cause extra set in the belly wood. Your bow has been drawn to 52lb, but when you scrape the belly you will remove the wood that has seen that load and expose fresh wood. After scraping only draw to your new target weight to reduce the chances that the fresh belly wood takes any set.

Go light on the scraping, too. It doesn't take much wood removal on thickness to change the weight and you can't put it back, so sneak up on it with patience.


Mark

For getting a shootable bow there's no real problem with pulling over draw weight. But as Mark said, it causes excess set than what the bow would've had and less potential speed. Pulling to weight without going over is a way to make sure you hit (or nearly so) your intended weight while maintaining as much of the potential cast as possible. A bow starts with its most potential cast when first roughed out, and looses some of that potential with every mistake. And that process helps reduce the severity of those inevitable mistakes.

You could just tiller out a bow so it bends well and excercise it back to your full draw, then drop weight until it's comfortable. And it'll shoot just fine, but won't be quite as fast.

With a 6# weight difference, you won't see much difference in efficiency if you reduce a smidge of width. While im tillering a bow I frequently shoot over my intended weight by that amount of weight if I get distracted for a moment. Early in the weight drop process, that's only 1/2-1" of pull difference. I'm a full tillered bow it's only about 2-2.5" draw difference

Now I got it! Thank y'all so much for taking the time to educate me. Y'all are good instructors.