I've been building selfbows for about a year now, and I've come up against some questions about bow scales, and one very important question: "Is the method I'm using to determine the draw weight of a bow correct?"
When I was equipping my shop to build selfbows, I put together a tillering board that went thru a few iterations before I was somewhat satisfied with it. It's similar to some I've seen other people use, so I was pretty confident with what I was doing. But now, I'm questioning it, and would like some outside input from the folks on TradTalk.
I've been using a Taylor spring scale rigged up on my tillering board, with a rope and handle that places the scale on the string and when I pull down on it, I can see how many pounds of pressure there is at particular draw lengths. I don't draw the bow over the desired weight as the tillering progresses to desired draw length, and it seems to work pretty well.
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I purchased one of the digital hand held archery draw weight scales, but when drawing bows with it and a marked arrow to my draw length of 24.5", the digital scale gave a reading that was about 9 lbs heavier than what my tillering board spring scale was showing. That was the same with four or five other bows.
I tested my spring scale with items of a known weight that I'd individually weighed on my kitchen digital scale and then added up, then placed in a bucket (right at 25 pounds of stuff, including the bucket.) The spring scale showed a weight of 25 pounds. I also weighed the 25 pounds of stuff in the bucket on my bathroom digital scale, and it agreed.
SO! I sent it back and got a refund. Ordered another hand-held scale of a different brand that had a readout screen that looked a bit different, and it just showed up. Same issue, but now my bows are registering at 10 pounds heavier draw weight with this scale.
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I re-checked the spring scale against a bucket of 30 lbs 4 oz of items, including the bucket. It was spot on, as was the bathroom scale. Oddly enough, I lifted the bucket with the archery scale, and it was also spot on when checking the bucket weight.
But, when I double checked draw weight of my favorite Osage bow on the tillering board setup, it showed a draw weight of 43 lbs at 24.5", as usual. The digital hand-held archery scale measured it several times at 53 pounds and change at the 24.5" draw length.
The spring scale isn't getting any mechanical advantage by the pulley in the tillering board setup. It's attached directly to the bow string and the rope pulls straight down on the scale and the string/bow, so to my mind, should be giving me a true draw weight reading.
What am I missing?
When I was equipping my shop to build selfbows, I put together a tillering board that went thru a few iterations before I was somewhat satisfied with it. It's similar to some I've seen other people use, so I was pretty confident with what I was doing. But now, I'm questioning it, and would like some outside input from the folks on TradTalk.
I've been using a Taylor spring scale rigged up on my tillering board, with a rope and handle that places the scale on the string and when I pull down on it, I can see how many pounds of pressure there is at particular draw lengths. I don't draw the bow over the desired weight as the tillering progresses to desired draw length, and it seems to work pretty well.
I purchased one of the digital hand held archery draw weight scales, but when drawing bows with it and a marked arrow to my draw length of 24.5", the digital scale gave a reading that was about 9 lbs heavier than what my tillering board spring scale was showing. That was the same with four or five other bows.
I tested my spring scale with items of a known weight that I'd individually weighed on my kitchen digital scale and then added up, then placed in a bucket (right at 25 pounds of stuff, including the bucket.) The spring scale showed a weight of 25 pounds. I also weighed the 25 pounds of stuff in the bucket on my bathroom digital scale, and it agreed.
SO! I sent it back and got a refund. Ordered another hand-held scale of a different brand that had a readout screen that looked a bit different, and it just showed up. Same issue, but now my bows are registering at 10 pounds heavier draw weight with this scale.
I re-checked the spring scale against a bucket of 30 lbs 4 oz of items, including the bucket. It was spot on, as was the bathroom scale. Oddly enough, I lifted the bucket with the archery scale, and it was also spot on when checking the bucket weight.
But, when I double checked draw weight of my favorite Osage bow on the tillering board setup, it showed a draw weight of 43 lbs at 24.5", as usual. The digital hand-held archery scale measured it several times at 53 pounds and change at the 24.5" draw length.
The spring scale isn't getting any mechanical advantage by the pulley in the tillering board setup. It's attached directly to the bow string and the rope pulls straight down on the scale and the string/bow, so to my mind, should be giving me a true draw weight reading.
What am I missing?
) marked arrow. It's off enough where I'm probably going to send this one back, too. If it's that far off, I don't have much use for it.
