I decided to start tillering the two blanks Dean had glued up and let the ones I boiled and glued hang in the hotbox for a while longer. The short one is an odd length of only 59 1/2" nock to nock, which is really a shorty unless you only pull it 25". After I got a string on it, I discovered why the old man likely did not finish it. It appears to be a mismatched pair of board billets, and now that I have it tillered to 50# @ 27", which is as far as it is going and probably too far for its length anyway, it is a little wonky when relaxed. The bottom limb is showing a little more string follow than the top, and not evenly to boot. That is odd because it looks great at brace height and when drawn to 27" it is bending gracefully from end to end. I have not shot it yet. I will give it a hundred or so pulls on my tillering tree before I do. Today, I got busy on the 66" blank from Dean's shop, working it down in weight and making some minor corrections until I could get it braced. This is going to be a really nice bow. I have it tillered to 27" also and it is currently 55# @ 27" (which means it is about 58# @ 28.5"). I'm shooting for 50# @ 28.5", so I am exactly where I want to be at 5 or 10 lbs over what I want the finished bow to pull. There is still a little bit of shaping to do, plus narrowing the nocks to their final width which will likely cost me 3-5lbs. This also leaves me some room for further correction should the need arise, and lots of sanding. The bare minimum sanding usually costs about 1-2lbs of draw weight. I'd rather hand sand 5lbs off than miss weight by 2lbs. I friggin' hate it when they finish 2lbs shy of the planned finished draw weight, especially a hunting bow for me, lol. 
I may be shooting both of these tomorrow.
I may be shooting both of these tomorrow.
