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Building the Unredy Combat Crossbow Part Two There are two basic methods to construct the tiller. The first is to work the tiller from a solid piece of wood. The trigger housing and bolt track, are cut with a router or hand chisel. The rest of the work can be done with basic saws, hand or power planers, drill press or brace and bit, and sandpaper. This method is much easier with a good selection of power tools. I have built bows with equal success from 8/4 hard wood, 4x4 fir. The basic dimensions of the tiller are as follows. Fore stock (string notch to front of bow), generally between 18 and 24 inches depending on the power of the prod used and the desired power of the bow.  I have customized bow weights from 700 to 1000 IP. Just by varying the length of the fore stock. The string notch is Ύ x Ύ inch. The bolt channel should be about 3/8 deep. Tail stock (front of string notch to back of bow), 14 to 15 inches work well for most people but this may be changed as desired so long as the trigger doesnt extend past the back of the tiller for safety reasons.  The tailstock can be left full width or tapered to reduce weight. Bolt clip stock (1 Ό x 1/8), trigger pin stock (1/4 round), bolt for pin (3/8 x 4 ½), and spring (1 ½ long that fits comfortably over the bolt). I get these items from Lowes, Home Base or Ace Hardware. Heating with mapp gas and using a vice and crescent wrench bends the triggers and bolt clips. The U-bolts are 3 to 3 ½ long. Any shorter and the cross pinhole will infringe on the vertical reinforcement dowel. The trigger stock (3/4 or 1 x Ό). The vertical reinforcement dowels are either 5/8 or Ύ sometimes cut from scrap tiller wood or from a contrasting color wood. Holes are cut with a Frostner bit. The leading reinforcement dowel should be tangent to the prod notch. The other dowels are spaced evenly along the bolt notch.   
 You can make things much easier by drilling and setting the reinforcement dowels prior to routing or cutting the bolt grove other wise a lot of tedious sanding will be required. Just sure the dowels wont go through the bottom of the finished belly or into the trigger housing.  The second, laminated method is easier if power tools are limited. You will need both ½ and Ό laminating stock. Many box stores carry both ½ and Ό x 4 x 48 drawer stock in poplar and red oak. Cheaper methods are to resaw and plane the stock from 2 x 4 or 4 x 4 stock, and if the tiller is to be painted I see no reason not to consider plywood. I find it useful to build a pattern from 1/8 hardboard with all of the cut outs and alignment holes then use that to trace cut lines on each laminate piece. You can even use the pattern for a cutting guide. This insures that a minimum of finish plane work and sanding are required. Using a pattern and a router with flush trim bit can reduce handwork to almost nothing. The core of the tiller is made using Ό stock in the center precut for trigger housing, prod notch, string notch and bolt guide. Half-inch pieces also precut are glued to this. Note I use short dowels through the Ό center and into the ½ core pieces to maintain alignment while gluing. When the core is dry I drill and set the vertical reinforcement dowels (see pictures above), cut off flush and sand or plane fair. Last I laminate the cheek pieces, using the same alignment dowel as before. The cheek pieces can be of either Ό or ½ depending on how rugged you want the bow to be and if weight is an issue Next drill the hole for the lift pin, seat, fit and adjust the trigger and do final sanding and shaping.                   This document may be freely copied and distributed so long as credit
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