Well, I lost a total of 3 bows before getting it right. The first two were due to tillering. I tillered too muchboth times.

One thing that you need is a good hand rasp. Planes work too, but a really balanced bow requires for the removal of extremely minute slivers of wood. There isn't really much point of making string notches to the tips of the bow. For a longbow the stress on the notches would be too much after a couple of months, either the notches break or the string will. It's easier if you justsand the tips of the board down a little andput on2horn tips and then notch those tips. This will protect the string as well as the limbs of the bow.

The last one wasdue to nottreating the wood with a protective coating of linseed oil. That bow shot fine for a couple of weeks before breaking on me.

Still, when all is said and done, you'll beessentially limited to a bow of around 170-180 fps with a 100 grain broadhead. If you want greater speed, I would try using seasoned yew ora recurve design.