Osage bow build along

[cmoore]

Thanks again all for your warm welcomes...as I've just finished a bow now comes the time to start another...the stave in question is this 57" dark coloured and VERY heavy osage stave

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Chasing a ring for the back has so far been a pain in the **** as they are close together and I've already violated one and had to chase a new one ...this is slow going and ive decided to go with my most accurate of tools

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So progress is slow but accurate and its definatly faster than stuffing up and having to chase the next ring down! So ill be hunched over her for many an hour meticulously scraping away

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Spent the better part of 40 minutes today scraping around this knot with a pocket knife

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Thats where she's at so far...ill keep you all posted once im done chasing a ring and making her a bit more shapely

[greybeard]

Chasing a ring for the back has so far been a pain in the **** as they are close together and I've already violated one and had to chase a new one ...this is slow going and ive decided to go with my most accurate of tools:

The stave appears to be coming along nicely, are the growth rings well defined or do they tend to blend with each other.

I will catch up with your progress when I return from Wisemans Ferry.

Daryl.

[Mick Smith]

Good stuff! I'm very interested in what you're doing.

I now only buy staves that have medium to wide growth rings. Not only are they more likely to make a stronger and more durable bow, in my opinion, they're much easier to take down to the one growth ring.

I'm looking forward to future updates.

[bigbob]

good work , looking forward to up dates as you go along.

[cmoore]

The stave appears to be coming along nicely, are the growth rings well defined or do they tend to blend with each other.l.

Yea they meld and blend into each other at various points in the stave, the rings at one end are medium and at the other end they're tight so it adds up to be quite a challenge

[Mick Smith]

Do you have much of an idea of what shape the bow will eventually have? I like the idea of building a pyramid bow one of these days, or perhaps something more along the lines of a Holmegaard style of bow with relatively wide limbs and very narrow tips.

[cmoore]

Yea im thinking along the lines of a holmegaard...the stave's crying out to be made into a molle but I hate the looks of those bows....if I had a bit more width on what will be the bottom limb I'd do a California style flat bow

[Dennis La Varenne]

I have made a lot of bows from Osage and I agree with Mick that the best Osage is that with the very wide summer growth rings and very fine early growth rings. Apart from being easier to follow, the wood is usually much denser, springier and stronger. The limbs tend to be very thin, perhaps two to three growth rings to a limb thickness for a 60+ lb bow. The physical size of the bow also tends to be smaller for the same draw weight.

Attached are a few pics of a very old Osage flatbow I recently bought through eBay. It has very few growth rings in the limbs and draws in the mid-high 60lbs and is only 62 inches long. The back-belly profile is classically American flatbow of beautiful symmetry.I have three by the same maker - a bloke by the name of Morgan. He made his Osage bows in the 1930s and they are still almost dead straight.

At its widest, the limbs are 1 ¾ inches and the tips are ⅜ inch wide at the nock. The handle is bulbous and 1 ¼ in deep under the wrapping. So if you have a good stave there cmoore, and it sounds like you have, you could well end up with a spectacular bow with a modicum of care.

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[cmoore]

What a beautifully crafted bow ... I think I'll model mine after it as a tribute to a tried and tested design....I may go 2" at the widest point of the limbs and taper to 3/8....this will be an unbacked bow as im only shooting for about 24" of draw...building her to match my quirky technique, I have a 30" draw yet always lean into my shots and only draw to 24" before I snap the shot off dont know why but ive always shot that way apart from when I used to shoot a compound...now that Ive said the C word I need to go wash my mouth out with soap

[bigbob]

Jeez Dennis your workshop looks like an engineers shop!

[Dennis La Varenne]

Bob,

That workshop belongs to the bloke who sold me the bow on eBay. It isn't mine, but I wish it were.

cmoore,

The first picture above shows the back of the bow. It is unbacked and Osage does not need any kind of backing if it is a log bow and a growth ring is followed as well as this one is. I have another similarly designed bow which has some very nice 'witch's pimples' on its back is the same length but 2 ¼" wide and has ⅝" wide tips. The back is equally as beautifully done.

If you copy this styling of bow, you could make your bow a lot shorter than 62 inches without stacking. If you make your bow (2 x draw length) + riser length, your bow could be under 60 inches. At your proposed 2 inches wide, the limbs would be very thin and almost certainly take little or no set.

The bow in the picture has no set at all despite showing signs that it has been well used - one of the principal benefits of the wide thin-limbed flatbow. For your short draw, you need to make sure that the load on the limbs is as much as Osage can stand in order to obtain a high 'dry-loose' (Daryl - please note) speed which is the theoretical speed at which the limbs travel when there is no arrow on the bow. The quicker the dry-loose speed, the quicker the bow will push a given arrow. This theoretical state is brought about by having a design where the limbs are taking the maximum amount of bending load which the wood can take without exceeding (by much) its elastic limit and having the tips as light as possible.

A lot of my old Lemonwood target bows in my collection have tips which are ⅜" wide and barely ¼" thick with no more than another ¼" of tip extending out past the string nocks. Even at draw weights from 30 - 45lbs, they are surprisingly quick for a wooden bow. Even though these Lemonwood bows are longer at 66 - 68" nock to nock, the distribution of limb mass is well thought out with most of the limb mass within the inner ⅔ of the limb.

One of these has 2 ½" of set and is still as quick as any of the other 6 or 7 I have from the same maker and within the same weight range. Must be a superior piece of Lemonwood. With a 9gn/lb arrow, it still strikes 16 to 18 inches above the aimpoint at 35m when placing the tip of the arrow on the aimpoint ('point-of-aim' shooting).

[cmoore]

Heres how she came out!, ill put more detailed pics up soon 29#@23" ...57" ntn with a 4" handle and 1 1/4" fades, she had a high crown so I didn't want to stress her out to much. So with my limited bow making experience just went light weight but not to light, let me know all your thoughts on the tiller
Cheers

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[bigbob]

It looks like you have done a great job with the tiller. To my eye it looks like the top 1/3 of the upper limb could possibly use bit light scraping but overall great job especially given the close rings.

[Peregrine]

Fantastic! Well done! Hope you have fun shooting it!

[greybeard]

let me know all your thoughts on the tiller

I think that how the bow feels in the hand when being shot is more important than how the tiller looks.

If the bow is rough in the hand when being shot chances are that the limb timing is out. Experiment with the pivot point.

Super impose the upper and lower limbs [braced] shoot a heap of arrows and note the changes. Rework the tiller if necessary. See link.

http://www.ozbow.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=11566

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Personally I would shoot the bow and make adjustments if needed.

Daryl.