My osage project part 1

[looseplucker]

Gday

Here is something I have started on after getting some osage in August (I was practising on a piece which had a horror knot but it broke). This is going quite well, and with a little more thinning out on one limb and a couple of other touches will be ready for stage 2 and the tiller stick

Techie stuff first - Length is 67". Handle is 5" with 2.5" of fade out.

Widths - At widest point itis 1.5" - handle is 7/8" wide. The fades go .5" past the widest point - whichcontinues to about 2/3 along the limb and then goes down to about .5"

As for thickness, the handle is 1 3/4 deep and at the flares its 1 1/4" going to .5" at the tips - although as you can see one limb is still a little thicker at the fades toward mid limb. Nice character hump there though.

You can see in the pic where my boy William is taking things Oh So Seriously there is natural reflex in the (as you see it) L limb, which becomes exaggerated in the R limb - almost a working
recurve. Have not decided whether to make that consistent with the L limb. The R limb also has a minor dogleg when viewed from the top which will be straightened out this evening.

There are a couple of little islands of early wood here and there when the pics were taken, but I was working with poor light, and only the flash showed them up - that has now been attended to.

Pix:

[jape]

Good start mate. Is that the belly closest to William's head then? I am assuming you will use that natural curve to give it some speed. I tried that on a bit of Hawthorn but it didn't like it and broke but of course Osage is a much better wood for bows. A lot of the character bows I have seen (on PA) where they haven't tried to straighten the doglegs seem to work if the handle-to-nock centre-line is about even in weight of wood either side. Hope that makes sense because my next attempt, still hawthorn, is crooked but even overall. And .... you are working from handle out to the tips? lol

[looseplucker]

Jape - yes, thats the belly. I am going to straighten out that extra curve on the RH limb, as you see it, as it will help with the tillering process. There will be some residual reflex.

I have evened up the thicknesses too and am about to start floor tillering. I am working from handle to tips.

Going to do some work this weekend and hopefully get it on the tillerstick with the long string on.

[Gringa Bows]

looks good so far mate,looking forward to seeing the finished bow..............Rod

[gundy]

Awesome! Got a photo of it drawn yet!?

[buzz]

Will be interesting to see the pics as the tillering comes through.

Out of inane curiousity.... does the Osage wood have any particular smell? Like I said, just curious... been doing some POC shafts recently and been reminded by how strong the smell of the wood was... by the way my dog kept making a bee-line for the shards in the bin!

[looseplucker]

Well, mixed fortunes colleagues.

I tillered this until about 3:30am on Sunday morning, and it was looking pretty good. It was pulling about 55#@28" - a little over the odds for what I wanted, but figured it would settle down at 50#.

Shooting in though I thought I felt something/heard something, and yep, we've had an "Oh Sh*t" moment - with three cracks appearing across the grain on the back of the upper limb - still in the inner third, but where the inner third is going into the midlimb. You can see the longest one in the photo. I put the bow on the tiller stick and that crack opens nastily, along with a couple of others a little smaller. I've floated some glue in there, but I think this is going to need a sinew backing - after taking out the string follow. The photo of it drawn shows a bumpy upper limb - not actually like that at the time - trick of the light - but where the cracks are a hinge is starting. I've taken some dust out off the upper limb to compensate but I don't think there is much option but to back the bow.

Got onto to some deer companies this morning and think I can get a good deal on some sinew.

[jape]

That's a real shame but good onya for having a go at it. I have heard that the large dog chews shaped like a bone are sinew that is fine for that job, might be a bit cheaper.

[looseplucker]

What I am happy about is taking one this far - -first working self-bow - that is not beyond redemption. I'm stoked actually.

[looseplucker]

and further - a whacking great thank you to Dennis LaVarenne who has sent me detailed instructions on what went awry and how to fix it - I made a start last evening and already its showing signs of coming good. Pix in the new year.