naturally reflexed osage stave-pics

[sulphur]

its raining cats and dogs outside not to mention about 40 degrees.  So today i decided to tackle my oldest osage stave.  its higly reflexed and i cut it about a year ago.  I didn't have enough confidence that i could make it work so it sat in the woods for about 6 months. dumb i know.  When i finally realized i could make a bow out of it, it already had been attacked by wood borers.  But not much fazes me these days.  I have not made to many submissions to this forum but i read it everyday.  so i figure its time to contribute and stop being a bum.  I am headed to vegas on sunday so i wont get much more done for a week or so but i thought you guys might like to see what can be done with a stave thats been attacked by wood borers.  this stave is 62" long and i will be laying out a slightly wider pyramid style bow when i get the ring all the way chased.  basically i squared up this stave with a draw knife and band saw to 2" x 2"  then i cut the crown off on the band saw to clean out the borer holes.

[Pat B]

Once you get it to floor tiller stave, I would reduce the reflex to about 3" or so. Too much reflex will overstress your bow the first couple of times you string it and makes it unstable to brace.

[sulphur]

right on pat.  i thought about glueing a couple layers of linen after taking a little of the reflex out to finish it out.  i would just sinew it but have none at the moment.

[Pat B]

If you have a good back ring, you don't need to back it. If you do decide to back it, one layer of linen is plenty.

[sulphur]

got the ring clean.  thats about all i have in me today.  Its fairly thick i may still back with linen and camo cloth.

[xin]

Nice work. Got an eaten up stave just like yours that I'm now inspired to go back to work on.

[Ryano]

I would never remove natural reflex....work that sucker the way it is......jmo. This is osage were dealing with here....

[Sidewinder]

I'm with Ryan. Leave that reflex in there. I doubt you will need to back it if you get a clean back.   Danny

[sulphur]

i am going to lay it out wider like 1 3/4  so it should handle the strain ok i think.  plus i can back it with linen. i kind of want camo on the back anyway.

[sulphur]

woke up early and the kids slept late so i got some work done.  time change is still messing me up.  anyway got the limbs cut out and facets established.  not quite bending yet.  on the belly of the top limb there are some cracks, but i think they only go one or two rings in so they should dissappear when i start tillering.  also, as you notice in the pics, i had to build up the handle a little bit.  i used a small piece of osage board i had laying around.  the top limb is a little snakey and of course crooked.  the bottom limb is actually pretty straight.  in the mornig i'll be on a plane to vegas so the stave will have a good week to dry out some more.  I'll put in my hotbox if i need to later.  after that i can start to straighten out that top limb.

[Colt45]

it's looking great! I can't wait to get my hands on some osage  good luck