What about an osage yumi? (Pic Added)

[Aries]

Hey guys i was curious about making a osage yumi stlye self bow?  How do you think a single piece of wood would handle that profile? And would a sized down version likely preform much better at around 50-60# at 28"?  I wouldnt hate tryin this out cause i love the style but am still not much for laminating   Ty

[RyanY]

I have no experience with making yumi bows but because the design is usually much longer than a normal bow I imagine that while it could handle the style, osage is too heavy for the design and will cause the outer part of the top limb to be slow and if made to be light enough will be unstable. But if you made a scaled down version I'm sure that it would be an excellent bow.

[Aries]

That was my reasoning as well. I have no real experience making the yumi stlye and havent read much bout them either. what kind of lengths and widths do yall think would be optimum, supposing i was using a clean, quality piece of osage? also general ideas of where to heat bend in the points for recurves and reflexes would be very helpful too.  ANY input would be great, thanks!!

[adb]

A Japanese yumi wouldn't be a yumi, if it was made of osage.

[RyanY]

adb is right. You're not allowed to make a Japanese yumi bow out of osage. I recommend making a bow that looks like a Japanese yumi but really isn't because it would be a selfbow. JK I'm just giving adb a hard time. Anyways, over the summer i made an osage d bow that came out fantastic that was 1.25" in width so I would recommend that knowing that yumi bows are very sleek looking. As for length, i would start at 72" and go from there just because if it gets to long on the upper limb performance will probably suffer. I have no idea where the bends should be but I'm pretty sure there are five of them. Just go with your gut and I'm sure it will turn out great. Here is a link showing what I think is a great example of what to go for. https://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,11083.0.html

[Del the cat]

I just made an 89" Maple longbow (Just for the fun of it) , it's about 50# at 28" but will come back as far as you like. It is predictably smooth but slow, and an absolute pig to get braced.
Del

[coyote pup]

I'd just jump right in and give it a shot. Probably a tad wider than perhaps a traditional Yumi, maybe 1.5 as said above. I wouldn't make it very long though because long, thin osage bows tend to be sluggish in my experiences. I'd go about 64". I think you should do it. I bet you it turns out to be a good, nice shooting little bow.

[Aries]

Im thinkin it should be a fun project even though it wont be a "japanese Yumi" bow. Itll be an interestin twist. Ill probably get started on it tonight and see what wood i have available. I will probably make it 72" max, but a shorter 67 or so may still perform much better i think. Ill see what the wood tells me. I will try to post some pics as i go. I believe the stave i will be working with is approx 78" long but has a gradual 45 degree twist after about 67"...   so its debatable.

[david w.]

Go ahead and do it and if it isnt a Yumi bow than any warbow not made of yew isnt a warbow. 

[Aries]

Here is a pic of the wood i will be using. It has no twist, is 74.5" long now with lots of character  . The snakey side will be the lower limb leaving the.. "relatively" straight side for the upper limb . I have lower limb tip at 1/2 and the top at 3/8 and the center of the handle area at 1/1/4". The widest point (handle area) of the bow is at about 40" from the tip of the UL.        So opinion time.      how do yall feel about the layout based on contemporary self bow knowledge. And do yall think there would be a large enough increase in performance to justify removing several inches from the length? At this point I can modify length easily with the bows layout.   Thanks guys, Im waitin on you to make my next move      Ty

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Del the cat]

And do yall think there would be a large enough increase in performance to justify removing several inches from the length?
Thinking like that is the road to hell...you will just end up back at a short reflex deflex design, if you look for performance.
If you want to build something different, just build it, don't allow your experiment to get diluted to become just another 'standard' bow...
Just my two pennyworth.
Del