Started my trade bow - full draw and shipped

[gstoneberg]

Here is my trade bow stave, 62" osage with some character.



Took it to a growth ring.



Once I got it to the basic shape it became apparant that this is an interesting stave.  One limb is reflexed pretty severely and the other is straight with a beautiful recurve on the end.



It is most obvious from the side, man, that is one messy workbench.



It strikes me that if I just straighten the limbs, the tips will be close to the same height, but it would be odd to tiller one limb as a recurve and the other reflexed.  So I have to decide whether to bend the recurve flat and reflex that limb, take out the reflex and add recurve, or try to have both reflex and recurve in both limbs.  Personally I think that might be a bit much to ask from a 60" bow.  I have the sinew and the time, I could do that and sinew back.  Hmmmm

In the words of Marvin the Martian...."decisions....decisions."  The fun has begun.

George

[Timo]

Shoot man, I'd just be happy if I could get that chubby checker twist out of it!

Looking forward to seeing you progress with this one.

[osage outlaw]

Do you ever cut any straight osage trees?  You sure do like a challenge.  I'm sure you will turn that thing into a fine bow when you are done.  Can you keep posting updates, I would like to see how you are going to do it.

[juniper junkie]

wow dude! you sure like a challenge. you have your work cut out for you on this one

[Pat B]

George, I likethe way you build bows. I like the staves you choose. Now I'm looking forward to liking the way you build a bow out of this pretzel.   
  If it were mine  I'd put it on a form and give both limbs an even backset of about 3" and go from there.

[DEllis]

That's looking pretty good so far. If it were me(cause I'm chicken) I'd take the reflex out and flip the straight tip to match........and then I'd probably goof it up I'll be watching this one close.
Darcy

[gstoneberg]

Thanks guys.  I do try to cut straight trees, but either I stink at picking them, or they just like to go wacko when I split them.  This log was still in the round, though down for 2 years when I split it.  I would have called it straight with a gentle bend.  But, when split the staves got crooked as heck.  Probably a combination of not catching bark twist and the natural bend.  But, I like to play with the tricky ones even though sometimes they flat just don't work.   Hopefully this one will.  I think taking out twist is easier than bending a limb sideways, that's why I chose this stave.  It is pretty straight, just propellered and I knew it had some reflex which I like.  I just love the profile of that limb with the recurved tip.  I agree Pat, I think that'd be a great bow.  I've always bent my bows freehand so I don't have a form.  I keep coming back to the profile of that left limb though, I really like how that looks.  Leaning towards trying to add just a little reflex in both limbs and duplicating that gentle recurve on the other side.  Since the log was round until recently, I'm going to take another stave from that log that has checks in the back so bad it isn't usable and make a test bow to do a heat treatment test on.  I had a bow check horribly when heat bending a week ago from this wood and don't want to repeat that.  If it goes well, I'll do a little more limb thinning, and then take a shot at removing the twist tomorrow after work or Saturday.  Hopefully it'll still be a bow when I'm done.

George

[Autumnbear]

I would personally would be nervous to tackle a stave like that, I salute you my friend. --Josh

[Pappy]

Now that's one gnarly piece of wood. Looking for to seeing how that works out.I love it.
   Pappy

[gstoneberg]

My bend test was successful, added a good twist with no cracks:



So, I bent the first limb.  I'm waiting for it to cool to go on to the next bend.



George

[juniper junkie]

I like your amish tool approach

[gstoneberg]

Yea, old habits die hard...   Straightening the recurved end lined the tips up reasonably well.



The last heating I did took most of the reflex out of the "straight" limb.  I'm hoping to leave a couple inches in.  Tomorrow I'll have to put a little reflex in that recurved limb and then tackle the recurve on the reflexed end.  Once I get that done I think I'll clean the shop.  It needs it badly.

George

[gstoneberg]

I need some advice.  If you looks at this picture, you can see that the string is lying right down the side of the handle.   There's a bend right where I'm going to put the recurve.



If I take out the bend and make the recurve straight, the string will lay well outside the handle.  I can cut the handle down to width and try and bend the bow in the handle to align everything, but there's a knot dead center in the handle.  So far my experience trying to bend osage through a knot has not been that good.  Should I bite the bullet and try and bend that handle, or can I go with a sideways bend in the recurve?  I'm afraid the bend will induce some twist in the bow.  I have not made many recurves.

Thanks,
George

[Bevan R.]

When you are straightening a propeller like that, how do you determing the amount of weight to use? Do you keep adding weight until it 'straightens' a little past?
I have not tackled that yet, I will need to though.

Can you induce some sideways on the other limb (midlimb or so) that will bring the string in? Just wondering.

Bevan R

[DEllis]

Glad to see that came out with no checking. I can't advise you on the alignment issue. If it were me I'd scrap the idea of a recurve and just make the tips reflexed a bit.....it'd be more stable, but as stated above, Im a CHICKEN
Darcy