I did a trade with gstoneberg for some osage a while back and he send me a couple character staves of osage. I think he may have said they were old fence posts. They had some issues in some spots and lots of drying cracks, but i told him that was ok, I dont mind tough pieces to work with (as long as the bow is for me. lol ) so i finally decided i needed a new hunting bow for the up-coming season. I sat down the other morning and let the short drawknife tell the story. I chased down a few rings and let the grain dictate where the bow should be. It came out pretty narrow after working some problem areas but i came out with a 62" bow and 63# @ 26" the lower limbs is all shades of knarly, top limb in pretty straight with one knot. the biggest crook in the bottom developed an insane crack that grew off of a drying check. i had to wrap it with artificial sinew just to finish the tillering process. then once i got it tillered out, i sanded it down, backed it with 1 course of sinew just to cover the drying checks and several wraps of real sinew to bind together a few problem cracks and such. it also has a primitively dyed leather grip and antler overlays.
now this goes to prove, if you are determined and take your time, you can take a severally cracked bow and salvage it into a real working bow.
The spot in the pic appears to be a hinge...but trust me i left it real thick in that area to keep it from bending......it just has lots of twist and a dogleg there to begin with..lol
so after shooting it for a few days now and everything is very tight, i dont hesitate to shoot it at all. i wont send a bow to anyone else that has a crack like that so i save those "problem children" to shoot myself. overall its as good as anybow i have hunted with in the past. this bow is my 91st selfbow. one my way to 100, i have to make that 100th bow something exceptional. so again 62" long 63# @ 26"
btw thats not a dig on gstoneberg in any way, i knew what i was getting
