Lessons learned osage recurve (not for BOM)

[GregB]

If you're a fan of Pappy's "Life is Good" thread under Primitive Musings, you might remember some of the recurve attempts we made in the last few months. Inspired by Ryano's recurves, I made a couple of forms and recurved a 1/2 dozen or so roughed in osage bows that I had intended to make traditional flatbows of. I've learned that these bows were not the most desirable candidates to make recurve bows from.

The first hurtle after making the forms was the steaming of one limb at a time and quickly securing the bow to the form. Turned out to be not very difficult as Ryan had said. Of course you do need to make sure you have adequate water in the pan, or as I experienced a thoroughly "well done" limb will result! I cut off and saved the other limb for future use I might add. A second bow recurved almost reached brace with Ryan's help during the Tn. Classic. One limb exploded... and another bow bit the dust! I saved the good limb from this bow as well and it was mated with the saved limb from the scorched bow, with the two limbs respliced together. Pappy also attempted a third recurve, and it had a limb explode as well. Did I mention that these bows were'nt the best of recurve candidates?

Finally after taking a break for a while from the frustrations of recurving a bow, I went to work on the union of two limbs bow, each limb of which had lost its original partner...so sad! This  osage "Frankenstein" bow was initially 57" ntn. I first had to reduce the limb from the scorched bow which hadn't received any tillering, to match the limb left from the exploded Tn. Classic bow. This was accomplished as Ryan had showed us, by clamping the bow at the handle in a vise sideways, and with both hands flexing each limb in turn between scrapping sessions until they matched as evenly as possible.

That gets me to what turned out to be the most difficult part of the entire adventure! Although I had attempted to align the limbs somewhat early on, they turned out to be far from adequately aligned with each other to allow the string to track properly. I quite honestly loss track of the number of times I tweaked the limbs trying to get them to align. I had propellor and sideways misalignment to straighten out. This turned out to be far more difficult in my opinion then the tillering. Might just have been mainly due to a rough bow not well suited to be a recurve. The more I worked on this bow and the further it progressed, the more I feared a limb explosion! Well to make a long story not quite as long, yesterday this bow shot its first arrows. It came out at a lite 35 lbs @26". We decided to cut 1-1/2" off each tip which upped the draw weight to the low 40's. After a few shots, a tick sound announced the arrival of a splinter on the back of the upper limb...groan! Put superglue in the splinter while still braced, then last night I wrapped the spot with serving and soaked with super glue. Hopefully this will hold it! I'm going to match the other limb with serving, as much for insurance reasons as for cosmetic reasons. The making of this bow has been a real learning experience for me. I think they are more difficult to make then say a normal non-character flat selfbow. My hats off to you guys such as Ryan and others that make these bows on a regular basis. The mistakes I made while going through this learning curve are numerable, and I'm sure I have still much to learn about making a recurve.

In my opinion, the following are some lessons that might save some time and frustration in making a recurve:

***start off with a quality stave as straight and propellor free as possible
***maybe choose a stave with some slight deflex in the limbs just off the fades to reduce stress on the limbs (or introduce deflex with heat treatment)
***get the limbs back blemish free through sanding prior to tillering, and burnishing the back might be an asset
***leave the limb tips initially wider then normal to help with string tracking and alignment during tillering
***radius the limb edges more then on a normal flatbow
***spend time up front aligning the tips and removing propellor if any
***your tillering tree should have a straight vertical 90 degree saddle for the bow handle, with either the ability to secure with a wedged shim or clamping during tillering sessions
***take it slow and really watch maintaining the limb thickness from side to side full length of the limbs
***pray between tillering sessions and wear eye protection

Anyone with additional tips or comments for making a recurve please do!

Pappy should have some pictures available by Monday morning...

[Jbell]

I hear ya Greg, I to have been attempting these big curves. Nothin exploded yet but tillerin these bows sucks. Keep comin in too light of draw weight or I am losing most of the curve due to poor tillering.  Tip alignment also sucks, takes alot of time to make one of these bows. But I am not quiting til I get a good shooter! Biggest problem I have is tillering these bad boys,i guess i am used to a straight bow with limbs bending in a nice circle. The outer limb is tough to read, can't tell  how much it is bending, just seems like the middle limb is taking a beating, so that is where I go wrong and take off to much outer limb.  How do you guys tiller these monsters? At what point should the curve start bending?

[masticore]

Whats the reason for this point: "***radius the limb edges more then on a normal flatbow"?
Some weeks ago I was working ond a laminated recurve bow (elm-hazel-maple) but failed with the Tip alignment...
Tillering such Recurves really sucks 

[Pat B]

...it's not nice to fool mother nature!     Pat

[NOMADIC PIRATE]

More power to Ryan, ...he somehow really makes them come out perfect

[Justin Snyder]

Those sound like the same tips I would give after trying a yew R/D.  Especially removing the propeller from it first. Thanks for the advice Greg.  Justin

[GregB]

Update...scratch another recurve, the wrapping didn't hold the splinter. It did keep the splinters from flying I guess.

Another tip:
***don't get too attached to these bows too early!

Whats the reason for this point: "***radius the limb edges more then on a normal flatbow"?

I think by having a larger then normal radius on the edges, it might relieve the potential of the edges splintering due to the elevated stress on the limbs caused by the recurve style. Just a feeling I have, might be wrong.

JBell, I agree...they are difficult to tiller. Aligning the tips just so you can work the limbs on a tillering tree are an accomplishment in itself. Or at least with the bow I just worked with. This recurve was a working recurve, not static. If Pappy posts pictures Monday morning, see what you think of the tiller. The top limb was bending more then the bottom. Spent most of the time on the tillering tree just trying to relieve the stiffness of the bottom limb to catch up. After spiking the limbs 1-1/2", I scrapped a little more on the bottom limb prior to restringing and trying the bow out. It evened up the limbs better, but still had the splinter pop up.

Each of these roughed in bows that I recurved the limbs on were spliced in the handle bows. If anything, some reflex was intentionally added when splicing the handles. Like I said, they were originally intended to be regular flat bows. I wonder if reflex or even straight mid-limbs off the fades might be to much stress for a recurve unless perfectly tillered and a good piece of wood. I obviously don't know how to perfectly tiller a recurve if there is such a thing. I'm still a novice, but hopefully learning from mistakes.

I'm going to continue trying to get a shooting recurve. Good experience if nothing else is gained.

[FlintWalker]

In the words of the great Ryan O'Sullivan, "It's just wood".
  Keep on keepin on, sooner or later, you'll get it.

[Pappy]

Well Greg at least we got to shoot that one and it shot great as long as it lasted.
   Pappy

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[Marc St Louis]

I made many bows like that several years ago and had a number of failures as well. There are certain tricks you learn along the way. Deflexing the handle does help

[Ryano]

Keep it up Greg. Your getting there. You will notice my are tillered a little differently than yours. More bend in the outer limbs just before the curves. Your right these kind of bows are by far the hardest type to make to my experience, but well worth the effort in the end.

[Pat B]

I shot a bow Art B made that is sinew backed osage using TBIII. That bow shot great(all of Arts bows shoot great ) He said that the main thing that effects TBIII and sinew is cold by adding weight. 
   TBIII, being water proof will repell water if you get caught in a rain storm but I believe high humidity will still effect the bow somewhat. On My Elkie bow(sinew backed osage) I used TBIII to set the last course of sinew(first 2 were with Knox) and added snake skin with TBIII, then covered the skin with TBIII. I then added 3 coats of Tru-Oil and finally 2 coats of Spray Poly.
   When I made the bow it came out 56#@26". A month later it was at 45#@26" from the humidity. I sent it to Colorado 2 weeks before I went out to hunt and when I got there it was back to 55# and a month after that(I left the bow with Kenneth) it was up to over 70#. So, even with all the protection I used, R/H still had an effect.     Pat

[GregB]

The limbs seem to be under so much stress, that I'm timid about drawing to far very early during tillering. That's probably why the bow originally came out lite in weight. I kept thinning the limbs to get them bending easier because I couldn't believe they could take the punishment with greater limb thickness. Probably should have got more outer limb bending to even it out more as Ryan mentioned.

[Ryano]

here's a full draw on one of my bows off the same form.

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[GregB]

Ryan,
It does look like your limbs are flexing more up to about 8" or so of the tips. What kind of draw weight do you usually try to get?