Okay, old joke.... "How many (insert target group here) does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"
Well, in this case the joke would go "How many bowyers does it take to make an Ojibwa bow?" Normally, when one of those bowyers happens to be the Native Bow Whisperer "Half-Eye" the answer is "one." Unfortunately, whenever you put the "Almostpighunter" into any mix, things go sideways fast!
In this case, when I traded some rattlesnake skins to Rich and asked for this particular type of bow, my little goober of a request was for a 65#-70# bow @29". Rich, being Rich, was far too gracious to turn down my request, but he warned me that he would not be able to tiller the bow because that weight was beyond his ability to draw and, even if he could, the 29" draw length would put his anchor somewhere behind his ear. Either way it would be bad on the poor guy's shoulder...I can be such a jerk sometimes...
So Rich carved the bow out for me and did what he could and sent it to the Desert. I was in love as soon as I received it and couldn't wait to start tillering....and then life got in the way and I had to shelve it for a bit (sorry for the delay Rich). When I was finally able to get to it, I realized I had never tillered this style of bow before and was a wee bit confused. A couple of e-mails and phone calls to Minnesota later and I went after it. I'm thinking it turned out purdy dern good.
This Ojibwa style bow is Birch backed with Birch, 64" n2n and has a final draw weight/length of 63#@29". My hunting arrows are soaring off the bow, it's wonderfully smooth to draw and has little to no hand shock. The snake skin is one I received from Criverville (I think its either Texas Chicken Snake or Texas Water Snake...definitely from Texas in any case), the wood has a slight light brown stain I made from instant coffee, glycerin and alcohol while the belly is from a charcoal pencil I rubbed into the wood, then dusted, before sealing. The black "bands" are B-50 bowstring, only one was for support of an ugly spot while the other 3 are just for decoration. Rich tells me that the Ojibwa used big water snakes to make their "medicine" bags and that the black bands represent a color they used when they went to war, so I'm on the right track with the decor
...even if it is purely by coincidence
.
Thank you so much to Half-eye for your carving and guidance and thanks to Criverville for the beautiful snake skin...whatever it is
.
Hope you all like:
