Since I have my trade bow and a sinewed hickory bow basically finished, I thought I would try to get another one done to take to the Classic. If it rains
I want something to shoot that doesn't have a sinewed back. I pulled out this bow that I roughed out last spring. It had knot hole in the limb. When I cut out the bow on the bandsaw, I was suprised to find this lodged in the back of the knot.
A bullet! That is what caused the hole in the limb. The tree had grown around it. It was a major pain to chase a ring around it. I left some of the early wood on it to be sanded off later. Here is how the knot looks after I thinned the limb down.
This bow has thin rings to begin with. The spring growth rings are thicker than I like. The wood has a different feel to it than the other osage I have worked with. It is not as dense and it feels kind of crumbly, if that makes any sense. I have a bad feeling this bow will break once I start bending it. I'll try to take it easy. I would be happy with a 40 lb target bow out of it. Anyway, today I used a ferriors rasp and worked on getting a good limb taper. I got it to floor tiller.
The other limb has a big whoop-de-doo coming out of the fade. I'm sure that will give me some trouble while tillering. After I got it floor tillered, I heated some twist out of one limb and straightened the other to get the string lined up with the handle. I'll let it sit for a couple of days.
I have two weeks to get this thing tillered and smoothed out. I know for a few guys on here, two weeks is enough time for 3 or 4 bows. Not me, I'm still trying to finish bows from last year
I'll post updates as I go along.
