Bert's Osage Bow

[PEARL DRUMS]

Splice the two and you have all the lenght you need.

[Bert]

@ blackhawk: Yes good point, was meaning to get back to those specs.
The 2 Staves I have are relatively short (60").

@ mikekeswick: how do you suggest I keep my drawlenght shorter ? the 31" is based on my personal (body) draw lenght.
Would'nt it be uncomfortable to shoot a bow of wich you can't 'full draw' ? I agree on your approach with the draw-knife. Scraping all of the back would be enormously frustrating to me.

@ PEARL DRUMS: Splicing is an option, altough for a first time on Osage i'd like to keep it simple ?


If backing the bow (be it sinew, rawhide,linnen, ..) wont add the some weight to it, what are the other options ?
Recurving ? Would a Holmegaard design work better for me ?

Facts are I would like to get a decent poundage out of a 60" Osage stave. Question is, what tactic/design should a adopt after my first ring is done chased ?

[blackhawk]

How many bows have ya made?   I can think of two designs that might get ya there,but ya better know what your doing,and are not simple as you want it to be. I know i could get that stave to 30" without too much set taken unbacked.

One is a R/D bend thru the handle mollegabet....not an easy build

The other and prob more easier of the two is attaching siyahs to the ends to lengthen your stave.

Man..your really limitied to how far that stave alone can draw unbacked...you cant and shouldnt try to force things further than they should. Sounds like you really dont know your draw length,and you just took a body measurement. Plus making it a bend in the handle bow will lose you an inch,and youd be pulling closer to 30".Even if your draw is what you say it is,its real easy to shorten your anchor up and still shoot well and comfortably. I gave ya two designs,but i really dont recommend trying them if thats how far youll draw it unbacked,and if you dont have a good sense of bow knowledge already under your belt.

[okie64]

 Would a Holmegaard design work better for me ?

No, Holmegaards have even shorter working limbs than same length longbows so a holmegaard design would actually be more overstrained. The best way to shorten your drawlength is to simply bend your elbow a little more but still draw to the corner of your mouth, thats what I do when Im shooting a short drawlength bow. 31" is a long draw length. Have you actually nocked an arrow and drawn and marked it at your drawlength? I used to think I drew 29" but then when I had someone mark my arrow I figured out I was only drawing 28" most of the time.

[Stringman]

First things first... My experience tells me that your wood is black locust. If thats true you probably better get a different piece of wood. Osage and locust do not act the same and certainly dont handle the same stresses or beginner mistakes. It might be possible to force a locust stave into this mold, but there is a reason noone herds cattle with cats.

Determine if its osage and then make your bow fit the wood. Just my 2cents.

[Bert]

So following up on the advice to check which wood this really is :

Bert skim a bit off an end. It should be electric yellow, or close to it. You will get a good view of your rings that way too.

I did this, sawed a slice off the tip, just a few millimeters. (Remember I only have 60" of stave  )
Did a scan of it, hires. This way I'm trying to eliminate the camera playing tricks with the colors. Looks like there is a little knot just on the tip of the stave.

If there is still any question as to I.D. ,Osage contains a water soluble dye . Put you shavings in some warm water and it should turn the water yellow.

Also LOOKS like locust to me from here but put those shavings in warm water and the water should turn vivid yellow.

Also did that.
Shavings ? Check
Warm Water ? Check

I let the shavings sit for an hour whilst I ran an arrant.



The water did turn yellowy-orange by the time I got back ..

let's have a show of hands, who says Osage ? And who thinks Black Locust ?

(PS: yes, I like to use pictures. It still baffles me that a picture taken in Belgium can be viewed and interpreted on the other side of the world in just 2 seconds .. )

[PEARL DRUMS]

All I will say is I have never seen osage like that. That fresh end should be yellow as ever, its tan like locust. I dont know what it is for certain.

[Bert]

Lol bow-names allready come to mind ..
'Orange Locust', 'Odd Osage', 'John Doe' 
If it IS Osage, as I bought it as being so, then thats 'good news'.
I still have some problems getting my desired specs out of this wood.. (or get near them)

*Edit*
I must say, the back, the shavings; they aren't as vivid yellow as I know Osage can be. (pictures and videos)
Then again, its not white wood, not like the light creme color Hornbeam has for instance ..

Could this have to do anything with the (rather unique ?) way these 2 staves have been seasoning for more then 10 years ?
They where sealed in a cardboard package, hibernating really ..
Maybe I discovered a new way of seasoning Osage staves ? Unaware I created 2 Über-staves ! 

[PEARL DRUMS]

I store all mine in my basement with little to no natural light hitting them. They still get a tad brown on the outside. If I peel a splinter off its electric yellow like any and all osage I have seen with my own eyes.

[Bert]

In response to the long draw-lenght & poundage ..
In a past lifetime I shot an old laminated recurve I bought second hand from the oldest member of the bow-club.
He won serveral cups shooting that bow. I took it from the attic :




This bow has the following specs : (altough i can't unsipher all of it ?)


I was told it is a 40# bow. Back then it was a little light for me, but shooting it a few times today made me aware my bow-muscles are out of shape ! 
Shooting some of my aluminium arrows and having the wife mark my arrows, I have to conclude that my draw-lenght is more like a 28" then 31" wich was indeed a body-measure ..

Feeling that I'm currently somewhat out of shape, and if this really is a 40#bow I'm seriously considering lowering the targeted poundage to 50#-55#.
This for 2 reasons :
 1) Making myself a bow I can actually shoot without straining, till I'm in better shape 
 2) Giving this 60" (osage ?) stave a fair chance to a do-able bow design

Hope to get in a more realistic range,
Cheers,
Bert

[Stringman]

Bert, I like where your head's at! I say make it a bow. Whatever wood it is. 50# @ 28" is much more realistic with that piece of mystery wood.

[Bert]

Heya guys !

I'm back with some updates :
Had put off chasing my first Osage ring till my father in law returned from the cabin, bringing with him my trusty draw knife I've left there since my last build.

11 PM (I couldn't wait till morning  ) I started shaving off away from where I scraped to the second ring.

Not much later I started 'understanding' the stave. Was able to gauge the 'dept' I was on by the texture the wood had :

The brittle strands (in the left side of picture) tells me I'm right into/onto the earlywood between the 2 rings latewood.
Around the small knot in the middle is the highest level, looks a bit like pine here in the picture.
Between that, the blond deer hide texture let's me know I'm not there yet.

Following up on the advice of mikekeswick:

I would suggest using a drawknife to get close to your final back ring then switch to the scraper. I know people might say that it's safer to just use a scraper but I don't think so. When you have so much wood to take off scraper can get boring and induce the wrong mindset. The drawknife will allow you to do the same job better and quicker.

I decided to chase the ring into the transition layer with a drawknife, to later finish it all up with my scraper :

Here the entire stave has been shaved down to about 2mm above the next ring :


From here on its an easy task to scrape away the remaining earlywood.
I did just notice that it's 12:30PM and I'd better keep some scraping for tomorrow 


So I stopped here and came in to upload my pictures I took.
I did notice some knots in the back of the bow but none of them are big enough to worry about in this stage !

Tomorrow I'll finish up on my very first Osage (?) ring, and start pondering about bow design.

Thanks for reading, and as allways you're free to comment !

[Bert]

Hey fella's,

Another update here : (+ shot some video !  )

Done scraping the the last bits of earlywood from the back of the bow. Quite happy about how my first 'ring-chase' went.

Done !


Video here (commenting & overlooking the knots I'll have to deal with) :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGOuFhi0oA0

After posting all this I've realised i might be able to do a better job on removing the earlywood, as I notice there are 'shades' of earlywood left on the back

[DarkSoul]

To get back to the "black locust or osage"-issue...
I do not know what species it is. But you can find out quickly with one little trick. Do you happen to have a UV light? Such as a 'black light' in the disco? If you don't have a UV lightsource yourself, use one from a supermarket where they use such a light to check banknotes for authenticity.
Take a piece of wood and hold it under the UV light. If it is black locust, it will fluoresce to a bright yellowish green Osage will not change color.

Furthermore, compare these end grain pictures to your sample:

Black locust:


Black locust:


Osage:


Osage:

[Bert]

Hey DarkSoul,
Thanks for the tip on the UV-light, I'll have to ask in a supermarket if i can use theirs as i don't own one myself.
Looking at the end grain pictures you posted only makes me more uncertain  as to which wood it actually is !

In some area's the wood shows pores similar to those in the Black locust slides, then again other area's definitely look like the Osage grains .. 
I've come to realise you are quite a wood connoisseur, but to my untrained eye the grains between these 2 types of wood hold a lot of similarities !