45 pound osage flat bow /help

[kayakfisher]

Help trying to make first selfbow, have made several bamboo backed hickory and Osage bows . And I must brag with success[ YES] after a wood bin of failures. Would  like to have some help with thickness of limbs. Read in bowyer Bible 7/8 thick mid limb and and 5/8  thick at tips. Thats a lot of wood scraping for fortyfive pound bow any body have  any experience  with 45 pound limbs to share.

[Hillbilly]

Howdy, Kayakfisher, welcome aboard.  How long, and how wide are the limbs? It's hard to figure a thickness in advance, as each piece of wood will vary. A good general layout thickness that's usually worked for me with heavy woods like osage, locust and hickory (stiff-handled flatbows) is about 5/8" at the fades, 1/2" at midlimb, 3/8" or so at the tips. This usually leaves you with a stave that's extremely stiff, but will bend a little when you start floor-tillering. From there on out, it's just tiller until it's the way you want it.

[Mechslasher]

for a flatbow with 1.5" wide limbs you will end up with around 5/16" of thickness at midlimb.  i mostly start with 1/2" thick limbs then i usually trap the belly by marking a line down the edge 1/4" from the back.  then with a rasp, take the back edges down to this line leaving 5/8" wide flat area down the center of the belly.  basically what torges describes in his book.  tiller by taking wood from the angles of the trap.

[kayakfisher]

Hey thanks for the input this particular bow is being created from billets it is 57 inches knock to knock 1.5 inches wide to mid limb than tapers to 1/2 inch at tips its amazing to get information this quick

[Sidewinder]

57" thats nice and short. Should be a great brush bow. 1.5" wide on osge should be able to handle it. What draw length and weight are you aiming for?  Danny

[kayakfisher]

I am  shooting for about 26 inch draw at 45 pound, Hey has anybody  ever tried making Indian bow out of billets , less wood in handle area wondering if joint would hold

[Auggie]

You might want to check out Tom Sawyers posts , bow night starts again and splicing thin billets threads. That should give you plenty of ideas. Auggie.

[George Tsoukalas]

kayak, you may have been referring to the width. Those measurements are pretty thick for a finished bow. Let the tiller determine the thickness but you can start at  3/4 in. just beyond the handle. I like my handles 1.5 thick at 1.25 wide. More on my site. Jawge
http://mysite.verizon.net/georgeandjoni/archer.html

[kayakfisher]

Hey this forum is great,I don't feel so alone out in the dark. Today I took rasp in hand and got some work done 1.5 inch to mid limb tapered to half inch at tips.cut limbs 1/2 inch thick full length , 1.5 inch thick at handle section, cut W splice and spliced  together  even got the ends recurved and took the twist out today starting to look like bow. The growth rings are extremely close together though and thin, going to back it Sinew verses Rawhide I kinda like rawhide [any sugestions]