Several years ago, while conversing with a friend about bow construction and using natural materials, I found out about a local farm that had Osage trees along a roadway. This friend told me he was sure he could get permission to cut one for a bow. As luck would have it, the local power company had already cut a good tree, but a flash flood had washed the trunk into a creek near the road. We got permission from the farmer to take the trunk from the creek. After several hours of hard work and creative tugging with a pickup truck, we were able to complete the salvage work of the cut Osage tree, and split the log into quarters for easy loading.
This bow is 65 nock to nock and pulls 55# at 27. Its 1 3/8 wide at mid limb and ½ at the tips. The handle is deer skin with leather lacing. The stave had a natural back set of 1 ½ at mid stave and is slightly deflexed at the tips. This ended up being a fair tradeoff for speed. The art work on the limbs was done by my sister Linda Nichols featuring Neolithic cave drawings on the back and a tracking reference guide on the belly. This is a bow that I look forward to hunting with.
Mark McGlone
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