I favor Osage Orange as my "go to" wood for making bows. I don't much do anything with any other wood species anymore. Lately though, I had an itch to try something a bit different.
I was looking for something to build and noticed an osage billet that was old enough that the bark popped off leaving a clean, back of sapwood. I thought it was unique since the rough texture on the sapwood under the bark was still there. When I peeled the rotted bark from the stave, the cadmium layer also came with it. What was left was a billet that had no violations of growth rings.
I've made bows with one sapwood layer on the back but never with the entire amount of sapwood. The "will it survive" notion was too great for me to resist so I layed it out for a shortie since I didn't have much length to begin with. I made a form to reflex it on. I used a heat gun for the reflexing process. The first attempt didn't satisfy me so I put it back on the form and made some string alignment corrections. I noticed that the sapwood took considerably more heat to have an affect on the sapwood unlike the usual, heat-friendly heartwood bows. While in the final tillering stages, the sapwood bow took on some set. I put it back on a different form heat treated the belly. I did it dry, with no oil until the belly turned a mellow tan color. There is a remnant of one thin layer of heartwood that remained on the belly side nearest the handle. The heat treating greatly improved it's stance. Surprisingly for 30#, it shoots hard and fast.
I didn't want a heavy bow since my thoughts were for a horse type, chest draw bow. Here's the final specs:
50-1/2" NTN
1-3/8" Pyramid limbs to 1/2"
30# @ 23"
The little woman wasn't available for a full draw pic. I'll post one later...
