sinew back with propeller twist,,osage

[bradsmith2010]

well I had not intended to post this one,, I made earlier this year before I knew how to post a photo,,so the photos are not the greatest,, and I dont have a braced photo(dont worry there is a full draw),, I already gave it to a Randy

Randy had given me this stave a few years ago,, I let it sit for a long time cause it had some issues, but it called to me and I decided to give it a try,,the propeller twist was severe ,,and the rings very thin and the wood light yellow almost white,,,, what it did have going for it was the back had no issues,, so what the heck,, I decided to give it a try and make the bow for Randy,, he had a 28 to 29 inch draw,, so I made the bow 55 1/2 inches nock to nock and planned to sinew back it from the start,,
the first photo is the bow worked to a ring and cut to length,, you can see some of the twist issues here,,I will add the other photos as well,,

[Danzn Bar]

Keep us posted Brad.............

[C.W]

That sounds like a bow I just finished.The stave was full of grubs, narrow rings, and a propeller twist. It worked out though. It's my hunter right now. Gotta love sinew. Would love to see those pics.

[bradsmith2010]

ok here is the bow as I started to shape it,,I didnt have an exact shape in mind,, but was going to tiller the bow and shape as needed,,

[bradsmith2010]

ok I did bend some reflex into the handle using dry heat
I had some really nice elk tendons for sinew,,
I tried to bend out some of the twist,,, not very successfully
then I started to pull the bow backwards and heat to put reflex into the whole bow

[George Tsoukalas]

Looks good, Brad. She'll grow up straight and strong  in your hands. Jawge

[bradsmith2010]

thanks Jawge,,

[bradsmith2010]

you can see how the rings are thin,, but also that they help in the tiller ,, easy to see them feather out
you can see the stave is holding some reflex now
I strung it a little higher in the reverse,, to put the sinew on
I tried something new,, I just put all the sinew in a bucket to soak,, didnt bother to separate it,,

[bradsmith2010]

getting ready to put the sinew on and got the bow sized with some glue,, so looking good so far,,
I did rinse the bow with soap and boiling water to de grease it,, and also roughed up the back a bit with hack saw blade,,
I know it is debatable if that helps or not,, but I am just used to doing it that way,,

[bradsmith2010]

Ok I started putting on the sinew,, then I wrapped in an ace bandage,, I think I left it over night like that,, I also made the string tighter to induce more reflex into the bow,, I had put on two layers of sinew with a total weight of about 720 grains,,,the tendons were so big it only took 1 1/2 to do the bow,,

[bradsmith2010]

you can see I feathered the sinew towards the tips,, not going all the way out,,
then I let the bow cure about 2 weeks, I dont think that is long enough in most climates, but it is so dry here I get away with it,,
when I started to tiller the bow,, I had the great idea,,(that wasn't that great)
I didnt want to over strain the bow by stringing it too soon,, so I put about 45lb of weight in a bucket,, I would hook the long string to that and lift the bucket,,, no way to pull it more than 45 pounds,, well I kept taking off wood every day,, and the bow was looking small,, but the 45 pounds was only pulling the bow a little past even,, so one day I said,, I better string this thing I am running out of wood,,
well when I strung it, the sinew stretched more,, and I was nearly at my target weight now,, at full draw,, the bow was tapered even so it was ok,,
I evened the tiller a bit,, and was at about 47# and that was ok,, but I had alot of rasp marks in the belly,, so I decided to put goat hide on the belly to make it look nicer,, and not sand out the marks and risk loosing any more weight,,

[bradsmith2010]

you can see the handle looks long,, but I made it where the bow could be shot with either limb up,, it shot good both ways,, so I just went with it like that,, I figured one limb would give a bit after shooting in more,, and that could be the top,,,
the bow shot well,, the tiller looked a bit ragged at full draw,, but I was happy with the taper of the limbs and felt like the wood was working even,, I felt that if I made the tiller look more" right" I would compromise the taper of the wood,, so I just went with it shooting good,,,  also the unbraced profile showed me the wood was not taking too much set in one place,, or that the wood was working pretty even,,,it was holding about 3 1/2 inches of reflex,,and I was happy with that,,,,

[bradsmith2010]

ok here is full draw to 28 inches,, 2 photos,, each limb on top,, you can see the way the string is tied that a different limb is on top in each photo,,
as stated the tiller looks a little ragged,,I had some reflex and deflex issues and the propeller,( the reflexed areas looking a little stiff), so just went with it as is,,
the bow came in at about 45# @ 28 inches
it would shoot a 475 grain arrow at about 169fps with a b-50,, I didnt have fast flight at the time and feel it will shoot in the 170's with a better string,,
I gave the bow to Randy and he was happy,, so I was pleased with the final results,,

[wizardgoat]

wow you sure are putting that sinew to use!
nice work, but Id be scared my string was going to pop off

[BowEd]

If your satisfied that's good.Getting rid of that twist before sinewing.Good job of sinewing too.Reverse bracing and all.2 things...1....Your belly is violated already with the rasp marks so taking them off would'nt reduce your weight much.2....I can see the reflex on the long string bothered you not getting the tips past the handle.I've gone past 70# already to get them there and still tiller it to 52#.An incrimented poundage scale could of helped you out there.You took off a lot of wood midlimb.You could of got it working a bit more toward the handle to get the tips around.I found it's amazing how far I can get it to working into the fades with all that sinew on there.Your reflex you put in the handle has a lot to do with that too.I just usually let the reverese bracing and sinewng do all of the reflexing ending in a more rounded type full draw profile.Overall good enough and it's a shooter and a pretty fast one at that.It will probably gain a bit more weight on ya as time goes on too so you could of had the opportunity to remove wood more towards the fades but you got the goat skin on there.Nice bow.
That's just my 2 cents worth of past experience to ya.Hopefully I hav'nt over looked anything.