Help with bow salvage

[Okie]

Last night as I was working on a new bow and thought I had a good ring for the back. After I cut out the belly side I decided it wasn't very good and decided to take it down another ring. I had it all off but 5" inches at the tip when...Bam,the whole end came off. I figure it would have broke there if this hadn't happened but what I need to know is can I make a 50" bow around 40#? Do I need to flip the tips? I have personally never seen a selfbow that short. Is this not worth messing with. The wood is osage (10 yrs old). I have made another bow 60" 47#@28 with the sister stave to this one. What did I do wrong to make the end pop off?Any help?

Thanks.

[richpierce]

I don't have pictures yet but I am finishing an osage selfbow, bending through the handle, deflex/reflex, 50" long and drawing 60# at 26".  It's only 1 and 1/4" wide at the handle and gets down to 5/8" wide at the tips.  It shoots fast, too.

[GregB]

What's your draw length? If you really want to make an adult bow with it, you might do as you suggested and flip the tips. I'd try and get those tips flexing some though even when recurved because you'll need all the limb bending you can get.

If you got more wood, can always make a kids bow out of it...

[possum]

I made a 56" osage with a stiffish handle so I'm pretty sure osage can handle it especially if it bends through the handle.
As far as the tips you can always flip it with antler or horn like I did on several occasions.

This one is horn but I have also used elk antler like in this bow:
www.geocities.com/sp06di/KnottyOsage2
you just have to make sure the taper of the antler and wood is long enough to provide enough total gluing surface and the string is actually over the wood so you're not in effect leveraging the antler/horn off.

possum