My old locust bow...RIP

[Pat B]

I built this locust bow in 2003. It was my best locust build. Note the cut in shelf. I haven't done that in years. One of the tip overlays popped off years ago and I never fixed it or shot it again. Recently, as I was going through my bow collection I saw this one and wondered about sinew backing it. It is 55 1/2" t/t, is just over 2" at it's widest and draws 47#@24". The belly had developed some very fine frets at mid limb on both limbs but not bad. I thought about adding recurves to the end of the limbs but decided to just leave them straight. I will repair the tip overlay then I think I will sinew back it.
Here are a few pics...

[Yooper Bowyer]

I can tell it is 18 years old because the Osage tip looks like walnut. 

Nice lines.

[Fox]

mmmm that is so pretty

[Deerhunter21]

The chocolate color of old Osage... you gotta love it!

[RyanY]

Surprising it got frets being so wide. Beautiful shape.

[Hawkdancer]

Nice!  New tip and sinew, she'll be as good as vintage wine!
Hawkdancer

[bradsmith2010]

yep,, nice project,,

[bassman211]

I can't if you trapped the back or not. It is a good practice with Black locust. The one's that I have made successfully all have trapped backs.

[Pat B]

Thanks guys. I'm sorta excited about getting this old bow back in working order.
 Ryan, frets are typical for me and locust. Like I said this one was one of my best locust bows.
Bassman, no trapping on this one. The limbs are so thin and it was probably before I knew what trapping was anyway. 
 Old locust puts on a nice patina like osage and mulberry.

[bradsmith2010]

Pat, I have one from 1994,, it has few frets that I did when I was in a hurry tillering,, lucky they have not gotten worse, and the bow still shoots just like it did,, its a beautiful great shooting wood, excited to see yours come back to life,,

[Pat B]

I removed the handle wrap and scraped and sanded off the old finish today.


...as you can see the belly developed a concavity over the years. I use the goose neck scraper for areas like this. I observed that the limb with the frets had the most concavity to it. Whether there is a connection I don't know.


Then I used heat to remove the remaining tip overlay. I'm not sure what glue I used but once it was heated up the overlay lifted right off. I'm thinking I used gel super glue.

[Pat B]

After scraping and sanding the whole bow I clamped one limb to a reflex form and laid the heat to it. I'll check it a little later and work on the other limb.



More to come...

[Bob Barnes]

thanks for sharing...it's one of my favorite woods too.   

[Aaron H]

Neat

[Will B]

Look forward to seeing how the sinew backing goes. Love seeing these older selfbows!  Good luck