Osage Board advice needed

[Badger]

    One thing you will need to watch for if you glue a handle on. Your bow will have a slight amount of flex in the center when you are done because of it's thickness, your handles might have some tendency to pop off. If you insert a power lam over the handle between your osage and hickory it will take the flex out. 1/8" in the center 4" tapering to a feather edge, about 10" long total.

[Don W]

I was thinking of adding a power lam, but I'm starting to like the "no hàndle" design. I'm still thinking 🤔

[Don W]

I added a 1/8" hickory backing.
first bonehead mistake, I forgot the power lam, so it's bending through the handle. I'm ok with that. I'm chalking it up to old age.
I got it almost tillered and a bad spot on one end of the hickory started splitting.
So I ground the hickory back to the handle from the bad end and added a long overlap splice at the handle with a new backing.
I flipped the tips (just because)
Right now I'm tillered to 49ish # at 26". I'm shooting for 50-53ish at 28"

should i do anything special for the splice? I don't have any real sinew, but I do have rawhide.
It has a very slight bit of hand shock. What might be the cause? It's not bad and it's not unpleasant to shoot, although I'm drawing 26" now.
I will build up the handle with leather but suggestions and/or examples appreciated.

[Morgan]

I sure like that bow Don!

[JW_Halverson]

Ooh! I think I like it!  It sorta mimics the heartwood/sapwood of yew. Imagine how striking the contrast will become as the osage ages and darkens. Yeah, definitely think I like it!

[Don W]

making progress

[Don W]

This one has turned out to be a bit of a problem child. After about 300-350 arrows through it wouldn’t you know, another split in the Hickory back. So once again I ground the hickory back to the handle from the bad end and added a long overlap splice at the handle with a new backing. But this time I used a piece of 1/8″ osage. It was the best 1/8″ piece I had.

I also decided to add some recurves. I used dry heat and made a very slight recurve on each end.

So I decided to add a rawhide backing to the hickory backing. I figured this would hide the two different color backings and add some insurance for further breakage. Only some minor tillering needed after these changes.

stained with Fiebing’s Leather Dye

Final results (I hope, I've still only got about 200 arrows through her!!)

[bassman211]

Don I try to keep sinew on hand at all times. Works great for those kind of staves. Your bow turned out nice, and I hope it holds up for you. Your fades should be as Badger  said above gradual, and feathered into the limb for a couple of inches ,or better.

[Gimlis Ghost]

Don't go the route of the rawhide dog chew toys for backing, one never knows how thick it is or how it was treated before it got to making a chew. For that matter, I wouldn't feed it to a dog for the same danged reason! If you need help sourcing rawhide strips for the backing, drop me a note. I have some ready to go.

Strange but true. One of my dogs liked to carefully chew on the extra large knotted end rawhide bones only enough to soften them with saliva then carefully untie the knots and spread the softened rawhide into perfectly flat sheets.