Here's one to look at, Brad

[Pat B]

This is a bow a friend gave me a few years ago with the stipulation that if I die first it goes back to him. I'm not sure where Alan got this bow but he told me it is a Jay Massey bow. There is no writing or other identifying marks on it but it is in Jay's style.
 The bow is sinew backed osage with halibut skin over the sinew. 57"n/n, 1 7/8" wide at the widest tapering to 3/4" at the nocks, 4" handle with a narrow arrow rest and 2 1/2" fades with heavy sinew wraps on the fades and below the nocks. The cross section of the limbs in lenticular. The belly has deep cracks that I think were caused by the drying sinew. I don't know the draw weight but I will not brace it because of the cracks in the belly.
Here are a few pics...

[boomhowzer]

[drool]

Like it grew right out of the moss.

[Eric Krewson]

I get the feeling the bow was built that way, cracks and all and depended on the sinew to hold it together.

I saw an osage bow once that had wood wasp holes and trails from tip to tip on the back. The owner said he made it just to see how long it would last, it was unbacked, 2 years later he was still shooting it.

[Stixnstones]

Very cool

[bradsmith2010]

wow really cool, thanks Pat,, im gonna study it,

[PaSteve]

Cool piece of history right there. Very interesting. Thanks Pat.

[Hawkdancer]

Very nice piece of history!
Hawkdancer

[Pat B]

This is definitely a prize in my bow collection. My first two wood building books were Jay's "the Book of Primitive Archery"  and "The Bowyers Craft" both signed by Jay to me. Even though I never met Jay he really got me interested in wood bow building and gave me the confidence not only to build wood bows but to hunt with them also. To have what possibly is one of Jay's bows is like owning an original Monet or Picasso to me.

[Dances with squirrels]

Pat, that's nice to have a special bow with a connection like that. The halibut skin is cool too.

[JW_Halverson]

I have an osage bow built by someone that rigorously followed the Massey formula and it has those same exact drying cracks up the belly. When it was originally made, the back barely had any crown and once it had cured out 6 months it had a fairly radically cupped back and expansive cracks.

The guy that gave it to me had met Jay at a South Dakota bowhunter's convention and showed it to him. Jay looked it over and pronounced it well made. The bowyer had other bows that he shot more and it sat in his closet for years before he gave it to me. For the first few years I had it, the danged thing would randomly make the most spine shaking, knee-jello inducing cracks from time to time and I was so sure it was gonna blow. I've left it out in the rain overnight on accident, left it for weeks in a vehicle in below zero temps with all but no relative humidity, likewise in the vehicle in 100 degree weather where temps inside the solar oven of the vehicle reached temps over 150 degrees, I've TWICE been so careless as to slam it in vehicle doors....and if I had to be abandoned in the wilderness, I'd take that bow over any other I have held, seen, or read about.

But the local SCA won't let me carry it within 50 feet of the shooting line because it's "unsafe". Yeah, for the deer it's killed!!!