knot going through side of bow limb??? advice please

[Hamish]

The stave has an issue, and its not the best stave to cut your bowmaking teeth on, but its not an insurmountable problem, from the photo's shown.

For the time being if its too daunting for your current experience, then shelve it for a while and get some clear staves to get good results and boost your experience and confidence. Re visit at a later date.

[rcoen2]

Okay so my friend is not sure that he wants to give up on it.  He's interested to try the either the epoxy/sawdust or wood plug fix.  He dug out the soft punky wood and its pretty small hole.  Only about a quarter inch deep and small in diameter as you can see in the first photo posted. 

The question is, since its so small should we just go with epoxy/sawdust or can we drill into the surrounding wood a bit to create more room for a plug?

[Hamish]

Epoxy and saw dust should do the trick.

Do any heat corrections before you fill the hole.

[bassman211]

I do any thing I can to save an Osage stave even if I end up with a short horse bow, but some staves are just not going to make a bow. This may ,or may not be one of them. I have over the years wasted a lot of time ,and effort working with bad staves only to have them fail at some point. If you have ,40 or more inches of stave left I would cut the knot out, and make a short bow, or set that one aside for now, and get a nice ,clean knot free stave, and do your build. Good luck.