Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Catahoula on December 13, 2009, 10:02:41 pm
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Hi,
This is my first Osage self bow. It is 68 inches and 50 @ 29. I call her "Thumper" because she thumps you good to make sure you are awake when you shoot an arrow and really thumps the arrow with "authority" into the target. She is a straight shooter...pick a target and that's where the arrow goes. This is the bow which had about 5 cracks six inches long on the middle back of the lower limb. The sinew seems to be working fine. I will shoot her for a week or so before attempting to add snake skins. I must say that I had a lot of help tillering "Thumper" from my buddy Joel who had been making bows for years. I am working on another osage stave so I hope it will turn out too.
Rand
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Hi,
Strung bow...did you like my Catahoula Sally in the first picture...she loves to chase my arrows and "tag" them for me...she used to eat the fletching...now she has learned to find lost arrows.
Rand
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You take that last 12' or so of each limb and narrow it down to 1/2" and you'll change that bows name I guarantee it. ;D
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i think Dano means the last 12" and not 12'
but ya do what he said and you definatly will change her name
them is some wiiiiiide tips
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Hi,
Full draw...
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Hi,
Sinew wrap...not a particularly good picture.
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Hi again,
Yep...wide tips with some ebony on 'em. Say I do try to reshape the tips...will she loose weight or her power or her accuracy because right now she is just awesome. I am just glad she hasn't gone the way of the three before her..."kablooey!" Nice to have a bow survive!!
Rand:)
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Yep, I meant 12". The first selfbow I ever shot was a thumper too, it had no taper to the limbs too. I swore there had to be a better way to build a bow. ;D
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Hi again,
Yep...wide tips with some ebony on 'em. Say I do try to reshape the tips...will she loose weight or her power or her accuracy because right now she is just awesome. I am just glad she hasn't gone the way of the three before her..."kablooey!" Nice to have a bow survive!!
Rand:)
She may loose a little weight, but the power -authority she launches and arrow- will increase. Accuracy shouldn't be any different. You will quickly see how a 45# bow can shoot an arrow a lot faster than a 50# bow.
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Tiller looks great. Jawge
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Got your weapon bookmarked under Dec Self BOM fun. Thanks for sharing!
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Good save!
You could literally shave ounces of excess weight from those tips and not loose more than a pound of draw weight. And like Justin said, the increase in performance alone would make it worth it. Not to mention removing that unwanted handshock. ;)
There is very little leverage out near the tips. You would be surprised how narrow you can go with them and them still be stiff. :)
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Yeah, get those tips scary thin (they're already pretty stiff so the bow shouldn't end up whip tillered) and you'll be naming her thumper for the way arrows slam into a target, not the way your hand tries to disintegrate when shooting.
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Yep, mighty big tips.
Here is my method for thinning tips, I call it "sighting in a bow".
I use a belt sander but any sanding block or file will work as well.
I put the fade of the opposite limb from the one I am working on my shoulder and sight down the limb like I am aiming a gun. I touch the sides of the limb tip to my belt sander and resight down the limb. My goal it to remove a little wood at a time and always center the tip with the handle and the rest of the limb. A little off one side, check, a little off the other side and recenter.
Be sure to have some measuring device handy to constantly check your tip width. What looks like 1/4" while you are reducing the tip with will actually measure around 1/2". 1/2" tips look really small when compared to what you start with before you start thinning the tips.
The reason I use the sight in method to finish tips is because no matter how carefully I lay out a stave the tips will be just a little off from center when I start tillering. Since I started visually laying out my tip position my strung bows almost always have the string centered or very close to centered over the handle.
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LOL I Do it the same way Eric, I didn't know there was a name for it I just started doing it one day and it DOES feel like aiming a gun! I also do it to make sure my tapers aren't all wobbly looking, i.e. to get rid of high spots on my mid-limb taper. I also use a belt sander for this and "aim" down the bow limb.... That is awesome.
...and even though the tips of your bow are very wide, that is a very well-tillered bow there, Catahoula. Especially for a first. ;)
:) -josh
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Glad to see she made it Rand. Looks great. I left the tips on my first bow a little thick also, I have went to narrow them down numerous times but cant bring myself to do it. She shoots to good and i like a little thump sometimes. Congrats on a fine bow, they will just get better from now on. boo
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Hi again,
Thanks for the thoughts on the bow. Bobby, I was telling Pat that she thumps a target so hard with an arrow that if I had a big ten pointer and his doe standing side by side Thumper would blast an arrow through the buck and then right on through the doe too!!!! Since I have managed to blow up so many bows before this one I might work on learning to shape the tips on the osage stave I am pulling now...try to learn something before messing this one up.
Rand
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Really nice tiller, but waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy to wide tips!
See, the bow needs a LOT of energy to move those tips, that energy is lost for acceleration of the arrow, and that energy is what shakes you quite badly!
The handshock affects your nervous system, did you know???
Ps: Saw Filer, these tips look great! ...probably still wide enough for a 70 pounder!
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Hey Medicinewheel,
Actually the hand shock is really not bad at all...but she does make a "thwhump" and then the string sings like a musical instrument. Shot her about thirty times today to give her a little work out and watch the sinewed cracks...so far so good. I am talking to my buddy Joel about the wide tips...I sure don't want to screw up this bow!!!! Get your flute yet?
Rand
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I read somewhere, might have been one of TBB series, but it said if the string vibrates a lot it's taking away from your cast. As long as the tips aren't thin on the belly, making them thinner, like the rest of the boys said, can only make it shoot better. Sweet looking bow all the same though.