Large crack on osage selfbow

[apg]

Hi all,

I've been working a problematic (difficult) osage bow for a while now and when I went to flip the tips, a deep crack developed by a knot about 5" from the tip.

I'm wondering if glueing it, clamping it then wrapping it with dacron might be enough to salvage it or if you guys think this is firewood?

It's 64" tip to tip, draws at 40# @ 30", so I can't really shorten it anymore, right?

Ash

[Ryan Jacob]

A solution I’ve heard of is cutting out the damaged area and gluing in a patch of new wood. Not sure how well that current fix would hold but it looks really sketchy.

[Eric Krewson]

Personally, I would trash it and I try to save everything possible when I have a failure. I tried to fix a similar crack one time and the repair didn't hold up.

Being a non bending area you could cut away the bad wood and put a long underlay on the spot feathered into the limb above and below the break.

With a crack that big I suspect you have damage much deeper than the crack would suggest.

[George Tsoukalas]

That is a very deep crack.
There does not seem to be much wood at that knotted area to allow for it by leaving it wider at that spot.
Anyway trying  to "flip the tips" in a problem area was not a good idea.
Jawge

[Dances with squirrels]

What George said. That was a bad spot to try and bend.

I'd call that thing toast. If the other limb was really nice, I might save it to splice to another billet at the handle.

[gutpile]

firewood...no way to fix that..gut

[ohma2]

Knots dont like to bend.sorry but dont get hurt trying to fix that.

[bradsmith2010]

Sinew would be better,,,don't trash it if it doesn't hold,,,the other limb is good,,,splice on a new limb,, )P(take the weight down to 30,....or splice on new tip,...if I had to fix it cause it was the only Osage left in the world.....I could do it....
I would boil the tip and straighten it
I would put an underlay
I would Sinew wrap it
Cut the bow to 60,...So it was non working tip
Sinew back the whole bow
Not an easy fix

[bassman]

If it were my bow I would cut it just in front of the knot, and make a plains horse bow from it.It is still plenty wide,and would be long enough.No way do I trash Osage if I can get some kind of bow from it.

[bradsmith2010]

I was trying to get 30 inch draw,,,but the plains bow does sound nice

[Deerhunter21]

I might not be the best to ask but that's big. If you try to fix it I wish you the best of luck and to definitely back it in case it breaks.

[JNystrom]

Cyanoacrylate and sinew binding. I'm pretty sure it would have been ok. You should see some of my repairs, quite wicked.
Anyways, if one doesn't try, he doesn't learn what is possible!
Good luck.

[Sidewinder]

I would pike it ( cut it shorter ) and punt on trying to get a 30" draw on that one. It can still be a serviceable bow, just won't be what you had in mind to begin with. Not sure what your width dimensions are so that could dictate what weight you can get out of it. If you are currently at 64" and the problem area is 5" from the tips you still have a 54" bow if you take 5" off each end.  Also, you could do a bendy handled bow if you went shorter. Halfeye and Jon W are both excellent short bow makers so they could tell you more about that. Hope it works well for you.

I am currently in love with a 54" bow I built that's stiff handled and pulls 57# at 27" so I know you can get a good bow out of shorter wood. Leave it a little wider when you go shorter is the rule I was taught.  Danny