April's Self Bow of the Month Winner

[OldBow]

Congratulatons to Greg Bagwell of Clarksville, Tennessee
Self Bow of the Month for April
He Prevailed Over a Difficult Piece of Osage

Greg has a good writeup about this bow:
This is the latest bow I've made, and one of the most challenging. It was a very knarley piece of Tn. osage, and I wondered more then once if it would make a bow. I originally laid it out 1-1/2" in width. While using dry heat to attempt to remove a bad deflex dip in the upper limb right out of the fades, a bad crack on the belly appeared at that spot and went out the edge of the bow. I might have been able to glue and wrap it, but instead decided to narrow the limb to 1-1/4" to remove the crack. I removed the entire 1/4" from one side of the bow to get rid of the crack. This would make it the narrowest adult osage bow I've made. I had to live with the dip in the limb because I couldn't remove it. The bow also had cracks at each tip running between grains. My first inlays were also added to this bow to remove the cracks. I wanted to put copperhead skins on the bow, but between the skins Pappy and I had on hand, we didn't have a set long enough to cover the full length. So I left the last 6" to the tips bare osage and wrapped the end of the skins, also a first for me. All previous snake skin backed bows (rattlers) were running full length of the limbs.

The bow is 60-1/2" ntn, 1-1/4" width to 3/8" tips, and 48# @ 26". The dip in the top limb makes the tiller look off, but I think the tiller is decent, and tweaking more would have removed more weight which I didn't want to do.

I'd like to say that I've learned a lot from many of the folks on this site. Many of the fine bows I've seen and the great information freely passed on encouraged me to take risks with this bow that I wouldn't have taken before.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Jbell]

Congratulations Greg, a well deserved win. 

[Coo-wah-chobee]

                    Thats a nice bow. Congrads, Greg.......bob

[AndrewS]

Congratulations Greg! A fine bow that shows your high skills in workmanship!
I love this snakeskinbacking

[1/2primitive]

Great job on the wonderful bow!
       Sean

[ber643]

Congrats, Greg, and remember I told you to keep that snake away from your wood pile  .

[Calendargirl]

it is even prettier in person!  Congrats Greg! 

[Little John]

 Congratulations on a very pretty bow.    Kenneth

[Mickey]

Working with challenging wood and coming out with a nice bow is reward in itself. Winning BOM is icing on the cake. Congrats.

[tpoof]

Congrats  Greg! A great guy and a great bow!  That stick is indeed special! Well done! 

[a finnish native]

congratulations for winning. nice looking bow, but if I were you I would do a bit of tillering. not that it's awful or anything, but it looks like the outer limbs are quite stiff.
anyway, nice bow man.

[_Jon_]

Wow!  Mighty nice and looks even better from two feet away.  I was pleased to have looked at it this weekend.  Nice job Greg.

[GregB]

Thank you all so very much!

This is without a doubt an experience that will be a cherished memory for me for the rest of my life! To have other bowyers with the caliber of talent that is so abundant here within the PA circle to recognize me in this way, really is a great honor!

I'd like everyone reading this to know that I trully feel that this primitive, creative hobby of ours somehow attracts to it really nice, good people. I know what I'm talking about...and I'm "fixin to" tell ya!

This weekend I met a good sampling of the folks here on PA. I've known for a long time now that I'm lucky to be friends with several of the PA members, that also are club members of Twin Oaks Archery Club that held the Tennessee Classic this weekend. I was fortunate, and honored to meet many of the more active PA members during the event, and confirmed that they were even nicer in person then in cyberspace. I liked each and every one of them without exception! A willingness to share their knowledge mirrored what occurs here on PA everyday! The folks behind the PA scenes that manage the magazine and forum are top-notch too! I personally really appreciate the time and effort they went to in support of our club event.

I'm sure if I hadn't just experienced this weekend of work and fun, this poor attempt at expressing my feelings would be a lot different. For me personally it has turned out not to just be about winning BOM...many here are better bowyers then I am. The best part about the weekend I just had, was meeting several of the nice people here on PA!

[8up]

Greg that bow is beautiful and if laid in the grass would scare people because of the Live look of those skins. It was good meeting you and thank you very much for your help on my first bow......Ron

[The Singing Bowyer]

Greg,

A well deserved win! Your are right, all the folks form PA really made the shoot special. Everyone was a winner this month!!