Building my first osage bow - first build along post

[H Rhodes]

Thanks for the tip Pappy.  I will have to give dry heat a try on the next one that needs tweeking.   I should have more progress to post next week.   

[Josh]

I have made some very fine bows from Livingston 'sage... My boss has a cabin and some land off McCainsville Rd. in Livingston that I hunt every year, 2 years ago he let me cut some osage from there.  Good stuff.  Can't wait to see how your bow turns out.  Looking great so far! 

[H Rhodes]

  Thanks Josh.  You will have to let me know next time you are in town!  Yeah, we are blessed with good bow wood all around Sumter County.  I know McCainville Road.  There are some really pretty camps in that part of the county and it is infested with ERC and osage.   

  Had a slight set back on my bow over the weekend....  Nothing catastrophic, just a rookie's mistake.  I started tillering and realized that one limb really needed to bend closer to the handle.  It is going to be a bendy handled bow, and I guess I was overly enthusiastic, in that I  had already glued some leather to build up the grip area....  That had to come off.  So, a little steam on the handle to loosen up the glue and it came right off.  I will be back to tillering tomorrow.  Living and learning!  I should have gotten it tillered out before thinking about handles....  Oh well....  other than that little screw up, it is coming along nicely.  More to come....

[H Rhodes]

Tillered out to 50lbs at 28".  Alternated between the rasp and the scraper and checked for flat spots and hinges with my handy dandy 4" long scrap of 1 X 2.  Still have to do a little tweeking here and there and this bow actually will finish out at about 46#.  Shot my first arrow out of it this evening and I am liking it.  Just unstrung the bow, shows zero string follow....  checked it three hours later and it is back to about an inch of reflex.  Now, I will think about glueing the leather up for the handle and arrow rest.  Hopefully I will have a better full draw pic - my photographer was in a hurry....

[soy]

Looking really nice 

[H Rhodes]

Thanks soy.  I see why so many folks prefer osage orange.  It is amazing stuff.  I read in a post on this site somewhere that "it doesn't take much osage to make a bow".  I see what they were talking about.  This was not a very big limb to start with... only about 3" diameter.  Osage rocks.

[soy]

Yes it dose  welcome to the yella fever

[TRACY]

You should be very proud of that fine bow. Excellent job !

Tracy

[H Rhodes]

Thanks so much Tracy.  I am and I have really enjoyed building this one, so far.  I am gonna do a little finishing work on it and see if I can't get some better photos of it posted in the near future.  Thanks to everyone for looking and helping out.   

[blackhawk]

Looking pretty good...my only constructive criticism would b to reduce some thickness off of the depth of your stiff tips. How narrow are your tips width wise?

[H Rhodes]

Thanks Blackhawk.  Yeah, I think they are still sort of meaty.  They are about 3/8" thick.  I will post a close up of the tips later.  There are some drying cracks that run longways on one of the tips and I am a little scared to mess with them....  They haven't been a problem so far, but they did sort of give me the creeps.  This bow was the one your Mighty Mouse inspired me to try. 

[blackhawk]

You mean 3/8 wide right? If so and with the cracks id take some off the thickness. I usually make the thickness of my levers around .080" thicker than the thinnest part of the working limb(and i have gone less in case you got big #$%!)which is always right before the levers. And then i taper thickness my levers down slightly to the tips.

[Pappy]

Looking really good,looks like you have about got it.Nice work.
   Pappy

[JW_Halverson]

Oh, how I wanna shoot that bow!  Then I wanna copy that bow.  well done!

[H Rhodes]

Yeah, they are 3/8ths wide.  I took a couple of pics of belly and back of the tip that I was talking about.  I do agree with you that they are a little thick.  I have some finishing up to do on it over the next few days.  It shoots pretty sweet and seems to be pretty fast.  Taking a little weight off the tips can't help but make it a little better though. I think they are definitely a little too thick nearer the fades.  The cracks are super glued and have been no trouble.  Thanks for the tip Blackhawk. 

Thanks Pappy and JW.  I shot about fifty arrows through it this afternoon and checked the reflex on it about two hours after unstringing and I am liking this little bow!