Well I finally got some shed-time these past few weeks!!
I started this bow because I accidentally locked myself out of the house and had to wait until my wife got home from work to let me in. Since I couldn't get in I broke into my workshop instead and started chasing a ring on this piece of Osage that R H Clark traded to me for one of my flutes.
I had the first half of the stave finished by the time my wife made it home. (around an hour after I locked myself out) and I finished chasing the other half the next day. I had the bow roughed in that afternoon.
After I roughed it in and got it semi floor-tillered, I heat treated it a little and got out some of the dips and dives and aligned the tips. I let it sit a week after this. I heated around 1.5 inches of reflex in.
After a week was up I went back to long string tillering. I forgot to take photos of this process but I do it about the same as the rest of you guys, get it bending evenly and as soon as possible get it to low brace. That's when the flaws in your tillering so far REALLY jump out at you!
I proceded to tiller it out to around 24 inches or so and got it to half brace when I gave it its final heat treating.
I gave it another week to re-hydrate before bending it any more but I took this time to glue on tip overlays and an arrow pass and to get my handle shaped. Alot of folks like to wait until the bow is finished before this step but I like to do it while I am waiting for it to re-hydrate. Different strokes for different folks I guess. Here's a picture of the tip overlays as i was shaping and narrowing them. I put one of my 11/32 shafts in the pic for size reference.
After it sat for a week I went back to tillering. It finished out at 55 lbs @ 28"...63" NtN. It has around 1/2 inch of string follow just after un-bracing which comes out in around an hour to sit dead flat. I had problems with this bow trying to take set as I built it.. I don't know if it is because it was cut last year and hasn't seasoned good yet or what but it seemed to take on more set than any other bow I have made from Osage... weird.
That is why I heat treated it twice.
I used fast flight string on this bow for the first time and I tell ya I am gonna use it on all the rest of them too. Good stuff.
I named her "Beauty Mark" because of the one pin knot she has in the top fade and the other pin knot she has in the bottom limb mid-limb. Hope you like her. It was my first build in about 6 months so hope the tiller looks alright to you guys.. It looks good to me. Thanks for looking!
Pics of finished bow in the next post. -josh
