Why I think osage is an inferior bow wood...

[RyanY]

twilight, if your black cherry bow has a pristine back then try trapping in towards the belly. I'd love to try my hand at a black cherry bow. And technically any bow wood can be over built! Its just easier to overbuild with dense woods.

OneBow, between now and then the definitions of beauty and attractiveness have somewhat reversed. Explains a lot about those osage guys. 

[ionicmuffin]

i think it boils down to the challenge that is overcome when they finish a bow. A knotty osage with tons of snake can become a bow, and because they were able to tame it and turn it into a beautiful bow it becomes "supreme"  true the wood is amazing, but there is a sense of pride there that you cant shake from them, they will hold onto it until the day they die  Its like when i tried to argue that my car beat someone else's because of the fact it road into the finish line gracefully, even if they beat me by a few seconds.(im talking about matchbox and such.) there is a sense of pride in what youve put stock into, so basically weather or not its better isn't necessarily the matter. I know that you all should know what im talking about( i hope  ) and in many cases there will be osage beating other bows, its just too big a factor and too much pride in the materials you are familiar with to say otherwise  dont worry im prone to this same issue 

[osage outlaw]

Ryan, your Mojam bow you postes was 1.5" at the fades tapering to 1.25" at mid limb, and then to 3/8" tips.  If that same character stave you started with was hackberry or hickory, would you have made it the same dimensions?

[ionicmuffin]

zip LOL.  though hopefully i will have one done by this upcoming summer. Im just saying, looking at how humans behave when they have accomplished something great, like taming a bad stave, they are very proud! i would be if i had done some of the bows on this forum. I am just making speculations on what others seem to do.  could be wrong (i have been know to be wrong  ) but can you honestly say you wouldn't have an ounce of pride to tame a stave like "Black Hole" one of the recent bows of the month? if you can then you have me beat 

[RyanY]

iconicmuffin, thats very true. There's nothing quite like a snakey osage stave. Although snakey bows tend to carry more mass in their limbs and as a result are usually slower.

Osage Outlaw, of course not. That's a silly question. 

[ionicmuffin]

that proves my point then, weather or not it's better is not the question. It's about how much "better" it is to the user/maker 

Some of what they say about it being better could very well be true, not going to say they are wrong, just pointing out that if someone who swears by hickory alone and another by sage alone, both bows are evenly matched in all ways(arrowspeed, majesty, arrow pen ect)[theoretical... just sayin] Then who do you think will think whose bow will be better? lets name them Hickory and Sage. 

[osage outlaw]

Why not?  Why whould you have changed the dimensions?

I don't think its a silly question.

[RyanY]

OO, sorry. I thought you already knew what I was going to say. In fact, I made a hickory bow of almost the exact same specs recently. 68" ntn, 40#@28", 10" handle. Hickory being less dense than osage I made it wider by about 20%. I just weighed them and there's less than a 1oz difference in mass.

[blackhawk]

Ryan answer me this question...

Do you believe if a wood is made to the mass principle correctly, it is of proper design? Simple yes or no answer please

[osage outlaw]

So it took a little less osage to make the same bow?

[Dictionary]

Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

[RyanY]

Dictionary, I... AM YOUR FATHER!

blackhawk, I believe if bows are built to the mass principle correctly that they should perform well. So if that means they are designed well then yes I do believe that. Not quire sure what your retort is going to be but I'm all ears. 

OO, The volume was less but the amount of wood (cellulose, lignin) was the same.

[blackhawk]

I love making bows from all types of wood and all types of different designs. I am not an osage snob and osage only guy. And I do believe the same about the mass principle,and do use it as a general gauge if what I'm building is under or overbuilt and if I need to adjust my intended weight if coming in to light,or reducing sides if too heavy. If that's what you believe then how come you can say mine or Danny's bows were not designed correctly? Why have we and so many others that use other woods come to the same conclusion about hedge? In my experiences that match others here,I have a much better success with producing a long lasting durable bow using osage than other woods. In my experience osage has had a much more consistent,proven,and almost never fails track record when compared to other woods even when they are designed n made per the mass formula,which according to you is a properly designed bow. There's so much more to it than just design.

[Dictionary]

 

[RyanY]

blackhawk, the reason I say they weren't designed properly is because they broke. ANY bow wood will bend to a certain shape if it's thin enough. ANY bow wood will draw a certain weight if it's wide enough. These two properties of wood tell us that we can design a bow to do just about anything we want. You have yet to provide any explanation to answer why osage can do these things and other woods can't. Even if it is stronger in compression and tension, and more elastic, other woods can be designed to do the same work. The problem with your reasoning is that it means there's a LIMIT that other bow woods have that are below osage. This is simply not true.

Many of you think that poplar bow is silly and completely missed the point that it makes. It was made thin enough to bend to the radius for a 25" draw and wide enough for a 50# draw weight. There is no limit to what wood can do. The boundaries lie within the users tastes, not the wood.