Osage Stave came today-Critique & advice please.(pic heavy)

[Blaflair2]

The bow I posted earlier has about 50 pin knots on the back. Make sure u go with the grain around them and ull be good.

[wood_bandit99]

U are over building it. Osage is extremely dense and is not affected (hardly affected) by humidity. I live in probably the worst place in the us for its humidity and have no probs. go 1.5" at fades 1.25"ish at mid limb and 3/8" to 1/2" at tips. You are gonna see horrible results over building osage because if you do it too much it weighs so much it slows it down tremendously. Osage is dense and has good tension and compression so as long as you tiller slow like you should on any bow it will come out zero set. I just made a 64" osage bow off of the dimensions given at a 30" draw and it came out 50# like the guy I made it for asked for. I would say off of the given dimensions I would make 64" bows for 28" draws for straight limb bows as my bow had a natural reflex deflex which probably helped at eliminating set. Add 2" for every inch over and subtract the same amount for every inch under. You will be fine with a 62" bow

[blackhawk]

If you go for option two I would start no less than 2" wide at the fade ... then go from there monitoring set and seeing if any additional width needs removed(but it won't)...your thickness taper for that front profile straightline taper from the fades(known as a pyramid) will be very subtle and almost the same thickness...you need to start that wide with that front profile because you need to make sure you end up with enough width thru mid limbs where most of the load will be happening.....and also you want each limb to have a "circular" tiller/bend in it...and make a form and use steam to bend your recurves

[okie64]

If you flip the tips as much as you show in your drawing you are really cuttin down on your working limb length. You'll only end up with about 21" or so of working limb for a 27.5" draw. So I would keep all the width that you can to avoid lots of inner limb set. I would carry the 2" wide limbs out 6-8" or so to give you more midlimb width Or forget the recurves and just go with a straight taper pyramid.

[mikekeswick]

Make it like this 
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,28587.msg379228/topicseen.html#msg379228

[mikekeswick]

Or this if you feel up for it
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,38697.msg517454.html#msg517454

[mikekeswick]

On one of the pictures of the end of the stave there is a hump in the rings and you have taken the top of the hump  eg. removed too much of the underlying ring whilst removing the last of the 'waste' wood. Be very careful of doing this as it weakens the back significantly even though you haven't gone all the way through the latewood.

[Parnell]

My friend, I live in SW Florida and heat and humidity are as common as old people from Chicago.  Osage handles it beautifully and often times when I'm driving "in season" I'd like to use an Osage bow to handle the snowbirds.

[Capt]

Thanks to all for the feedback..

Great advice....

Mike and Blackhawk i think you have given me the direction i need to know where i am going with this one...

When im done with the roughing out i'll be starting a new thread for the rest of the build... i think ive settled on the idea of a not such a straight taper to slight recurved tips try and keep as much working limb as possible... i need to get myself a good bench vise to be able to continue with the draw knife work....

I'm quite into the idea of steam Vs dry heat... do you think it is necessary to steam rather than dry heat if my recurve wont be so extreme or will dry heat do the trick just fine the wood being Osage and all?

Also i don't want to back with linen or rawhide. id preferably just keep a natural back then stick on some rattlesnake skin!!! Should i be fine going this route?

[BowEd]

Yes your gonna do fine Capt.Your rings were kinda thin but I've made hedge bows with a ring count of 16 rings per inch before with no problem.Your working limb lengths are plenty for your bow & your length of draw.[That's if it's properly tillered]Moniter it good as you tiller to see where set is being taken.Take your time.If yours turns to be a pyramid then your thickness taper will be less than with parralel width limbs.Like said that your mid limbs will be doing the lion share of the work.You'll want some width there to carry the load.If you go with parralel limbs to midlimb I would reduce width over all some.If a pyramid I would'nt.You'll be surprised too how well osage holds up to humidity changes etc.Reducing it down to 5/8" thick before correcting twist and inducing profile is good.
Personally I don't like cutting in a shelf but some do and that's fne.You'll be giving those pigs a hard time with that bow.They are tough.

[Capt]

Thanks for the advice guys.. So you think I'm fine with dry heat? No need for steam if the bends are only going to be slight?

Wouldn't there also be some advantage with dry heat and Osage I.e. tempering of the belly wood giving added strength and helping me reach my target of 60# draw weight?

[twisted hickory]

Heres my idea for the layout.. As you can see i've got option #1 and #2 for the limb design..... i kinda like the idea of being 1 7/8" out of the fades so i get less set because of all the humidity and heat down here..

Also i plan on putting in a shelf so this will give me more wood around the handle section to play with???..
(after my first bow the Tzalam pyramid with shelf i just really like shooting off a close to center shelf...)

Another reason is im shooting for a 60# @ 27.5" draw weight bow... this one is coming hunting and the pigs up in these hills are tough little buggers....!

Let me know what you think?

Capt,
for what it's worth, I have never made a osage bow but the dimentions you are giving are nearly as wide as I make my hickory slef bows for humid Pennsylvania weather and I have two one that ended up being 58 lbs and the other is 70 when the humidity is down and 65 when it is very humid. The key difference is hickory is lower in specific gravity so ya might want to reconsider making such a wide limbed bow. I tried a wide one out of hickory and it wasn't as good a shooter as a narrow thicker limb bow of similar design.
I would guess someone w more experience w osage might chime in.
Greg

[wood_bandit99]

Capt, osage doesn't respond good to heat tempering because of how dense it is. If any improvement, it will hardly be noticeable. And I would use steam for recurved because it could get too dry and I would personally want to wait for it to dry out then for it to accidentally crack because u didn't get it hot enough. I think you should read the tbb series and it will help a ton. Twisted hickory is right. Osage is REALLY dense. I would make it 1 1/2" at widest because it is nearly paper thin at 2". My 50 lb bow is deadly thin at 2" wide. You can lose more mass on the bow limbs(aka faster bow) by taking off width. You can take a 50# bow and cut the width in half and it will be 25#. The thickness is 8x that. So in other words u can have a narrow bow that is pretty thick that is faster because of reduced limb weight. But I would not make your recurve less than 1 1/2" wide at the widest. That way it doesn't get scary thin.

[SLIMBOB]

Disagree with that entirely.  Most Osage I have tempered benefitted from it.  Maybe not as much as white woods, but worth the effort.  Some I wont bother with, some I will temper.  Experiment and come to your own conclusions.  You will sometimes find that what you heard and thought was true, isn't always so.  Dry heat on Osage for bending the tips is about all I do anymore.  Severe hooks, steam.  Flipping or mild to moderate bends, dry heat is fine.  Just gotta go slow and easy.

[BowEd]

Capt I don't remember whether you said the date your stave was harvested.Even so even with my staves that are a year old I rough them out bring them inside.Weigh it till it quits losing weight at 50% humidity for at least a third of the time I'm weighing it.Then make my bow.You want it to be dry.Even hedge will take set a bunch if it's too wet.