Author Topic: Osage question... Bow finished.. Pics!!!  (Read 9930 times)

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Offline Radon

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Osage question... Bow finished.. Pics!!!
« on: January 22, 2008, 08:03:44 am »
Hi all,

I manged to get hold of an Osage stave. But since I never worked with osage yet I have a question about the stave:





How would you guys judge the quality of the stave (66" long)
The outer rings of the stave are very narrow.

The aimed weight sould be something around 50# @ 29"

What would you do?
Would you build a bow as selfbow or bamboo backed?

Thanks for any tips!

Radon
« Last Edit: April 26, 2008, 09:09:09 am by Radon »
Dresden - Germany

Offline GregB

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Re: Osage question...
« Reply #1 on: January 22, 2008, 09:08:03 am »
You might post some pictures of the stave...

If there are thicker rings deeper in the stave you might chase the grain to one of those rings if the stave allows that and still get a bow from it.
Greg

A rich person can be poor monetarily, the best things in life are free...

Offline Radon

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Re: Osage question...
« Reply #2 on: January 22, 2008, 10:21:23 am »
Hi Greg,

I can post some more pics of the stave tomorrow. It is fairly straight without knots or irregularities.
I think chasing the thicker rings will not leave enough wood for a bow.

Radon
Dresden - Germany

Offline Ryano

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Re: Osage question...
« Reply #3 on: January 22, 2008, 10:45:29 am »
If your confident in your ring chasing, that will make a fine bow. The early to late ratio is kind of high so make it a bit wider than normal. You also may want to consider a sinew or raw hide backing, just to be safe.
Its November, I'm gone hunt'in.......
Osage is still better.....

Offline Pappy

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Re: Osage question...
« Reply #4 on: January 22, 2008, 10:51:29 am »
From what I see I would probably pop a belly split off it at about 3/4 to 1 inch down from the sap wood and go from there.The top several look plenty good to chase and the bottom few are OK also. You only need about 2 inches thick once you get to the growth ring you want. :)You might even get 2.Looks like if I am reading the rule right it is 6 1/2 or so thick not including the sap wood.
   Pappy
Clarksville,Tennessee
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Offline Radon

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Re: Osage question...
« Reply #5 on: January 22, 2008, 11:01:29 am »
Hi again,

sorry, but obviously I made the mistake to une a metric ruler! So it doesn't show inches but centimeters.

The stave is about 2 1/2 inch thick (incl. sapwood)

I'll post new photos tomorrow.

Radon
Dresden - Germany

Offline Pappy

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Re: Osage question...
« Reply #6 on: January 22, 2008, 11:12:58 am »
That being the case I would strip the wood and sap wood as easy as possible and try and hit the first upper ring I could.Man it looked thicker than that ,my mistake.Should be doable tho. :)
   Pappy
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Offline Radon

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Re: Osage question...
« Reply #7 on: January 22, 2008, 11:22:01 am »
Not your mistake Pappy!

The ruler I used has one side metric and the other imperial. I just showed the wrong side.
Anyway, thanks a lot for your answer.
What do you think about 29" draw length with only 66" length of the bow?

Radon
Dresden - Germany

Offline Pappy

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Re: Osage question...
« Reply #8 on: January 22, 2008, 11:47:23 am »
That would probably work under normal cases,you might want to back it like Ryan said at least with rawhide,you could make it bend a little throught the handle and then it would be ok.It ant the
best piece of wood I have seen ,but by far not the worst.The upper rings look pretty good from what I can tell. :)
   Pappy
Clarksville,Tennessee
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Offline tom sawyer

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Re: Osage question...
« Reply #9 on: January 22, 2008, 12:04:06 pm »
66" and a 29" draw is somewhat of a challenge but certainly one that you can do.  If you went for a bendy handle bow it would be easy.

Looks like the outer wood has a nice dark orange color indicative of a decent summer/spring growth ratio.  The stuff in the middle doesn't look so hot (light yellow, lots of spongey spring wood).  You don't want that for your belly.  I would lay the bow out along the left side (the thicker side) and go a full 1.5" wide if possible.  For a 29" draw that will make your limb fairly thin, I think you will stay within the good orange wood that way.  That is important, if your belly winds up in that spongy yellow wood you are going to see a lot of set when you tiller the bow.

The wood on the inner part of the limb looks good too.  You might consider splitting like Pappy suggested, and planning on gluing on a handle piece to make the needed weight.  It would be chancey though.

The fact that the growth rings are so thin, would make me lean towards using sinew on the back.  Not a heavy layer, just a thin layer for protection.  then you don't have to stress over chasing a ring.  I would certainly just remove the sapwood and not get down into the orange too far, because you only have less than 2cm and you need most of this so your belly wood still falls within this better wood as stated above.
Lennie
Hannibal, MO

Eric Garza

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Re: Osage question...
« Reply #10 on: January 22, 2008, 12:33:24 pm »
Yeah, I think I'd take the sapwood off and use the outermost heartwood ring as the bow's back.  Make it as wide at the fades as the stave will allow, and back it with rawhide, a piece of cloth or sinew (in that order of preference, with rawhide first and sinew last). 

I only put sinew last because it takes a long time and can be costly to get, and for a longer bow I don't think it would help with performance much, it would just offer an insurance policy.  You can get the same insurance policy with rawhide or cloth and spend much less time and money on it.

Best of luck, and make sure you show us what it looks like when it's done!

-Eric

Offline Radon

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Re: Osage question...
« Reply #11 on: January 22, 2008, 01:07:20 pm »
Thanks again for all those helpful answers!

So I will probably go for a 66" bow, 1 1/2" wide, with slight recurves (maybe) rigid handle and rawhide backing.
As for the draw length I will stick to 28" with a draw weight of around 50#

I'll keep you updated but be patient, it will take some time  ::)
Dresden - Germany

Offline Pappy

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Re: Osage question...
« Reply #12 on: January 22, 2008, 01:39:19 pm »
I think you will be fine with that. :)
   Pappy
Clarksville,Tennessee
TwinOaks Bowhunters
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Offline uwe

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Re: Osage question...
« Reply #13 on: January 22, 2008, 03:36:46 pm »
Somebody told me, that smaller rings in osagestaves make faster shooters, thicker slower ones. What do you think about? Its not easy to dig this out, I think, because every stave has its own life.

Offline Radon

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Re: Osage question...
« Reply #14 on: January 25, 2008, 08:01:12 am »
I thought I'll give you a quick update on my Osage stave:

This morning I finnished working out the first usable ring.
Even the rings are very thin it was much easier than with all the wood I used up to now.
The only thing that made me wonder was that about half way along the bow, within my ring the heartwood suddenly changed to sapwood. So I had to remove one more ring. Now It looks very good. The wood being much darker than I expected.

More updates will follow if you guys are interested

(and questions too for sure)

Thanks for your help
Stefan
Dresden - Germany