Question for BBO guys

[Roy]

Wasn't funny at the time, I was holding the pull rope.. I flew 10 feet backwards, went over the table saw, bounced off the jointer, and did another back flip.. But I never spilt my beer.. LOL

[GB]

Wish there was a YouTube video of that, Roy.  That would be fun to watch 

[IdahoMatt]

 

[Marc St Louis]

I've also made some BBO's with pretty wild grain runoff.  The only problem I have found is that you have to be careful when gluing the reflex in

[cdpbrewer]

I've not used quartersawn osage or osage with that grain that wild- just rift sawn with much less wild grain-  e.g. the attached pic.   I'm a chicken and my tillering is horrid so I would never attempt a BBO with it.   Lams for a glass bow is a good repurposing.

If I was going to attempt it, +1 on Marc's tip to be carefull when gluing in reflex.   Would be real easy to break the belly if there's too much reflex.   

The problem I've had with wild grained bellies, wheter reflexed or not,  is that the glued-up bow will be more prone to having warped or twisted limbs like the one in the attached pic did.   I've taken to gluing up bows with the belly pre-profiled to the back's profile.  Most folks seem to profile the bamboo back and glue it onto a full width belly.  The problem arrises when the width of the belly is reduced later the to the back's profile, the bow limbs will tend to twist and/or warp as the belly is profiled later- similar to ripping a piece of wood with wild grain tends to result in warped and/or twisted boards.  With an osage belly, you can pre-profile the belly and then heat straighten it or gradually reduce the width to the profile from the center out while correcting the profile for warpage.   

c.d.

[Springbuck]

  If the blank is sawn as straight as can be and the snakes run side to side, I'd do it.  as long as most of the grain runs mostly down the middle of the bow behind the backing, you'll be ok.  heck, you could even make a snakey backed bow.

  If the front surface waves a lot, or snakes back to front as well, I'D avoid it like the plague.  The only backed bow failures I have ever had that weren't my fault, some grain ran front to back through a 3/8" piece of wood (jatoba, massaranduba, and osage) at one spot, and the belly sluffed off like a shingle when bent far on the tree.

[Carson (CMB)]

Great info guys! Much easier to learn this one form others experiences.   

[bubbles]

Yeah, I think at the beginning PatM is referring to my bows, I had two quartersawn Osage boards, one was better than the other. One was a hick backed Osage static that popped under the backing, right around the handle fade and the other was a sinew backed Osage shortie, with much wavier grain and popped a big splinter right at the edge runoff.