well I saw this guy shooting on utube( jeff Kavanagh),,and thought wow it would be great to see him shoot a wood bow,,
I contacted him and he was all in to try one out,, the pressure was on,, whew,,
I had the stave I had been looking at for about 10 years,, it was too long for the shorter bows I was shooting,,, and to nice to cut,,but would be perfect for Jeffer and his 29 1/2 inch draw,,it had just been waiting for the right bow,,
between working and trying to make the bow as best I could it took me a while to get it done,, and I reallly want to give credit to you guys and some of the best bow makers in the world that post here,, I have learned alot from the collective knowledge and advice that goes on here every day,, thank you,,,
Mother nature really designed the bow,, I made it as wide and long as the stave would permit,, kept is bending even and it turned out nice,, very nice cast and beautiful to look at,, the stave really did not have any flaws for an osage,, a couple of pin knots close to the edge, but I felt the deer hide made them a non issue,,
the deer hide is from a deer I shot season before last and you can see the exit hole on the handle,, just for good luck,,I wrapped it around the edge becasue of the pin knots,, I put a hair on strike plate to make it silent on the draw and fur silencers to make it deadly quite for hunting,,
the bow draws a bit more than 50 at 29 1 /2,, it is 69 nock to nock 1 3/4 wide at the widest ,, and will shoot a wide range of arrow spine and weights,, is is not picky,,
so I sent several arrows to Jeff for him to try,, they all shot good for me,, I knew his release would be different than mine so wanted a range of arrows for him to try,,
I wanted this bow to be very stable and not shift when I sent it out,, I let it sweat every time I worked on it.. leaving it braceed for 4 or 5 hours at a time,, the stave had natural reflex and I wanted that to settle in when I had the bow and could make adjustments in tiller,, it ended up with close to 2 inches of reflex when shot in,,I was pleased,,
I tillered out the bow to 24 inches before putting the rawhide on,, and shot it through the chrono with no backing at that draw,, it was 53# at 24 inches and shooting a 486 grain arrow 167fps,, ok I was pleased and felt I was on the right track for tiller with the bow shooting nice cast at the shorter 24 inch draw,, I wrote beadman and he felt it was doing good at that point,, and pretty much guessed what the bow would shoot at the full draw,, that was even more pressure,, to try to get the bow to shoot what he had quessed,,
I put the rawhide on and waited about a week and the bow had lost bout 4 #s,, guess I did not wait long enough,, I hoped I had not hurt the bow pulling it to full draw with the moisture content to high,,
after waiting a few more days the bow weighed just like before putting on the rawhide,, so I was ok,,I hoped,,, I got the bow tillered out to about 52# at 27 inches and it shot 505 grain arrow 170 fps,, I was very happy with that ,,even though the bow was fresh ,, I felt it was an indicator that the bow at nearly 30 inches would have very nice cast,, so far so good,, the next day I shot the bow at 28 inches and the bow was about 55#, ,the first shot was 181 fps 512 grain arrow,,, I thought it was a misread,, but all following shots were the high 170s to 180,, it was shooting nice,, I took weight off and stretched the bow to nearly 30inches,, I did not shoot it through the chrono anymore,, I was happy with the way the bow shot and left it at that,,
the tiller looks funky,, the perfect looking stave had some waves and dips reflex and deflex when I got the bow going and that is reflected in the funky tiller,, I followed my own advice and kept the taper even as possible and let the way the bow shot be the final indicator for me,, the unbraced profile assured me the bow was bending pretty even, the reflex on the top limb was a bit tricky,, making the braced profile seem a bit weak on the bottom limb, but at full draw the top was a bit weaker,,,, here she is,,
bow for Jeffer,, he just got the bow today, so hope to get a report on how it shoots for him soon,,
