I've been slowly experimenting with ways to make good pieces of wood go farther whenever I can get my hands on them, and this particular piece of osage is really really nice wood. It was a 66" x 8" x 5/4 and I ripped it into 5 staves @ 66" x 1.5" x 5/4....but I was hoping I could double up and rip the 5/4 pieces into two staves each, so I started playing with the powerlam length to see how it turned out. I am sure others have done this way before me, and in a far more skillful manner, but it has been fun. This bow is the most recent iteration of the experiments (number 3 from that board), and has a 22" powerlam, a full 9" longer than my last effort. This long powerlam profoundly affected the shape of the glued up Perry reflex, and the thickness of the osage in the inner third of the working portion of the limb. This bow finished 51#@27", has a couple inches of just-unbraced reflex, and lost zero reflex during tillering. It is the quickest and one of the quietest bows I have made so far on my board bow journey. The bamboo is dyed with leather dye dissolved in acetone and finished with satin poly. Handle woods are padauk and red oak. I wish I had used something prettier than the oak, but I wasn't really sure this bow would survive with the aggressive reflex and long powerlam. Should be very stable and stiff though. Tips are made from a buffalo horn dog chew toy. Limbs are 1.5" pyramid taper to 5/16" tips.
Matt
