Osage bow for 33 inch draw

[RyanY]

Nice thing about longer bows is that their bend radius is bigger so it’ll be thicker as well which should be helpful for not needing it to be terribly wide.

[sleek]

Inch, and a half at the fades to 1/2 inch at the tips flat bow style is what I have to work with, and a good amount of sinew. The stave is 68 inches long, and clean but ,for one small knot on the back. I was thinking 2 layers of sinew. Thanks for your input guys.

At 1.5 wide, id recommend roughly deflex out the fade till the tips are 2.5 inches below the back. Then reflex until the tips are even with the back of the handle. Add in recurves that put 3 inches above the back. A bow of that shape should allow a bow roughly 62 inches long to pull 33 with no problem. Maybe even 60 inches long but unless you have experience in a bow of this style, I'd go with 62 long.

[bownarra]

Still pushing it in my opinion. Yes you could make a bow to those dimensions but the belly won't like you for it. the fastest bows are the ones with appropriate strain at full draw and the freshest belly after getting there.

[bassman211]

Sleek I under stand what you are saying. Nice to know that short bows will take that long of a draw. With half inch knocks it will be 67 inches long if I can pull it off. For him that is a short enough bow. His nick name is high tower. Bownarra how much sinew? I mostly use one layer, but it seems to me I would need more for this bow. Thanks for your input guys.

[Selfbowman]

Still pushing it in my opinion. Yes you could make a bow to those dimensions but the belly won't like you for it. the fastest bows are the ones with appropriate strain at full draw and the freshest belly after getting there.

I agree!!!

[Selfbowman]

Use all that stave you can!!!

[Badger]

  I have made a lot of long draw bows just for fun and they are mushy as hell, once you start tillering and they start to take set you are done wherever that happens to be.

[Selfbowman]

I ve built some 90-100 # bows for flight. One boo backed Osage , one complex composite boo backed boo core horn belly. They broke records at 28-29” . They blew at 32-33 inches 67-69” long 10” handles. The Osage bows of that weight just took set.   just saying.

[bradsmith2010]

Ok I made a 64 inch bow just to see at 32 inches of draw it was shooting in the high 170's,, I didnt put much reflex in, it was about even,, it had two layers of sinew,, but it was shooth and easy to shoot,, it was bend in handle,, narrow profile,,
I usually dont make long draw bows, but there had been several post, and I just wanted to see what it would do,,
power stroke and all that blah blah blah,,

what Badger said,, if its taking set,, extending the draw is usually just a wash,,

[sleek]

Sleek I under stand what you are saying. Nice to know that short bows will take that long of a draw. With half inch knocks it will be 67 inches long if I can pull it off. For him that is a short enough bow. His nick name is high tower. Bownarra how much sinew? I mostly use one layer, but it seems to me I would need more for this bow. Thanks for your input guys.

At 67 inches long, you should have no problem. Just do your recurves to a degree that allows a 90° string angle at full draw. Also, deflex the fades to bring your recurves flush with the back of the handle, then reflex the mid and outer limbs to bring the recurves about 3 inches above the back. That will allow for some reflex to pull out and still maintain a good 1.5 inches reflex for a nice fast bow. And by the way, all that doesn't take into account using sinew. I don't think you need it if the stave is good

[bassman211]

Thanks for your input everybody. I have one more important question.  The bow he made is a nice clean piece of Osage 66 inches long. His fades are weak, and his outer 1/3 limbs are wide , thick, and heavy. As a result the bow has 3  to 4 inches of set on the bottom limb ,and 2 inches on the top limb, and is bad out of tiller. Skinny handle with terrible hand shock. I was thinking of putting the bow back on a 4 inch reflex form, and giving it a super heat treat after correcting the outer 1/3 of both limbs to make it a better bow. He didn't heat treat the bow when he made it. In the past I have improved  some  bows using this method.

[sleek]

Do your heat treat first, then correct the tiller. And yes, you can awaken the bow with the corrections you suggest here.

[bassman211]

Thanks Sleek.

[Flntknp17]

One other thing to take into account for limbs that long is to make SURE the tips are as sleek and light as you can possibly make them, or the bow will have excess vibration.  I made a 70" stiff handle osage selfbow for a friend with a true 32" draw and it came out just fine.  No issues at all other than having to extend my tillering tree beyond what it was built for!  Also, use some sort of hard tip overlay like horn or micarta or bone so that you can safely use a fastflight (or even better D97/450+) bowstring material.  Strings that long in B50/B55/B500 stretch a lot and aren't as pleasant.

Matt

[bassman211]

I use tiny  tips on my bows, and D97, 652x, or BCYX for string material. Right now he is shooting 14 strands of B55. The build seminar had him tillering ,and shooting a fully twisted 20 strand B50 string, and testing the bow  with wood arrows.