What attributes make for a sweet shooting osage bow?

[Mick Smith]

I had the pleasure recently, at the Ballarat trad shoot, of checking out some impressive osage orange self bows first hand. What really made these bows impressive to me, was the way they performed. I was very impressed with the way they shot relatively heavy arrows with incredible speed.

Over the last few years I have been dabbling with my osage selfbow. I have written about it a couple of times, here on Ozbow. There's even a few old photos of it here ... http://www.ozbow.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.p ... ilit=osage

As you can see, I had a few problems and not the least of which was the hinge that developed in the bottom limb. I have done a lot to eliminate this hinge, but it's still there, though it's nowhere near as bad now. The bow is always a 'work in progress', as I'm never completely satisfied with it.

This dissatisfaction has grown considerably since the Ballarat Trad shoot. My bow is clunky and inefficient when compared to the two osage bows that I saw in action at Ballarat. Off hand, I can see some striking differences between my bow and the ones I'm referring to. Mine has a relatively large clunky riser in comparison. Mine also has fairly wide tips in comparison. It's a bit like comparing a draft horse with a thoroughbred. My osage bow shoots alright, but it's a slow bow. With heavy 11/32'' POC arrows with 160 grain points, it has a point on range of just 30 metres. It's draw weight is pretty close to 45lb, but I haven't actually measured it.

I'm thinking, I need to thin down the tips to get them working more. They need to go from about 3/4'' wide to about 1/2'' wide in the last 8 inches or so. I'm also thinking that I need to made the riser smaller and shorter to increase the working length of the limbs. My tillering isn't perfect either, as the hinge needs to be completely eliminated, before it's going to be anywhere near as efficient as I would like.

So, I'm hoping to pick the brains of a few of the more experienced bowyers here, for your opinions about what makes one bow special and another like mine.

[Hamish]

Hi Mick, The tips should be thinned, even down to 3/8" if you feel confident enough. Try this incrementally, eg deepen the nocks evenly, narrow tip width to 5/8", then go to 1/2" etc. making sure the string is still tracking down the centreline. Tiller will change slightly.
You still want the last foot or less to be pretty stiff, but as physically light as possible, most of the bend in the mid limbs, then getting stiffer back towards the fades. Set of an unstrung bow is a good guide to see where the limbs are doing most of the work.

A tiller tree with a grid is also great because you can asses the bend of one limb to the other accurately.. With a naked eye a naturally crooked limb it can be easy to fool yourself what the limbs are actually doing, individually and in relation to each other.
The handle doesn't look too chunky, as long as it feels comfortable I wouldn't modify it much.

Be cautious and slow, it will be mostly finesse stuff, nothing too radical.
Hamish

[Mick Smith]

Hi Hamish. Thanks for the good advice. I'll thin the tips as you have suggested. I will also pinch my wife's cutting board she uses when cutting up fabric for sewing. It has an excellent grid pattern that will be perfect for tillering purposes. I'll have to wait until she's out shopping or something first though.

I will certainly take my time, removing just a little wood at a time, along with frequent testing.

I'm also determined to commence another osage bow in the near future. Hopefully the next one will be better.

[greybeard]

I was very impressed with the way they shot relatively heavy arrows with incredible speed.

Can you put a number on incredible speed?

Hi Mick,

People tend to over build selfbows to lessen the chance of the bow failing. One trap however is making the bow longer but in reality it is de tuning the bow; slowing it down by adding limb mass and reducing limb tip travel.

Whilst people hold on to these attitudes they will always end up with an over weight under performing bow.

I believe there is a ratio between the n to n length and draw length for optimum performance but I can’t put an exact number on it. Different limb cross sections will require a different ratio. Timber selection should also be considered.

The old rule of double the draw length plus twenty percent probably builds in a margin of safety.

If you want performance you need to use a bow design that uses minimal timber and pushes the timber to its limits. As always there will be trade offs such as stability or the bow failing in spectacular fashion.

With regards to your bow if the hinge was not corrected before the bow was taken to full draw and shooting arrows it may now be a permanent weak spot which could be beyond redemption.

Quote; “I removed heaps of timber from the belly of one limb and barely any from the other in the tillering process. I ended up with one thick limb and one skinny limb, but the tiller was reasonable in the end.”

Quote; “The top limb is only half as thick as the bottom one.”

Although the tiller may have looked reasonable having limbs of a different mass would make limb timing virtually impossible thus resulting in increased hand shock.

Quote; “You might wonder why the different in the limbs? Well, the bow is composed of two billets, which are spliced together in the middle. The limbs don't match up too well though.”

Whoever spliced the billets obviously did not know what they were doing.

For consistency I only splice billets that are cut as twins.

As the difference in limb mass cannot be successfully resolved I would use the bow as a wall hanging and channel my efforts into a new bow.

Daryl.

[Mick Smith]

You're not just a pretty face are you Daryl? You know a thing or two about bows.

No, I can't put a figure on my 'incredible speed' claim, but I can tell a fast arrow when I see it. It's even more obvious at longer distances, as the mid range trajectory is noticeably lower.

What you have said about minimal builds being more efficient, but at the expense of possibly being more likely to spectacularly fail, certainly rings true and it stands to reason. I would classify the bows that I saw at Ballarat as fitting into this category.

I am certain that my osage bow is now almost totally worthless. The hinge in the lower limb has made it so. It does represent a permanent weak spot that cannot be rectified. I removed a lot of timber from stronger sections of the lower limb in an effort to minimise the hinge, which in turn meant that I had to remove a lot of timber from the upper limb to compensate. I have ended up with a bow that has a draw weight of less than 40# (an estimate), which still has a noticeable hinge at full draw. What's more the hinge has now taken a set which makes the bow look and feel even more unbalanced.

I totally agree with your statement that the person (whoever that was) who spliced these two mismatched pieces of osage together had absolutely no idea about what constitutes a reasonable osage bow, or simply didn't care. Mismatching the limbs to such a degree made finishing this bow almost impossible and totally impossible for someone like me, who is sadly lacking in experience in these matters. It might as well have been made of two totally different timbers.

I have put my experiences with this bow down as a learning experience. I know, in my own mind, that if the bow was made from two billets of the same timber as the top limb, it would be a great bow right now. As a part of this learning experience, I still went ahead and trimmed down the tips. I did this first, before working on the hinge. It had only a very small affect on the draw weight, from what I could tell. The bow is now leaning in the corner of my shed, where it will slowly gather dust.

Everything thing you've said Daryl, has been spot on. I do intend to make another bow. Hopefully I will be more successful with my next one. This is why I started this particular thread, I was looking more for guidance on how best to go about making a better bow from scratch. It's a pity that osage is usually so hard to come by, as well as being an expensive timber to buy.

[longbow steve]

Hi Mick, have you got a pick of the hinge? I am happy to pike (shorten the limbs) heat treat it and re tiller it if you want to try to save it and pick up some weight. Or someone else may like to offer the same. Cheers Steve

[Mick Smith]

Hi Steve. That's a kind offer mate, but I very much doubt if you could do much with it, but who knows? Heat treatment might work to a degree, but you would still be lumbered with the different nature of the timber between the limbs. The upper limb is from a small diameter branch and it comes up with that brilliant yellow colour when sanded, but the lower limb must be from a much larger trunk or branch. The lower limb doesn't change colour when sanded, it remains the orange brown colour. The two limbs are like chalk and cheese.

At this stage, I'm thinking that the only way to salvage the bow would be to find a billet of osage that matches the top limb and then either splice or sleeve the two pieces together, discarding the offending bottom limb completely.

You're more than welcome to take the bow and do whatever you want with it. Perhaps, if you can get it working satisfactorily, you could donate it to a club or something worthwhile.

I don't know what you mean when you refer to 'a pick of the hinge'. I'm not much of a bowyer, I'm afraid.

[longbow steve]

Sorry, picture of the hinge. Steve

[Mick Smith]

Sorry, picture of the hinge. Steve

Oh, a photo. Doh!

I'm just charging up my camera Steve. If it's charged before dark, I'll get some photos up.

[longbow steve]

Cool Look forward to it

[Mick Smith]

Okay, here's some photos. Please bear in mind, the bow isn't anywhere near in tiller at the moment. I have removed a lot of timber from the left limb in an effort to minimise the hinge, but I haven't removed enough timber from the right hand limb to counter it as yet. I would be very interested to hear everyone's opinion.

[Stickbow Hunter]

Mid limb of the left limb is still too stiff IMO. It needs work there. I suggested that in my post in your first thread along with narrowing the tips also.

Jeff

[longbow steve]

Yeah what Jeff said about mid limb and I also don't see anything that is not savable. Steve

[Mick Smith]

Yes, I agree with you Jeff. I have removed quite a lot of timber from the mid section of the left/lower limb already. I have also removed quite a bit of timber from the fadeout, just above the hinge. If the hinge is to be minimised further, more material will need to be removed from the mid section for sure. It's not like I didn't take head of your advice. I did. The hinge also appears to have become more pronounced with usage, which seems to have negated some previous work.

The trouble is, the left/lower limb is already a piece of spaghetti in comparison to the right/upper limb and I don't think it's worth the effort to even attempt to eliminate the hinge entirely, if that's even possible, if this means I'm left with a very light draw weight bow. This is why I haven't removed much material from the right/upper limb as yet.

The right/upper limb is currently overpowering the left/lower limb by a far margin, as far as I can see. I'm happy with the right/upper limb. If I proceed with this bow, I will probably end up cutting the bow in half, below the hand grip and I will then discard the defective left/lower limb and retain the right limb and attach a newly made left limb by means of a takedown sleeve. That is, if I can find a suitable matching billet for it.

This thread wasn't really meant to be about how to deal with my current osage bow with its mismatched limbs, but it seems to have gone down that road anyway.

[Mick Smith]

Yeah what Jeff said about mid limb and I also don't see anything that is not savable. Steve

It probably is savable Steve, but what sort of a draw weight would it end up having? It's less than 40# now, I'd say. By the time the left limb is hinge free and the right limb is tillered to match it, it might have a draw weight of only 30# or less and if that's the case, and I think it probably would be, the bow wouldn't be of any use to me.

Perhaps I have it all wrong. It wouldn't be the first time that's happened.

[Mick Smith]

I did a bit more work on the bow this morning. I removed heaps of wood from the middle section on the left limb and I removed a lot of material from the right limb in an effort to get the bow in tiller. It has lost a lot of draw weight, but it's a slightly better bow to shoot, with less hand vibration.

I might try to heat treat the hinge on the left limb, which has now taken a permanent set. This might go a long way towards making the bow look better tillered. If this is successful, I might lop an inch or two off the tips of both limbs in an effort to bring the poundage back up.

If it fails, so be it.

[Stickbow Hunter]

That has certainly made a big difference Mick. The heat treatment may help but the hinge may have done permanent damage but one of the other fellas may have a better idea on this than me. I do think the heat treatment is definitely worth a try though.

Jeff

[longbow steve]

Looks a lot better Mick, Heat treat into 3 " of reflex with veg oil and a heat gun spending 30 minutes to an hour on each limb working from the outside in until the osage plasticizes. You will see when that happens. Allow it to re hydrate for 3-4 days then check the tiller. You stand to gain a few pounds per inch you shorten it and up to 10 pounds dependant on how much reflex it holds when shot in. You can heat treat a few times if needed but careful not to do to much that it cracks the wood. Steve

[greybeard]

Hi Mick,

Before you start your next Osage bow it may be beneficial to check out the bows of the North American Indians.
You will notice that virtually all their bows worked through the handle. Dimensions, mainly length will need to be increased to accommodate a longer draw.
Rigid handles were probably a European modification to enable a more comfortable grip and arrow shelf.

The following video clip may give you some ideas. You will notice that the bow works through the handle and displays an elliptical tiller.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xdiiwO4UUc

You may also enjoy a short read regarding the history of Osage in America.

http://mdc.mo.gov/conmag/1995/11/enduri ... ?page=full

Daryl.

[GrahameA]

Hi Daryl

... Rigid handles were probably a European modification to enable a more comfortable grip and arrow shelf. ...

WRT Rigid handles. The first I am aware of are in the Burgundian medieval bows which also featured noticeable recurve. I would suggest that those designs were probably a design improvement that originated with the saracen bows of the crusade.



St Ursula Shrine Martyrdom - scene 6 by Hans Memling. circa 1489

Note the recurved limbs and the stiffened handle section.

Compare to this bow, which was painted by the same artist, which can be seen bending through the handle.

[greybeard]

... Rigid handles were probably a European modification to enable a more comfortable grip and arrow shelf. ...

WRT Rigid handles. The first I am aware of are in the Burgundian medieval bows which also featured noticeable recurve. I would suggest that those designs were probably a design improvement that originated with the saracen bows of the crusade.

Grahame,

I do apologize if my post was a little vague. My reference was to the bows of the North American Indians.

With regards to the rigid handle the comment was more in line with the Howard Hill style handle as evident on Micks bow.

I would not place too much faith in the accuracy of the painting as the proportions leave something to be desired. Judging by the limb thickness the bow would have an extremely heavy draw weight.

Daryl.

[GrahameA]

Hi Daryl

... I would not place too much faith in the accuracy of the painting as the proportions leave something to be desired. Judging by the limb thickness the bow would have an extremely heavy draw weight. ...

I am never that certain regarding apparent dimension. However, I have a little mor faith in the painters either getting the shape approximately correct or otherwise wildly inaccurate.

WRT the North America. Yes, I concur.

[Mick Smith]

Thanks for those two links Daryl. The making of Indian type osage bows must be popular in the States. I've been keeping a close watch on the osage staves that come up on US ebay. There's usually about a dozen or so on the go at any one time. A high proportion of them are far too short for most rigid handled bows. A lot of the staves are about 60 inches or less long. The prices are very reasonable at about $50 ea. It's the $100+ shipping that's the killer from the States.

It's interesting that you mentioned the bulky handle on my bow. It's something I intend to have a little play with down the track. Seeing as I will have to refinish the bow anyway, presuming that I don't completely stuff it up beforehand, I will make the handle much smaller. It will still be a rigid handle, just minimalistic. I doubt if I would build any future bows with such a bulky riser. I'm currently treating my current bow as a learning tool. If I happen to end up with a usable bow at the end of it, it will be a pleasant surprise.

I have managed to get my hands on a heat gun, so I plan to attack that set that has developed in the hinge tomorrow. Regardless of the outcome, hopefully I will have learnt something.

[greybeard]

A high proportion of them are far too short for most rigid handled bows. A lot of the staves are about 60 inches or less long. The prices are very reasonable at about $50 ea. It's the $100+ shipping that's the killer from the States.

Hi Mick,

Although the Indians had bows exceeding 60” i.e. Wampanoag [Sudbury] bow many bows were between 32” and 55”. Recurving tips, reflexing limbs and sinew backing appears to have been extensively used in these shorter bows.

The links below are for an Osage bow made with a rigid handle and circular tillering.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpPnlYj5NPc Part 1: Backing an Osage Stave

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XyJ14yeEnI Part 2: Layout & Roughing out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CaRB1sHVdw Part 3: Tillering

The last five minutes of part 3 shows what I consider to be an overbuilt bow with bad fadeouts.

Compare the limb action of this bow to the elliptically tillered work through the handle Al Herrin bow.

With the bow at full draw the string to limb angle is at least 90 degrees.

Osage Bow On Tiller Stick.jpg (50.58 KiB) Viewed 6087 times

Daryl.

[Hamish]

Hey Mick, You've got her looking pretty good now. It looks like the right hand limb should be weakened a bit more, so the top limb isn't doing too much work. I usually go by relative set in an unstrung bow. When its even, or the top limb has taken 1/4" or so more set.

Please post pic's of the bow unstrung, and also side on drawn3/4 to full with an arrow, square to the camera.
Heat treat and mild reflex like Steve says will do wonders for an osage bow, raise the poundage 5-10lbs. If that's not enough a couple of courses of sinew should do the trick.
Hamish.

[GrahameA]

Morning Mick.

What attributes make for a sweet shooting osage bow?

So what have you decided the attributes are?

From my point of view There are a number of things I seek but at the top of the list are:

* Minimal 'shock' - stable shooting platform. Bow that 'jump' about when shot are horrible, such bows often show poor dynamic and static tiller.

* Relative high bow efficiency at 10 gns/lb coupled with dimensional stability. Good design and implementation will give good Bow efficiency, which in turn will give a high arrow velocity for a given weight and at the same time you do not want the bow developing a set or distorting.

* No finger pinch or stack at nominated draw length. Finger pinch and stack leads to poor accuracy on the part of the archery, both are undesirable characteristics detracting from the objects purpose.

[Mick Smith]

Hi Grahame.

You've covered most of the attributes of what physically makes a bow nice to shoot. Greybeard, in his imitable way, seems to have cracked the puzzle to a large extent, IMO, when he said that a bow needs to be built in a way where all the unnecessary timber is removed, leaving the bare bones of what is needed to make that bow shoot excellently. All unnecessary timber just serves to slow the bow down and to make it heavier. Greybeard also pointed out that there seems to be a link between the overall best nock to nock length of a bow for any given build and its efficiency. He believes, and I agree, that most bows are overbuilt and that includes the overall length. People tend to be too cautious and build in too much of a safety factor and as such, fail to build a 'sweet shooting bow'.

Things you have mentioned certainly come into it. Any bow that imparts hand shock or jarring isn't going to qualify. Good design is mandatory to achieve a sweet shooting bow. I believe good design includes a minimal handle, as the handle does nothing other than add unnecessary weight and length to a bow. More good design attributes include a comparatively short overall length, very narrow and minimal tips which remain narrow for as long as possible, reducing weight in this crucial area, which equals added arrow speed. A quality build, with excellent tillering, go without saying.

Timber selection also comes into it. Osage Orange isn't all the same, not by a long shot. In my very limited experience with my own bow, I have found that it varies considerably. For my next bow, I would much prefer a stave that came from a limb that was about 5 inches in diameter. The osage would have very close and tight growth rings and it would display that extreme yellow hue when freshly worked. Finally the stave would be as free of defects such as twist, knots, and free of excessive 'wobble' in the grain pattern as possible.

I don't have the experience to be able to be absolutely certain of how to make the best possible osage bow. My views are more like inklings, rather than certainties. I do know, the osage bows that I have seen that shoot very well, have all looked very minimal.

Compared to almost all other bows, osage bows tend to have an organic quality that I love. To a large extent, the timber dictates how the bow should be built, not the designer. Each and every osage bow will be different and unique. It will have lumps and bumps and wiggly bits. In a word, they have 'character'.

[Mick Smith]

Hey Mick, You've got her looking pretty good now. It looks like the right hand limb should be weakened a bit more, so the top limb isn't doing too much work. I usually go by relative set in an unstrung bow. When its even, or the top limb has taken 1/4" or so more set.

Please post pic's of the bow unstrung, and also side on drawn3/4 to full with an arrow, square to the camera.
Heat treat and mild reflex like Steve says will do wonders for an osage bow, raise the poundage 5-10lbs. If that's not enough a couple of courses of sinew should do the trick.
Hamish.

Hi Hamish.

Just for the moment, I have left the right hand limb until I've had a play around with trying to heat treat the hinge. It's possible that if I can straighten out the set the bow has, in the hinge area, it will have the effect of strengthening the left limb, which in turn might make the bow appear better tillered. Of course it might not make any difference at all, in which case I will remove timber from the right limb in an effort to get the bow as well tillered as possible.

The tips on my bow already have a reasonable amount of reflex. I believe the supplier of the stave applied the reflex. When I received the stave second hand, the tips were already thinned down to a thickness of about 1/2'' and the reflex was already apparent. The reflex was about 2 inches, but it's now about 1 inch after some use.

I had a few shots of the bow last night before dark. I accidently strung the bow up side down and decided to see what it would be like. It seemed to shoot considerably better that way, with the slightly weaker limb at the top.

I will take the photos that you have requested and post them up shortly.

[Mick Smith]

I almost forgot. I've got a little pointer for those people who might be considering using heat treatment to change the profile of their osage orange bows. Don't try to use those 'gripper' type clamps. You know the ones, they don't have a thread, they rely on leverage and friction to achieve results. They have plastic clamps which can't withstand the heat.

I will now have to wait until I'm next in town, where I plan to buy some 'real' clamps.

[GrahameA]

Hi Mick.

... ... that most bows are overbuilt ....

I am not so sure about that. There are few areas that material could be removed without affecting how the bow performs.

You can remove material from non-working recurves which will lower the mass at the limb extremes and in return provide a faster limb. However, only a small percentage of bows have non-working recurves. Another area is the rigid handle/riser you can remove material which will decrease the overall mass however why are they/were they made so large in the first place?

I would suggest that the design/performance should determine what it looks like. The old saying of form follows function.

... and that includes the overall length.

I am very guilty of building longer bows and am happy to take the decrease in performance in return for other characteristics. As an example - Longer bows are not subjected to the level of stress/strain that shorter bows are and thus have a longer life. I am not willing to sacrifice bow life for more performance - I am willing to invest more in better /stronger materials.

... a minimal handle, as the handle does nothing other than add unnecessary weight and length to a bow. More good design attributes include a comparatively short overall length, very narrow and minimal tips which remain narrow for as long as possible, reducing weight in this crucial area, which equals added arrow speed.

Shortening a bow may give issues with stacking and finger pinch. So the desired performance may come at the cost of other items. However, they can be addressed by a better design it that option is available. The same story for tips. They can be made small however there are issues - it is not as easy as it seems. Making them smaller and you start to see whip-ending appear and as they get smaller their torsional rigidity decreases.

... Osage Orange isn't all the same ... .... osage bows tend to have an organic quality ... ...they have 'character'.

Osage is not high on my list of timbers. For all the things that it has - and I do appreciate its character - I am unwilling to work with a timber that can be a "pain" to work with as it twists and turns.

IMHO I suggest that people decide what characteristics they want to have, choose a known design that has those inherent characteristics and try to improve them.

As an example

If one seeks a (traditional) short bow with high performance it is hard to go past the Korean bow, The downside is the the skill level and the time to make one is high and long.

At the other end of the spectrum a simple longbow/flatbow is much easier to make.

Add a bit of steaming and recurving ups the performance.

That can be extended in that the recurving can be made greater and you get the side benefit that you can make the N2N shorter without stack and finger pinch.

However, the gains in performance come at the cost in the skill level to make them increases, the time/effort increases and often the 'demanded' quality of the material increases.