Ozbow

Although I received a reasonably large supply of Osage for which I was grateful it has been a nightmare trying to find a reasonably straight knot free piece to make a bow. Eventually I settled on a section of split log that could yield a piece fifty five inches long. With correct orientation of the bow the knots should not pose any significant problems.

Close and erratic growth rings made it virtually impossible to isolate a specific ring and as my drawknife was virtually useless on this stave I used a spoke shave and sandpaper to bring up the back. The log gave up a stave that showed some deflex and the slightest hint of reflex. To reduce tip to string angle I decided to steam some recurve into the tips. A slight propeller twist in the stave threw the recurved tips out of alignment so dry heat was applied outboard of the fades to allow the twist to be removed. Rudimentary nocks have been cut in and will be cleaned up in the final stages. The bows tiller looks quite good on the tiller board so I won’t make any adjustments until it has been fitted with the correct length string and the limbs have been exercised.

More details and photos to follow shortly.

Daryl.

Be watching this with interest Daryl.

love your work. Love that yellow wood. Define straight when talking OO.

Kevin

It would be a good idea to back this one with rawhide due to the thin latewood near the back. Thin rings like to pop even on a bow that lasts through tillering and shoot in.
Hamish.

Very nice Modoc style bow there Darryl. I agree with Hamish about applying backing, albeit the Modocs and the West Coast Indians tended to use sinew backing. I have made long bows from violated Osage without backing and having wafer thin growth rings that did not break. But even so, I would err on the side of caution with a short bow I think.

The rawhide I have used was kangaroo which I bought from Packer's at Petrie just north of Brisbane. It is thin enough to be translucent and its yellowish colour would go well against Osage I should think.

Just a note on early- and latewood - latewood is the denser summer growth wood and usually lighter in colour than earlywood which is the darker powdery stuff between which starts with spring and the tree coming out of winter hibernation. Latewood is called that because it grows later (summer) in the tree's growth cycle each year.

Very interesting, looking forward to the next instalment. Wonderful

Yes, very interesting. It looks like it will have some serious poundage too. As always, your work is inspirational Daryl.

Cheers... Rod

Thank you for your interest;

longbowinfected wrote:Define straight when talking OO.

Kevin, this is not straight. Hamish and Dennis,

I had planed to back the bow with sinew but if I cannot source quality sinew I will opt for rawhide. I have some white Japanese jockey silk that goes transparent when used with PVA glues but silk would not be authentic for this style of bow.

Whilst at the Barambah Trad Bash I saw a half billet of Osage that was gun barrel straight, displayed excellent growth rings and was very heavy for its dimensions.

On a scale of 1 to 10 with the above being 10, I would rate my Osage as 1.

The stave was tillered by eye so I was quite pleased when I braced the bow; I won’t do any further tillering until the bow has been backed. The bow is asymmetrical. Early string tension is good although I believe the bow will be restricted to about a 25” draw length.

Rod,

I post these bow projects in the hope that it will motivate people to have a go. If one wishes to be resourceful material costs are a minor issue and bows can be fashioned with basic hand tools.

Daryl.

I saw that stave as well, someone is very lucky!

WOW is all I can say. Daryl, it is amazing what you have done with that stave . Kudos x 10 for your skills and determination.

The almost finished bow looks great, I hope you can find some quality sinew to do it justice (as planned).

Cheers... Rod

Jeeez thats an excellent looking bow!!...tiller looks spot on!, certainty dont look asymmetrical ...just finished up a lil osage paddle bow myself, 2 layers of sinew on the back and just a tad shorter than yours
.... 13" OAL draws 8#@7"

Very Nice Daryl, I love shorty Osage bows. I agree the rings don't look ideal. Asian grocery suppliers online have Deer Tendons.
Nice bow CMoore, welldone. Cheers Steve

Apologies to Daryl for going off-topic below. That really is a ripper of a little bow Daryl. There are quite a few of the US websites selling sinew as backing including 3Rivers.

CMoore,

I once made this Osage bow for a mate's 2yo son. They still have it. That was about 20+ years ago now. It has a 6 strand Flemish laid string and those little arrows without filights could pass through both sides of a plastic bucket from 10m without slowing down. I think it was 10lb @ 12". Dad is holding it too high and stressing the upper limb too much.

I had planed to back the bow with sinew but if I cannot source quality sinew I will opt for rawhide. I have some white Japanese jockey silk that goes transparent when used with PVA glues but silk would not be authentic for this style of bow.

What exactly are you referring to when you mention quality sinew graybeard?, are you meaning back strap sinew as apposed to leg?, or did you want to chuck some endangered white rhino sinew on it?

Isn't it funny in that pic dennis posted that the kid is holding the bow better than the dad!

Back to the drawing board.

Whilst bracing the bow to fit a new string there was an almighty cracking sound and within a split second part of the upper limb had travelled about five metres towards the end of my workshop.

There was no warning of the impending disaster, the upper limb exploded and I had not reached brace height. Even if my tillering was not spot on I would not expect a limb to fail in this manner.

I doubt if any form of backing on this style of bow would have prevented this type of failure.

The next project will be a flat bow from Osage out of the same batch and backed with pole bamboo.

As they say a picture is worth a thousand words.

Daryl.

the joys of all wood bows Hey? Feel your pain Daryl, but cant offer anything constructive as to the where's and why's of such a spectacular implosion.

bigbob wrote:the joys of all wood bows Hey? Feel your pain Daryl, but cant offer anything constructive as to the where's and why's of such a spectacular implosion.

Poor early to late wood ratio in the growth rings coupled with thin rings makes it hard to pre tiller before backing. Sorry to see it fail daryl, it was looking good. Steve

Dear oh, dear! That is a pretty spectacular break. However, harking back to your early comments about finding it very difficult to follow a single growth ring on the back, you may have the answer there.

I have made Osage ELBs using close grained stuff with the same problem, but they survived only because they were backed with good rawhide and of course, I doubt very much that there would have been anything like the tension load on their backs because of their length.

I can say with some seriousness now that the wider the growthrings are in Osage, the better it will shoot and the stronger it is. The more the growth rings, the lighter the stave ususally is and weaker. The good growth rings are the light coloured summer growth or late wood. Those are the ones which should be on the back. It doesn't seem to matter how wide the spring growth or earlywood is, so long as it is not on the back. The most spectacular performing Osage bows I have ever made for myself were made with very wide latewood.

That very heavy billet/stave you mentioned above sounds like it could be of the right stuff. If you reproduced the same bow using wide latewood stuff, you would barely have a limb of one or two growthrings and they shoot like blazes. The minimum of latewood I would now use after all my Osage bows is 1/16", but preferably 1/8" or wider. Good stuff hefts like a lead pipe and when properly dry has a very nice ring to it when tapped.

So it just doesn't happen to me!!!!!!!!!
With all respect grey beard, It just goes to show it happens to the most experienced of us!!!!
Poo happens...........
look forward to the next one buddy.

It is very disappointing that this bow did not make the grade but unfortunately this outcome is a part and parcel of making selfbows. Not having used Osage before I did not know what to expect.

I do not believe that tiller was a contributing factor in the bows demise and I am trying to determine if the limbs were too thick for the bows length.

One interesting point with the failure is that the timber on the back of the bow cracked in a straight line and at almost 90˚ to the centre line.

On the positive side I have gained some knowledge as to the properties [good and bad] in Osage. The remaining Osage stock will be used in bows of a lower stress design and backed with pole bamboo.

Hopefully this particular Osage will be able to handle the compression forces exerted by the bamboo.

If and when I find some suitable Osage I will definitely try this bow design again.

Daryl.

My condolences
The only thing I can contribute is a similar experience I've had when heat bending osage whilst recurving tips, I clamped down the very tip to my work bench & pushed down on the rest of the bow hanging off the bench, think I pushed her down too hard & fast and literally saw the timber open up and tear like a zipper, it tore open so cleanly that the growth ring underneath was still intact and like in your case the fracture was 90 degrees.
My guess is that it's too much tension for that poor lil growth ring to handle and it just stretches apart

When recurving tips I allow a bit of extra time in the steamer so that when pulling the stave down in the form the timber bends like cooked spaghetti.

Although steaming is a slower process I prefer to use steam to dry heat wherever possible.

Daryl.

Daryl, I feel your pain. You have the skills and the experience, all we need to get you is some decent osage, and you would have a beauty of a bow.
Hamish.

Hamish wrote:You have the skills and the experience, all we need to get you is some decent osage, and you would have a beauty of a bow.

Hamish, I am a patient person, eventually some Osage will turn up.

In the meantime I have a heap of Brigalow billets to process and a couple of red ash logs in the drying stages.

Bow stocks are depleted so I need to make another three or four 'recipe' bows.

Daryl.