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All right, I’ve finally made it around to doing what I had intended to do when I posted the “how many bowyers” tread so long ago. If anyone’s interested in a snaky self bow build-along, pull up a chair. Lets see what we can do.
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[/img]We’ll start off with a seasoned piece of osage that I cut back in Alabama a few years ago. I’ve already taken the bark and sapwood off down to one growth ring. We’ll start hacking away tomorrow.
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Here’s something I forgot to mention earlier.
After I got the bark off I discovered these little SOB’s This piece of wood is riddled with holes but I think I’ll be able to lay the bow out to miss most of them. There will be one hole through the top limb. I haven’t figgured out how I’m gonna handle that one yet. We’ll just have to see when we get there.
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A hole through a limb isn’t necessarily a bad thing. When a hole forms from a small branch or knot rotting out while the tree is alive, the tree compensates for it by adding wood around the weak spot. You can see that in the pics below.
Unfortunately, the holes made by these little grubs are a different matter entirely. There’s no additional wood to compensate for the weakness so we’ll have to decide on something to fill them with. I’ve never tried this before so I’m not sure how it’ll work. I was thinking of mixing epoxy and osage shavings but I’m up for suggestions. I also thought of whittling a little peg and super-gluing it in place.
There will be several holes in the bow, but only one will be in the working part of the limb. O the suspense. Has this little hole doomed this project before it was even started? I guess we’ll find out.
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I didn’t get around to posting this yesterday, but I was able to draw a rough outline of the bow on the wood, split off the excess on one side of the stave, and drawknife down the sides pretty close to what the finished bow will look like straight on.
I start off by starting a hatchet at one end and driving it down with a hammer. This can be a rather risky thing to try as the split will often try to run into the stave(as we’ll see later). This piece of wood behaved remarkably well though. As you can see from the photo below I was able to split off a narrow piece that will one day make a fine kids bow.
After the excess was split off, I used a sharp draw knife to take the wood down to the line’s I’d drawn. A note on drawn lines – I usually draw an outline on the stave, but this is only a reference. The grain will dictate where the line should really be and you often won’t know that until you start in with the knife. If I go inside my line on one side, I just compensate by leaving a little extra on the opposite.
In the pic below, you can see a split trying to run into the stave and inside my line. From experience, I know that if I were to continue on with this split, it would curve over and angle into what will be the back of the bow (facing the camera)-(if that makes any since). If you’ve worked with osage much, you probably know what I’m saying. Anyway, I just backed the draw knife out and used a hatchet to take the split off before it ran any deeper. Easy fix if you catch it early.
Below is the stave after taking it down to the profile lines and smoothing it up with the draw knife.
You can see I’ve drawn the lines for taking wood off the belly side. Also you can see some back set:D This stave’s got about an inch and a half or so.
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Ok, now we’re gonna get something done. I had plenty of time today to work on this project.
Yesterday afternoon I whittled a small peg and superglued it into the one worm hole I was concerned with, then I cut it off and worked the limb like any other.
After getting it all cleaned up and semi smooth with the draw knife I started in with the scraper (I use an old sheath knife) to reduce the thickness a little at a time until the limbs started bending.
At this point I could just tiller the bow out and finish it off, but that’d be too easy. I’ve always been rather fond of curves so what the heck. Once the bow was floor tillered and bending fairly well, I greased the limb tips and put them(one at a time of course) in the oven to heat up. I usually heat the wood until it’s too hot to handle but be careful, it needs to be heated throughout, not just the outside. I grease the wood to cut down on losing any moisture that’s still in the wood, causing it to become brittle. Once the wood is hot and flexible, into the form it goes.
A little test after both tips are bent and everything is cooled.
Now I’ll cut in the knocks and we’re ready to start some serious tillering.
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Below are pics of the bow before and after bracing for the first time. You can see in the second pic that the limb to the right is bending more than the left one. There also appears to be a slight hing in the center of the right limb. The bow would probably pull 90 lbs at this point so we have plenty of room to remove wood and even things out.
This is a little better. I marked the hinge so I wouldn’t take off any more wood in that area, took a few scrapes off the strong limb and this is the result (first pic). It’s still way heavy so I took a little more wood of both limbs (second pic). Little at a time.
The top limb is a bit stiff so a few more scrapes off that one. A few minor adjustments, and an arrow shelf later and here you have it.
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