Main Discussion Area > HowTo's and Build-a-longs
Character Osage Build - Now a Takedown - Finished!
riarcher:
I've got to watch this!
I've never made a bow, thinking about it.
I'll bet there'll be tons for newbies like me to learn on following this.
Already tons of questions, But betting you'll be answering most if I just watch and learn.
Thanks to all you bowyers for taking time and posting these build alongs.
gstoneberg:
I finished the bow's back today. There are 3 challenges in this stave. First, the character bend itself is troubling because of how hard the wood is. It will be right in the main bending part of the limb and I'm worried it'll fail there. Second, there is a crack coming out of that bend which was completely through the stave back to belly. I have it removed from the bend section but it goes right down the center of the limb. Third, there are 2 wood borer damage spots in the straight end of the stave that are going to be in the bow's back. Here are current pictures.
The weather damage:
Borer damage:
A small knot:
I marked where the center of the stave (and the handle) is:
This is the stave's current look:
George
medicinewheel:
This looks incredible already! - hope you'll succeed, this is the most demanding stave I remember seeing...
HatchA:
--- Quote from: medicinewheel on March 08, 2010, 03:16:57 am ---This looks incredible already!
--- End quote ---
Agreed!! Hard to believe it came from the limb in the original pic's.
Best of luck with the rest of it, man.
gstoneberg:
Thanks guys. If this stave makes a bow it'll be a miracle. I didn't get much done today. It seems I'm doing everything out of sequence in this bow because I'm so skeptical that it'll actually work. I layed out the bows' basic shape and cut the limbs down to 1 1/2" in width (except for the handle which is still wider so I can clamp it in the vise). I narrowed the tips a little, but will do much more later. Then I worked the crooked limb to see if I could start to get a bend. Here's what it looks like now:
It looks to me like all the darker wood will need to be removed. I got it to bend just a little against the floor and it popped a ring loose on the belly. There's just a little left through the bend but there's quite a bit at each end of the bend. I'm most concerned with the outboard end of the bend. I'm afraid I'll be close to a hinge by the time I get the dark wood out. I did leave the limb a little bit wider there. I'm going to use the sanding drum to remove wood in that spot because it splits out so bad with the draw knife. That limb is the most difficult to run the draw knife on I've seen. It wants to dig in no matter which direction I go. Sure makes it tricky. That weathering crack is annoying. i'm afraid I'll have to let that crack be in the fade out where there will be no bending. That means there's quite a long non-bending fade-out off the handle in that limb. I'll also have to leave the handle a little wider than normal to keep the crack from running out the edge of the handle. This bow will probably get a wrapped cord handle to add some strength. O well, the wood dictates...
George
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