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osage/hickory reflexed short bow

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radius:
Hi, I have had a great time working on this little sucker...making it at the same time as the two board bows in my other thread.  It's not done yet...at the moment it's curing on the reflex form.  I have to say hickory is superior to bamboo in terms of ease of use and application.


















The reflex form has 3 inches total reflex over 66 inches...this bow is just a hair shy of 43 inches long!  so the reflex put into it will be around 1.75 to 2 inches.  This time I just used yellow glue for the glue up.  I'm not going for anything mega with this bow, so I didn't want to waste my epoxy and my time.  After all,  a guy's gotta do more with his time than just make bows!

radius:
Ok, it's the next day and the bow has been sanded to shape, a string sent down the center, and tip overlays of osage added on.  Notice that the grain of the hickory is PRIMO, PERFECT...God, if it were always this easy!





This is at about 15" draw...

Pat B:
I think that your handle is gonna pop off when you draw this bow. You can see the handle area bending when you pull it to 15".    If it does pop off try adding 3 thin(about 1/8") pieces of graduating lengths. This type seems to bend a bit and may stay on better.
   This is going to be a nice little bow. Looking forward to the finished product.      Pat

radius:
Pat,

Thanks for the advice and the encouragement.  But I wasn't even going to thicken up the handle.  Not with wood anyway.  I see John Strunk sometimes uses an insole for padding around handles, under the leather, and I thought I would do something like that.   After all, this is a small bow:  it doesn't need a big handle...

That being said, it is a stiff little sucker!  I can see why osage is called Bow-wood.  I have a french-canadian friend who had never heard of bois d'arc:  when I told her that I had some, she had to come over and see it.  I don't think she was as impressed as I am!

radius:
Next step:  trim down the tip overlays, reduce the width of the limbs (the last 12" or so) and set it back up on the tiller stick.







You can see that there is a bit of gappage here.  My mistake in rounding over the handle before putting on the backing.  I will have the sand that down to a clear line before I 'm  done.



In these 2 pictures, the bow is drawn to 13".  The string is 1 inch longer than the bow, so, 44 inches.  The pressure was considerable, to get it into place.  How far do you guys think a short bow like this should max out, at full draw?  20 inches or so?  18?  Is there a formula, like, max draw length equals 1/2 bow length?  Or something like that?  Boy, when I first imagined this bow, I thought it would be a kids bow.  But it is STRONG.  Yikes!

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