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osage stave coloration.

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Eric Krewson:
The red billet was noticeably weaker wood but I tillered the limbs to be even. That said, this is one of just a few of the osage bows that I have made that wimp out after about 25 shots and have noticeably less cast. For the first few shots the bow is as good as I have ever made, very quick, as the limbs get mushy my arrows become over spined and starting hitting to the left. I heat treated the limbs to try to correct this loss of performance but it didn't work.

Selfbowman:
Eric I have built lots of Osage bows that was thicker on one end. Being the same width and length.Cant remember which end the rings was thicker on. But when the rings change in thickness from end to end this happened. I assure it was due to more early wood vs late wood.making the limb with more early wood thicker.

Eric Krewson:
Nope, exactly the same early to late ring structure on both billets end to end, that is why I thought they were a match,

Selfbowman:
I speaking to a one piece stave. Just an  observation.

Eric Krewson:
That is why I prefer billets, I probably have 10 staves in my stash that have a perfect early wood late wood ratio on one end with 1/4" rings, the other end of the stave has grain so tight as to make chasing a ring a chore. I have probably made twice as many billet bows as stave bows, I love sister billets.

The bad thing is; I once had all of these marked and matched, most are sister billets, after shuffling them around, moving and the darkening of the osage I can't tell what is what anymore. I should have marked them with a very bold sharpie instead of a pencil and ballpoint pen.

I started out with just a few that were easy to keep track of, the few grew into hundreds and I lost track. This is all that I have left, I think there are about 30 billets in the pile.

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