Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: yazoo on January 12, 2009, 02:29:30 pm
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everyone says earlywood to latewood ratio is the most important thing, but a bow with only ring on the limb is no good, if you only have one ring on the limb , its a 100% latewood is that not the best ratio we can get?
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Bows I have made from very wide ring osage lacked performance.
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By having 2 or more rings in your limbs they work against each other to increase the resistance to bend and add to the springiness of their recovery. Pat
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what if performance is not our number one goal, I deal with mostly new bow makers,there number one consern as well as mine, is the bow dont break, I have had many first time bowerys get caught up in performance, break there bows and never try another, I have lots of new bow guys get caught up in making the worlds fasest bow that they forget the , number one rule in bow makin is it dont break,
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You asked if a one ring osage bow was as good as osage could get. The answer is no, lack of performance, lots of string follow and real mushy feeling limbs. I doubt if any of these students you say you have have would choose this type of bow over a good solid osage bow with a normal ring configuration. Durability of any properly made osage bow shouldn't be an issue.
I have taught a bunch of people to make bows and their only concern was to make a bow that shot and arrow from point A to point B. High performance was never even brought up by any of my students, beginner or advanced. If a student expressed an interest in achieving a certain FPS out of their first bow I would bring them down to earth with the reality of all wood bows immediately, fortunately none has.
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I did not say it was as good as osage gets,, I said the ratio of earlywood to latewood was as good as it gets,
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Usually very fat ringed osage is less dense. You simply have to make the bow design (mostly width) fit the stave you have. I don't know if a single ringed osage bow would be inherently inferior. I simply don't know. But I find it hard to imagine such a bow could be crafted, as I see very few staves with rings more than 1/2" thick, which might be the minimum I could imagine for a typical bow. Generally folks consider the more dense wood "better." I tend to take it as it comes, and don't find a great deal of diff if the design and crafting are optimum.
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i prefer my osage rings to be 3/16-1/4" in thickness, i even have a couple of blanks with 3/8" rings. the limbs on my last static recurve are mostly one ring thick with a partial ring down the belly. it is a super fast shooter with very little set. i have not noticed any lack of performance with any of the thick ringed bows i've built. as to my experience with selfbow making, i've made somewhere between 50-75 osage selfbows so my experience may be limited compared to some bowyers. i have not noticed any draw backs to using thick ringed osage. the draw backs to thin rings are the possibility of the back ring failing in tension more so than a thick ring. about the only differing characteristics to the performance of osage that i've seen is in the color. i've noticed lighter colored osage does not perform as good as the darker osage. everyone who knows me has seen what i do to thin ringed osage. of course, all this is just my opinion from what i've experienced. ;D
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That's the thing about osage, so much variation from one tree to the next. My thick ringed(1/2" plus) osage bows have been dogs so I tend to seek a middle of the road ring configuration. Who knows, I might have some really thick ring stuff in my stash that has rocket launcher potential. It hasn't surfaced yet but could most definitely be out there.
The first ten years of my bow making journey had me cutting osage like a man possessed. When I croak, miss Glenda will probably have a huge bonfire to get rid of all that osage I never quite worked my way through. I have that much stored, no exaggeration, every kind, the good, bad and the ugly.
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I take each osage stave as it comes. They all are different and in most cases make good bows if the proper design is considered at set up time. I have made excellent bows from very thin ringed osage(30 or more to the inch) but I usually add a rawhide backing to these. "Shere Khan" is a good example. I have made good bows from light colored osage. Most of it is physically light but I have used some that was quite heavy. Darker colored osage generally is physically heavy and makes good bow wood but some of it is almost worthless as it is an indication of rot.
I'm working on 3 different bows now and one has relatively thin rings, one has average rings and one has fairly thick rings. When I'm done I will compare the differences. Pat
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the dark reddish streaks in osage can be a bad sign. i've had bows explode, fail, or take a great deal of set because of the red. the red inclusions do make for a nice looking piece of wood. wish i could find some osage burl or good "crotch" osage with red streaks. if any of ya'll osage cutters out there run across some, let me know. i've been looking for some twisted grain osage for years.
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Chris, look along that fence row that we cut the osage from. There was some pretty gnarly stuff there. When you do go there cut me some of that dead standing stuff that is hard as nails...about 1" or 2" diameter will do. ;D Pat
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Yazoo, wouldn't teaching new bowyers to chase a ring be a big factor in bow building. I agree thicker rings would be better for a beginner but I still say learning to chase a ring is a big part of bow building. Most of my stash is thin ringed and that is what I prefer. I am by no means a veteran bowyer, but all of my Osage bows are still shooting. If you have a one ring bow, I'd love to see it, most of mine have 10- 15 rings.
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i've been meaning to stop and check out the fence row again. i found some big osage across the road there last year. i just haven't had time to go back and cut it. one tree is about 10-12" in diameter and is pipe straight for about 8'. it'll probably be thin ringed stuff with red streaks in it like the other we cut. i've got a piece of osage like you want in my firewood pile at the farm. i've been thinking of cutting into it to see if it would make some good scales.
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Well guys, I treated Yazoo poorly thinking he might be a troll. My mistake and a big one at that. He is actually Mike McGuire, probably the premier osage stave dealer in the country. He has handled more osage and produced more quality staves than anyone else around.
My humble apologies Mike.
By the way Mike, I grew up in Norris Tn just across the Cumberland Plateau from where you live.
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hey okie 1 I will post a photo of a one ring bow very soon, I will try to bring one to the tennessee classic ,
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I have cut quite a bit of Osage myself the last few years. The problem with cutting good Osage is you don't know how it is going to be until after it is down. So we get what we cut. You guys out there who have made a-lot of Osage bows it would be nice if you could show a pic of a cross section of an Osage staves growth rings that you consider top Osage wood. I personally have talked and shown several top Bowyers Osage and I must admit everybody has a different liking when it comes to Osage ring structure. It would help a-lot of the young bowyers who are wanting to tackle a Osage bow. I have several cross sections of Osage I will try and put on here and we can have a discussion on what we should be looking for in a good Osage stave. Dean
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I talk about the thick ringed osage a lot , but I have staves from half inch rings to 1 mm thick, In my line of work it pays to have every kind,I have been selling staves since 87 It always amazes me to watch people pick through my staves,what one person tosses aside the next guy along will grab first, one guys trash is a nothers treasure, I study the bark before I cut a osage, with enough practice you can tell a lot by the bark, you want a real healthy looking bark, the bark that tends to be rusty in color and you can rub from the tree with your hand usually no good, when in doubt cut a small notch from a corner of the tree and look at the rings before you cut the tree down,
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it's like what's better, ford or chevy? each to his own.
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it's like what's better, ford or chevy? each to his own.
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Amen ta that !........bob
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I've been studying the bark on my Osage patch also and just when I thought I had it figured out ... Bam, I was wrong again. The staves that I have seasoned, some of them have a coarser bark than others and the coarser ones have wider rings. So I go out a couple of weeks ago and find a coarse barked Osage and cut it down and it has thinner rings, about 20 per inch. The ones I have cured are about 10 per inch. The smoother barked ones are about 30 per inch. So I guess that throws that theory out.
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Hey Yazoo,
Did you have a booth at the Kentucky Klassic? If that was your booth there you really had some good looking staves, bow blanks and hickory back bow kits. Are you going to be set up at the Tennessee Klassic?
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yes that was my booth, I will be at tn classic
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What an interesting thought! I really don't have the luxury of a choice though. LOL. Jawge
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Its all good. I like thick and thin ringed wood but some of the most dense osage I've ever seen was very thin ringed and had the red streaks you speak of.....it seemed to be very waxy/oily, heavy, dense, wood and heat bent and held reflex like a champ.
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One thing about osage is a pronounced tension side is typical. Very rarely is the tension wood even the same thickness as the compression wood (the opposite side), and is frequently 1/2 the thickness. Now this wood was all laid down at the same time, in the same conditions. Just seem logical that he tension side, being thinner but having the same amount of "wood" in it must be more dense. In this case the tension side is just about where that saw cut runs out, 10 o'clock. Seems darker perhaps, too. Notice the end check that runs perty much perpendicular to the saw cut. Bust that muther right there, liberate the middle third of that 1/2, you go reflex like a big dog. And for a lot of people that's the only stave, in this case it's nice and flat and could well yield 2 or 3, on the tree worth foolin' with. Myself, I use it all. The other 2 sides will have dogleg. Mike etal. I'm sure will set me straight, but that's been my experience.
(http://home.comcast.net/~dcm4/Old%20Bow%20Stuff/ot1.JPG)
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Where I come from any osage is good osage. Cause we aint got us no osage at all.Ron
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The micro-ringed stave i got from Phil has a true FORTY RINGS PER INCH over most of the length, dropping to THIRTY FIVE PER INCH in the other parts. Dang......i've about decided not to get the microscope out to chase any one ring, but just try to minimize the number of violations and the rawhide the back. I'd like to try a 1/4 thick ring structure sometime.
piper
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From an engineering perspective, a one-ring bow should handle bending stresses in a more predictable manner. Therefore, it should be a better bow all around. When you have weak areas in a material (like growth rings) the material is unpredictable under stress.
I've had mixed results with osage. You really don't know what you've got until you start working with it, as some have already mentioned.
:)
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I just like osage period. Thick ringed means you don't have to pay as much attention when chasing but thin rings are ok too. The thing I noticed with one I have that has 1/16-1/8 rings is the tips sure look cool from the side because of all the rings. I personally love it when I cut and the rings are in the 1/8-2/8 size and evenly spaced. Just makes for a nice symetry in the way it looks finished. I am still a very novice bowyer. As far as performance goes I just want it to be smooth, balanced,durable and fast enough, ya know, not sluggish. As long as it is zippy and smooth I'm a happy camper. If I was going to use my deductive reasoning I would figure that a strong late growth and thin early growth would make for good density. I would think that if there is more early growth, thats the punky stuff and would make for less density. These are all just semi educated guesses of course. What do you guys think? Danny
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I'm by no means as experienced as some of the other guys on here. But of the 20 or so osage bows I've made... It was the thinner ringed stuff that has held the most reflex and made the fastest shooters.
Don't get me wrong. I like it all. Thick, thin and anything in between ;D
I'm finishing up one now that has rings about half as thick as a dime, with lots of early wood, but It's holding over 3" of reflex and is the fastest bow I've ever made. ???
If I could choose. I would prefer between 1/16" to 3/16" for the late wood.