Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Lehtis on December 10, 2019, 09:10:36 am
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Greetings from Finland. Few weeks ago I quickly finished this bow because of just to have something to do. Iīve splitted this stave from an Osage Orange log bought from Hungary a couple of years ago. The stave was about 1" deflexed. I just removed the bark and then tried to follow the grain while sawing out the bow by band saw. I left the white sapwood untouched, like in yew bows, smoothed the back and rounded the corners before rounding the belly. Some tillering, nocks and arrow pass from some hard wood, several layers of TruOil, Dacron string and the bow was ready to shoot. After test shooting the bow has some 2" string follow (easy to string) and measures 75 lbs @ 28". The length is 72" ntn.
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Some more pics...
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...and some more...
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Great job, some lovely character to that bow :)
Del
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Great job, some lovely character to that bow :)
Del
+1 Does Osage sapwood age like the heartwood or does it stay light?
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DC, I believe it stays relatively white.
Very nice osage ELB, Lethis. How do you like working osage?
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Congrats on Nice bow
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Looks like that was the first project on your new workbench. Good way to break-it-in! Great looking bow!
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Great work :OK
I love a Osage bow with the sapwood still on it.
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Thanks, guys!
Pat B, I do like osage as quite easy wood to handle. Also it’s not irritating eyes and breathing like many tropical harwoods, especially bulletwood (massaranduba).
Next trial will be something similar but as take down bow (carriage bow), hopefully ready in January. If I’m lucky with that, it’ll travel with me to Northern Ireland in March to compete in European Indoor Championships.
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Looks like a shooter. Im surprised all the time how Osage limbs bows perform even ones that a mostly sapwood. Nice work and bow.
Shawn~
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The story continues: This bow, originally sort of test project, has been shot few hundreds of arrows now. It worked fine but, because of plenty of deflex, it was lazy. Then I decided to continue and test my skills to convert it to takedown (carriage) bow. I glued 5 mm thick Osage slice on the handle back (10,5 cm), thinned the ends of the slice down to 1 mm and left the middle to 5 mm. After cutting the bow I fitted the take down sleeves and those slightly conical Osage pieces added some reflex at the handle area straightening the bow. Test shooting told that this added reflex also added plenty of pounds to the bow; at least I had to use more power to draw it to my anchor point compared to my other bows. Iīll measure the poundage later. Unfortunately I "succeeded" also to add some some bend to right, wrong direction for right handed shooting forcing the arrow pass too much left from center. Now the bow is clamped to table in my workshop until my next visit to my cottage to force the side bend away.
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Nice work! Good luck with the conversion, and also at the Indoors shoot!
Hawkdancer
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An update to my Osage ELB conversion to TD. I picked up the bow from my cottage and after taking these photos I tested itīs strength. Straightening the deflex by installation of the TD sleeves the bow got over 10 pounds more being now 86 lbs @ 28". Itīs final strength will be seen tomorrow after shooting some tens of arrows. According to my earlier experience itīs tiller will change a bit also because of the drawing point while shooting is lower than the drawing point on tiller device. This makes the lower limb bend more in real duty and balances the tiller a bit.
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Nice work,,,congrats,,beautiful bow
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Steel sleeves?
HH~
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Outer steel, inner brass. Total length 10 cm and depth of the handle 38 mm.
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After test shooting (230 points by 60 arrows from 20 yards on 40 cm IFAA target) the bow measured slightly over 85 lbs @ 28. Some practice needed until it feels comfortable to shoot compared to normally used 75-pounders. Now some TruOil and then leather handle on.
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Not to aweful bad for a selfbow on score.
Why shoot 80lbs at 18m indoor?
My best indoor selfbow score come from 30-35lb selfbow. My buddy shot his elm 68 other day i built him for a 281 on NFAA blue face. That bow is 44@28
That 3rd end looks good. I bet at 80lbs the 10-12 ends are extremely tough!!!
HH~
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HedgeHunter: Agreed, itīs goofy but because I can, I use it (to amaze my archery fellows on the shooting line). As said, Iīve been lately using usually ca. 75 lbs bows which work fine outdoors. I donīt want to use lower poundage indoors just to avoid shocking my muscles when going out again in the spring. At this age it takes time to recover, you know... and excercising with stronger bow makes shooting feel easy when going back to those "lighter" bows in competitions. Also, it looks that my arrows for my laminated 75 lbs wooden bows work fine with this slightly slower but stronger bow.
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I am 72 years old in a month. 75 and 80 lb. bows would put me under the knife real quick. I also shoot indoor with 35 lb. bows like HH. Lately 25, and 30 lb bows are feeling even better matched with the right arrow. In the end you are blessed to be able to shoot that high of poundage.
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65 in May and feels good to tease younger ones in competitions... Shot only once in veterans, all others in adult series, mostly historical bows but some modern longbows also.
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HedgeHunter: 281 / 300 is amazing with 60 arrows. Would be nice to meet this kind of guys in international competitions (or anywhere). Even with modern longbows current world record is 266 and in historical bow class 247 according to IFAA. My best excercise with my self bows, ELB, is 253 or so.