This bow was made by a new friend of mine, his name is Johnathan. I met him in January threw a mutual friend. (Outbackbob48)
Johnathan had seen the osage self bow that I helped Bob make last winter and decided he had to have one of his own. Well he knew where there was a few osage tree's not far from his house and he went and got the land owners permission to cut one. He brought me a pile of staves that he a Bob had split out of the log he cut, but they were all pretty rough. Thin growth rings, lots of knots and limbs and about as twisty and gnarly a log as I've ever seen. On top of all that the log had no sapwood at all just heart wood which really puzzled me. I've never seen that before and may never again. Anyways to make a long story short I picked out the best looking piece of wood he had and helped him lay out the shape of a bow on it. This was a far cry from a good selection for a beginner to learn on. It had about three different planes to the limbs a natural set back handle area with punky knots, deflexed limbs with a big dog leg side bend on one side. Some how he managed to chase a ring on the bow even with the paper thin rings. I told him we'd get a shooter out of it but I wasn't expecting much. Anyways He brought it over to the house after he had it roughed out and floor tillered and we strapped it to my form which reflexes and straightens at the same time. With a heat gun we slowly worked every thing into place and to my surprise it came off the form straight and holding all the reflex off the form. This piece of wood held every bit of heat correction we put to it. It didn't even spring back at all off the form.....what a weird piece of wood...? Any how I'll get to the point. I'm very impressed with the job he did on this bow, he is very artistic and he's hooked on bow making hard now. Watch out for this guy, boys. I expect great things from him......Congrats on a beautiful first bow Johnathan!
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