Osagebow Holmegaard-style

[AndrewS]

Hey, I wanna present you a bow I made of Osage. I like the Holmegaard bows and so this one is a Osage Holmegaard!!!
She is 63" NTN and pulls 49lbs @27". She is backed with cherrybark, the handle is cherrybarkwrapped and the last 4 inches to the tiny bone tips are also wrapped with cherrybark. She has obviously no stringfollow and she is a good shooter I think.

Hope you like her....

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[AndrewS]

More pics:


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[welch2]

Nice one I really like the look. Can you explain the bark collecting and appllying procees. I tried to wrap some nocks once with plum bark,and it didn't come out anything like that!

Ralph

[sagitarius boemoru]

More like regular flatbow to me (nice shape though). Why did you wrapped the bark on tips, when the purpose of this tip shape is actually to make them lighter?


Jaro

[AndrewS]

Hi,

welch 2
you have to harvest the bark around the tree. It works fine from a dead tree. Normally I put the bark flat between two boards so it can dry flat  but for wrapping a handle or the tips the bark dry in my shop without making anything. The bark then looks like a spiral but in this fact it is easier to apply around the handle or limb.

 I have cleaned the bark with a scraper and steel wool and then i glued the bark with epoxy (in this case, other glue will work fine also) around the wood. At the start I overlapp it a little bit and then clamp it for fixing the bark. I wrapped it around and fixed the end with a clamp also. Next day I remove the clamps and clean the bark with steel wool.

I finished this bow with  several coats of tung-oil.

sagitarius ...

or more a Mollegabet-design?
I had wrapped the bark around, cause there was failure in the wood of the upper limb that I want to secure. For optical reasons I had wrapped the other tips the same way.

[medicinewheel]

hi andrew!  -  really dig your bows!

for cherrybark i did the following: in winter, i looked for trees of wild cherry that had the sort of bark i want (for quivers in this case) and i did a cut in the bark alongside the stem. now that the trees are growing, they build new bark underneeth and throw the cut part off. checked it the other day and saw it works out this way!
 i learned that's how the indians did it.

frank

[welch2]

Frank;On a live tree without killing it? Just one cut all the way around ? and how deep did you cut?I got several cherry trees ,collecting bark without killing the tree sounds cool.

Ralph

[OldBow]

Nice Job on your new Holmgaard. Got you bookmarked for May! Self Bow of the Month.

[medicinewheel]

hi ralph! - not AROUND the tree; ALONG the tree for like 30" and not very deep. not even down to the wood!

frank

[AndrewS]

Hi Frank,
that way sounds cool. I will test it next time I look for cherrybark.

Hi Don,
thanks!

[medicinewheel]

i'll try to take pictures of it, soon.
 paperbirch can be harvested the same way i guess!

[DanaM]

Andrew do you all your bows have to be so damn nice
I love the look of the cherry bark gives the bow a natural camo effect.
Frank sounds like a good idea to me, will it work when the sap is up.

DanaM

[medicinewheel]

dana! - well i have not enough experience, but if you do it early in the year it should work; if not it'll probably come off next year!?
frank

[comix]

looks great... hope to see them all in real some day...

[AndrewS]

HI comix,

you mean in 2 weeks, when you say some day,eh?