Osagebow Holmegaard-style

[Hillbilly]

Sweet! Good looking bow.

[comix]

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

Jep. Hope you'll taken 'em all with you... big car then you will need ...

[tom sawyer]

Very cool bow, that bark is a nice touch.  I can see the skinny tips, more modest than some people's versoin of the Holmegaard but I think the actual Holmegaaard was not so pronounced in this respect.  In any case you thinned the tips and left them stiff, this to me is the advantage of a Holmegaard.  And you worked with osage, which let you do a relatively short bow for additional cast.  Very nice job.

What sort of failure of wood did you experience?  Was it in the area that went from bending to non-bending in the area of the outer limb?  I've had trouble with that area on this design myself.

[AndrewS]

Hi Lennie, thanks for your compliment!

The problem was a crack running lenght from the side into the limb. After working down the limb to the dimensions of the bow you see, the crack was still there. So I insure the small limb (near the nock) with the wrapping of cherrybark.

[mamba]

Great looking bow Andrew.

[tpoof]

Very nice!
Thats a great design and that bark really gives it a cool look.

[Pat B]

Nice bow Andrew. I like the Holmsgaard style bows for their efficient design. I have made a few that shot well. In my corner of shame though I have a hickory backed ash that has a hinge where the limb narrows. This is a copy of one that Hillery did in a past PA magazine. One of these days I'll drag her out and do the necessary repair.
  I like your cherry bark accents. How is it as a handle wrap?     Pat

ps. Marius will be teasing you with all the bootie he's bringing home! 

[AndrewS]

Thanks guys!

Pat the cherry-bark handle feels good

P.S. I will see Marius next in 11 days on a tournament here in Germany. It is a long time of waiting

[George Tsoukalas]

Andrew, nice job. Great tiller. Jawge

[michbowguy]

thats a bow!
very nice my man, very nice.
you dont see too many like that anymore.
bravo
jamie

[AndrewS]

@Jamie
Thanks!

I am fascinated of cherry bark since I have seen my first bow backed with cherry bark. It was a yew longbow from John Strunk in the middle of the 90th. My first bow I backed with cherry bark was  build 5 or 6 years later - and I am still looking to find more of this stuff

[GregB]

Very nice bow Andrew, shows lots of skill and craftmanship! I have some wild cherry tops where I recently had some woods timbered. Never have attempted to use wild cherry for anything but firewood I'm afraid.

Please say hello to Marius for me, and check out the bow I gave him...it's the one that took "two deer", he'll know what you mean!

Oh, Justin probably hasn't had the chance to send the bows to him yet...

[Pat B]

Greg, The cherry that Andrew is using is different than our Black Cherry(Prunus serotina). The stuff I used was called choke cherry but I don't know the botanical name.Once that bark is scrubbed with steel wool it is hard, shiny and copper colored. Around here it only grows at high altitudes(5000') along the Blue Ridge Parkway and The National Park Service frown on folks harvesting stuff.    Pat