osage stave

[luke the drifter]

i have the stave of a lifetime in my endeavour to build a bow, in my opinion.  my question if this and it may have been addressed in another topic somewhere else in the community,  i have thin rings on one end and thick rings on the other.  will this be an issue come tillering time?  is there anything i need to be on the lookout for before, during, and after the tillering?  this may be the piece of wood i have been waiting for, for a long time and i do not want to mess it up.

[gstoneberg]

I've seen that before too.  I select a good ring on one end and follow it to the other.  The tillering process will naturally take care of any differences in the the 2 limbs.  As long as you work to make the bow bend correctly it won't matter much whether the ring stays the same thickness or not.  I've spliced together billets with wildly varying ring thicknesses and the bow came out fine.  There may have been some difference in limb thickness, but not enough to notice.   I would like to see a picture of this stave.  My stave of a lifetime would be extremely snakey, but still have the handle and limb tips aligned and level.  I haven't found it yet.   Post lots of pictures.  Remember, at the end of the day it is just wood.  If you put too much pressure on yourself to be perfect it'll take some of the fun out of the process and that would be a shame.  Good luck.

George

[luke the drifter]

George,

i thank you for the encouragement.  i do have one other question tough.  the handle area when it lies flat in the tillering tree has the left limb four inches above horizontal and the right limb two inches below horizontal.  could i glue a piece of wood to the right side of the handle area in order to even the way the limbs are placed in the tillering tree before i start to tiller?  if this is not advisable,  is their another way to fix(?) this?  i am going to be honest with you.  i am not too proficient in dealing with photobucket.  i remember inquiring about uploading pictures directly to this community and not having to go through someone else but i forgot what they said.  then again i may be making way too much of my computer problems.

Luke

[gstoneberg]

Luke,

First the photo question.  When you're posting, there is an Additional Options pick to the lower left of the textbox.  If you click that there is a place to attach pictures.  There's a 200K limit to the photo file size.  I always size my photos to 640x480 to get the file size down before attaching them.  My HP printer software has a resize option that will do that.  I believe Microsoft Paint also will resize.

I'm not sure I understand your problem, a picture would really help.  Do the limbs come straight off the handle or is there reflex in one and deflex in the other?  Or, is the problem that the handle is so rounded that it can't sit level?  I don't use a tillering tree so I'm not sure I'm the best guy to help.  Just be careful not to let any part of the limbs touch the tree or your tiller will be affected.

George