Here's a bow that I made from a piece of endgrain osage 1/4" thick, then backed with 1/8" hickory and added a 10" purpleheart handle riser. There are antler tip overlays and then faced with alligator tail from the back rather than the belly for that nice raised look. This bow is 54" overall, 52" NTN, 2" wide at the fades tapering down to 5/8" at the tips. The handle is 1 1/8" wide and wrapped with black cowhide leather and accented with red artificial sinew. I also wrapped in between each scale for added strength.
I had to flatten the bottom of each scale on the belt sander since they are really dense boney plates. This took about 2hrs for each limb because I had to take my time and not sand through the skin that connects each plate. Once everything was laminated together and tillered out, I stained the remaining hickory a dark fuscia to accent the naturally black scales and whitetail tip overlays. She pulls 32# @ 20". I've have pulled this bow to 23" but she feels more comfortable at 20" and flings an 20" 5/16" arrow with some decent speed. Those bony plates caused a little stiffening about midlimb on both sides, But they don't affect the performance as of yet. Not sure if I'm going to sell, trade, or give this bow to the Mrs. yet. (She really wants this bow in a bad way!!
) Either way, I'm going to shoot her for awhile since there are some squirrels in the attic that need to be evicted!
Hope you guys enjoy the pics.
