Snakey osage Longbow-ish bow build...

[toomanyknots]

Man that is looking good, tiller looks great, question,do you plan on tip overlays ? Pretty scarry cutting across the back like that if your not. You are asking the wrong guy on tip flipping,I do on most all of mine,my answer is YES.
   Pappy

Thank ya Pappy! To answer your question, I plan to try some horn nocks on this guy. I do have to say though, I have never had any problems with self nocks like this, even on bows up to 110# @ 32" or so. Even on a 70" NTN or so 90# @ 26" hackberry.

That's looking good.  A bandsaw sure speeds the bowmaking process up doesn't it.

Thank ya Outlaw. Ha, I tried to rough out one honey suckle stave, very rough, and ended up going farther than I want instantly.  It will be a while till I get enough balls to use it on a stave again. (Need to get a good blade on it anyhow.) I am tempted to mill out some hackberry backings though,  .

Nice tiller, so busy looking at that I'd completely forgotten the snakiness!
Cool bow.
Del

Thank ya Del!

Nice tiller, so busy looking at that I'd completely forgotten the snakiness!
Cool bow.
Del

Me too Del!  I was so impressed with the tiller that I had to scroll back up to look at how snaky it is.   Cool looking bow.  I would flip them a little too.

Thank ya!

sleek, looks like it will be a great shooter for you. Nicely done. Jawge

Thank ya George!

[ionicmuffin]

amazing work! it looks great!

[k-hat]

Looks good, i've seen a few sapwood backed osage bows and i like the contrast.  Makes it resemble yew more.

As for your deflex spot being stiffer, well that's cuz you leave it extra thick (which means the rest of your limb is doing extra work, and being the lower is even more strained ).  While it is easy to make a hinge at a deflex spot, there's no reason you can't have it more uniform and bending with the rest of the bow.  However that doesn't mean you'll have a normal curve progression on your limb.  A limb that shows a deflex spot unbraced, and no deflex spot at brace/full draw isn't tillered correctly (or should i say, the strain is not distributed throughout the limb as in a limb with no deflex).  I see lot's of bows with the deflex "tillered out" in the full draw pic, but i  prefer to leave mine in and make it work (or heat it out all together).

My 2cents and i'm no expert.

[toomanyknots]

amazing work! it looks great!

Thank ya Ionicmuffin!

Looks good, i've seen a few sapwood backed osage bows and i like the contrast.  Makes it resemble yew more.

As for your deflex spot being stiffer, well that's cuz you leave it extra thick (which means the rest of your limb is doing extra work, and being the lower is even more strained ).  While it is easy to make a hinge at a deflex spot, there's no reason you can't have it more uniform and bending with the rest of the bow.  However that doesn't mean you'll have a normal curve progression on your limb.  A limb that shows a deflex spot unbraced, and no deflex spot at brace/full draw isn't tillered correctly (or should i say, the strain is not distributed throughout the limb as in a limb with no deflex).  I see lot's of bows with the deflex "tillered out" in the full draw pic, but i  prefer to leave mine in and make it work (or heat it out all together).

My 2cents and i'm no expert.

Thank ya Khat. I understand what your saying. I do feel it is important to work the stave according to the profile of the stave, and get the stave working evenly. But when it comes to small delfexed spots, I think it is easy to run into a hinge. I figure there is more than one way to go about it. When you factor everything in, in my eyes it's just not worth it to get everything working to the exact same degree, when dealing with a stave with a deflex. If I did that, I would end up with a strange looking braced profile, with what would appear to be extreme positive tiller, and a good deal of stack due to the deflexed limb bending more. I think it is like starting out with a hinge, and keeping it. I've tried doing that on a couple bows, and IMO it just doesn't usually work out for the best. Instead, when dealing with a stave like this or really any funky stave, I try to get the tiller to look good to the eye as much as possible, and typically it will pull balanced and perform just like it was straight to begin with, I really don't see a difference. You say that the strain is not distributed evenly, but why would you want the strain to be distributed evenly in the first place? So that the bow is stressed evenly and takes set evenly, resulting in a nice performing bow of course.  But if you make the deflexed spot work, and it takes set, the set it usually will take is huge, and that kills the bow, which kills performance. I don't know, thats just my experience,/2 cents. And I'm no expert either, and plus I'm probably half retarded too. 

[Cameroo]

Nice lookin bow, dude.

Everyone has their own way of working with staves that are less than perfect.  I think of these character bows as more of a piece of art than a bow, so saying that you should have done this or that differently would be no different than telling Picasso that he should have painted a face more symmetrically.  The fact is that you made something that shoots an arrow and looks pretty damn cool.

[k-hat]

Whoa now haus, wasn't necessarily saying he did it wrong, just saying that's not the only way.  Like you said, each has his own way of dealing with these, but i hope it's acceptable to discuss alternatives, ESPECIALLY for noobs that may be reading these threads from time to time.  i also hope that everyone who posts on here is open to, even expecting, constructive criticism.

[toomanyknots]

Nice lookin bow, dude.

Everyone has their own way of working with staves that are less than perfect.  I think of these character bows as more of a piece of art than a bow, so saying that you should have done this or that differently would be no different than telling Picasso that he should have painted a face more symmetrically.  The fact is that you made something that shoots an arrow and looks pretty damn cool.

Thank you  Cameroo. I appreciate the kind words. 

Whoa now haus, wasn't necessarily saying he did it wrong, just saying that's not the only way.  Like you said, each has his own way of dealing with these, but i hope it's acceptable to discuss alternatives, ESPECIALLY for noobs that may be reading these threads from time to time.  i also hope that everyone who posts on here is open to, even expecting, constructive criticism.

No worries here Khat, my ears are always open to any advice or criticism in any thread I post... maybe too open sometimes, where they go in one ear and out the other... maybe thats the problem,...   . Well I guess I have decided not to flip the tips, since I was thinking I would probably have to make some new tip flipper forms for this short of a bow, and I guess I was just feeling lazy. So I started putting the horn nocks on this time. I am going to try and do a better job on these nocks than the last time, and try to get rid of that "step" in the transition from wood to horn I had in the top nock. My wife bought me a file that is round on one side, and has a narrow point from a antique store for 6 bucks, and it works like new, and is great for getting the transition smooth without gouging the back of the bow in the process. I have been a bit busy, but sometime soon I should have some more pictures.

[SLIMBOB]

Very cool bow and nice tiller TMK.  Want to see this one when it's completo!

[Cameroo]

Whoa now haus, wasn't necessarily saying he did it wrong

I didn't mean it like that K-hat, and I wasn't referring to anyone in particular.  Of course everyone is free to offer advice and constructive criticism.  I'm just sayin, there are lots of ways to look at this, and none are more "right" than the other.  It's all good 

[k-hat]

 

Ya that horn/wood transition is a bugger.  Decided on my next i'm gonna get the horn as thin/finished as i can before i lay it on.  Lookn forward to seeing the finished product TMK

[toomanyknots]

Ok, finally got around to getting some more pictures of this bow uploaded. I am basically following Del's and Rod from paleoplanets advice on these horn nocks, so thank you guy's both for the knowledge needed to make these darn things!!,  . I used some horn tips I got from off the internet:





I used the 3/8" spade bit since the diameter at the tips of this light weight osage bow (in the 60"s NTN as well) is pretty narrow, and I think a 1/2" bit would drill way too deep for the diameter of this bow at the tips.





First, I took del's tip and put a piece of tape 6" from the nock for reference. (Never used to do this, clever tip, thank ya,  ) Than what I will do to decide where to start making the taper for the nock, is take a tooth pick and shove it into the horn, and mark how deep it goes. Than I take the horn, and hold it up to the tips so that the nock will fall where I want it to on the horn. This is basically what I used to do only, but the tape trick is alot smarter. Anyway, I mark the bottom of the horn nock when holding it where I want it, to where the nock will fall on the horn where I want it, than I take the tooth pick and mark how deep the wood needs to be to match the hole in the horn nock, so I know how much wood to remove and where to start the taper.







(Yes that tip has 3 nocks, your guess is as good as mine.)

Now I will rasp and file the tip to match the horn as closely as possible, and then because I am too lazy and sorry to make a sanding jig,  , I just shove a piece of sand paper into the horn and use that as a sanding jig. Than I will go back and forth between filing and sanding until I have a good fit with no play. It helps to have a nice wide file when doing this I find, preferably wider than the length of the taper, as a narrow file can make a curve which will not fit if your spade bit is straight like mine. Although, I guess if your spade bit is curved, it probably doesn't matter?

Sandpaper shove in the horn:





Sometimes I will tape it there so it doesn't move:





Once I have a good fit, I clean off the surfaces, and apply a good bit of gel super glue into the horn. I always make sure to get a good brand too, as some generic gel super glues have ended up failing on me. I will only use loctite anymore, and nothing else. I squish the glue filled horn on the tip, twist it around without pressing down, take it off and wipe off the glue with a damp rag, than put it back on, twist it around a little bit and hold it down tight. If I do this right, I will have just enough glue squeeze out to tell me I got enough glue, but not enough to soak the tip in glue. As always though, I do know too much glue is always better than not enough,  . I hold it in place for about 30 - 45 seconds and it should be good to go.

[toomanyknots]

The first thing I do when shaping em is use this small rounded wood rasp, which seems to work the horn great, to rough out the skirt of the nock:







Rod from paleoplanet pointed out to me how much of a step I left in one of my last nocks, which I agree with him is poor craftsmanship, and on heavier bows could probably get in the way when trying to slip on the string. I wasn't exactly sure what tool to use for getting rid of that step, without cutting into the bow. Luckily, my wife recently bought me a rounded pointed file that works great for doing just that. 





I use the rounded side turned upwards to get the skirt worked down, which works great since the file is thin and narrow on it's edge, so it is easy to keep from cutting into the wood. After than, I use the pointed part to smooth down the last bits of it to get a good transition. Hopefully these will turn out better.









Than I shape the rest of the nock with that wood rasp and files. I drilled a hole into this one with a small drill bit for a string keeper, which I think I will actually try out this time.





Bottom:



The nocks are cut first with a small rattail file, and than widened by wrapping some sandpaper around the rattail file. Lastly, I will clamp the tips in a vice and work down the shoulders of the wood right near the tips which were created when fitting the nocks, so it is a smooth taper.

[JW_Halverson]

Nice to see the detailed photos showing the steps, tmk.  Good work. Good education.

[toomanyknots]

Nice to see the detailed photos showing the steps, tmk.  Good work. Good education.

Heck, I am being as educated as you are the moment, just coping from (read: plagiarizing) Del's horn nock along,  .

[toomanyknots]

So after that, I sand the bow to 1000 grit, nocks and all, and then I sand only the limbs to 2500. I wanted to try a horn overlay arrow pass on this one, as inlays are still way beyond my level at the moment... or at least I need to grow a bigger pair before I try one out,  . But I have been overlaying horn arrow shelfs with a good deal of success, so I thought I would try an arrow pass the same way. At first I had some concern of the overlay coming off during draw if the handle bends too much, but it appears to be A - OK and doesn't wanna come off. I think I will doing these more often. First I took a slice of horn, sanded it flat on both sides, and sanded the shape that I wanted out. I sand it flat by sticking some tape to one side and running it across a big sanding block, or the flat side of my big farriers rasp. Than I take sandpaper, and tape it to the bow over the spot I will be gluing the arrow pass too. Then stick some tape again to the side of the arrow pass to be, and sand against the paper I taped to the bow, until the arrow pass contours itself to the curve of the bow. And then just take a tiny bit of loctite gel superglue and dab it on with a tooth pick. I spread it out even and make sure to remove extra glue, and then stick it to the bow. Any extra glue that squeezes out I clean up real quick with a tooth pick and a damp rag. 

















Next I buff the nocks. I used to use baking soda to buff horn, which worked ok, but nowhere near as good as a simple buffing wheel does. Once again, thank you del for pointing me to the light.  Only thing to add I guess is that I put some masking tape on the limbs just under the horn to keep from getting buffing compound on the limbs. I guess that probably goes without saying though... kinda like tying long hair up when using a hand drill goes without saying...



... Ok, after I took care of that situation, since the bow was already sanded to 2500 and was smoother than smooth, I will smooth it out even more by taking a smooth glass bottle, and burnishing the limbs. It really does not take much pressure to burnish at all when you sand to 1000 grit or more, it is more like just wiping on the shine. When I am done it will shine like glass.