sidewinder buildalong

[ajooter]

The stave being 62 1/4" would it still yield a stiff handled bow? If so how long should I keep my fades?

[Stringman]

4" handle, 1 1/2" fades.

[ajooter]

That's what I was thinking stringman...ty

[Swampman]

Danny, here is a picture taken with better lighting (I am not sure it is any better though) The stave is 60 inches long and looks like it came from a tree trunk that was 4 to 5 inch diameter. I asked my son (who is not color blind) what color he thought it was and he called it a yellow-orange.  It is a pleasure to chase a ring on with those thick rings😀

[Blaflair2]

That's looks like mulberry to me. Won't be hard to chase a ring

[Aaron H]

Sure doesn't look like osage to me

[Sidewinder]

Im thinking its a piece of mulberry. I harvested some at a friends place 2yrs ago along with some BL. Mulberry rings are usually fat like that. Like I said sorry I didnt realize I sent you a mulberry stave. You can definitley get a good bow from ot

[Swampman]

Like I said Danny, I have never worked mulberry either. Glad you told me before I start showing everyone my new "osage bow" though. Since I have never worked osage or mulberry I may not have figured it out. 

People on this post will just have to allow 1 mulberry build along with all the other osage.

[Sidewinder]

Well I like your attitude and look forward to seeing your mulberry bow. It is pretty mulberry too.

[ajooter]

Well I started reducing the stave down to the thicker ring as suggested.  I have had to do it in stages as it is a lot of wood.  The bottom picture shows  a branch that may turn into a hole which I think would be cool but it may be to close to the edge of the limb.  Won't know till I start to lay out the bow though I suppose.

[Sidewinder]

Aaron, thats looking like your getting the back established nicely. I will sometime measure from the off side of the knot to see if I have enough width to reduce the stave from one side in order to eliminate edge knots and then lay out my center line with whats left of the narrower stave. As an example, if thats a 2 1/2 wide stave you can take 3/4 off from the knot side and eliminate it and still have a 1 3/4 to work with on your width layout. Just a thought on a way to deal with it. Obviously you have to consider the orientation of the other knots and what effects that will have on their placement as well, but its something to consider.

[ajooter]

I'm having to do the reduction in stages since the ring I'm chasing is a little deeper in the stave.   Those branches are hard to work around and I'm learning that my gooseneck scraper has become quite handy around pin knots.  I'm gonna try and get it cleaned up between tonight and tomorrow. 

[Blaflair2]

Looking good Arron.

[ajooter]

Well I worked around the first major branch and heres how far I got.  It's a real pain trying to clean up around that little peg that's left.  I saw Blackhawk make a bow with 'horns'.  What can I do with the branch if I don't want to leave it?  These are the next two knots I will be tackling.  They are very challenging to work around!!

[Sidewinder]

Wow Aaron thats looking good. Whats the belly side of that knot look like?