Bows with all the bells and whistles (gifts for my friends)

[bradsmith2010]

those are some beautiful starts, I can see some great looking bows in there

[JonW]

Lookin good bud.

[George Tsoukalas]

Good start, rich! I am enjoying the show. Jawge

[PaulN/KS]

Those are looking pretty fine Sir.
But dang, 65#... 70#... 
My poor old shoulder aches just reading those draw weights. 

[half eye]

Paul,   I hear ya man, I am not going to be able to shoot these in for them.....they are a couple of "full growed" men so in a way it's sort of cool that I can make a few heavy hunting bows. My own is gonna be between 50 and 55.

Don and Jon I hope these come out even close to what my vision for them is

Thanks George....just because I dont usually choose to make 'em fancy doesn't mean that I can't....but we will see in the end.

Thanks for the encouragement fellas, but really, it aint over till the fat lady sings so we will see.
rich

[burchett.donald]

Rich,
          Looks awesome, I feel like a kid at Christmas...That's going to be one awesome Seneca...
                                                                                                                                                Don
                                                                                                 

[Spotted Dog]

Hey Rich,
gonna be beauts . I gotta get to where I can do more.   Sure wish I was your friend

[Stixnstones]

Dang Rich, youve made more bows in the past month than i've done in 2 years. Your a machine.

[turtle]

Wow!! Thems gonna be some sweet bows. I wish I had even half your energy at building bows and a quarter of your talent.

[half eye]

Thank you for the encouragement fellas....Turtle, I seen your bows mine aint got a damned thing on yours at all....Stix, just an old man lookin to keep the cabin fever from setting in

Well fellas, since I got to wait on the bearings to get here thought I would work on my Penobnscott. My bows are all short and all about 50-55 in weight so I can cut them pretty close right off the band saw. That means I can hand tool mine right away. The wood is Osage, main bow is 50" overall, with a 28" back bow. The back bow will only be 25" between the knocks but I wanted some extra carving material for the fineals.
    First I wanted to straighten out the bows to get the bend arcs in a straight line so I steamed both bows and straightened them laterally. I took pictures of the bows next to a straight edge so you can see what got done....then a pic next to the straight edge afterward and also one with the bows set on top of each other to show the lineal alignment.
    Then I tillered out both bows ( the back bow may need to have some weight taken off) The main bow is right at 50@25 but the backbow is still real stout. Thats as far as I got today and tomorrow I will set the final reflex for the back bow. I'm leaving the bow tips straight like the "early" versions for 2 reasons. First I really like the looks especially in the braced and full draw profiles.....and second, the bow is plenty short to hunt with as is so I dont need to shorten up it's draw space.
    There is a picture of the bows on top of each other from the side so you can see the one whoopty-doo that I'm leaving and tiller around.....when ya look at the braced and draw disregard that for judging the bend....I expect the bow to be right....even with the dinger.

So tomorrow I hope to tie them together (temporarily) to judge the total draw weight....then I can proceed with the finishing touches...like carving etc.etc. so here are the pics ...more than one set
rich

[half eye]

more.....also a pic to show just how small this bow is.
rich

[BowEd]

This is a darn good post and idea half eye.I've got mentors I should send made bows to too.Just to show thank you for being there.

[lebhuntfish]

Looking really good Rich! Man you can sure crank one out!

Patrick

[burchett.donald]

 Rich,
          Looking at the braced pic and the full draw, everything is working on that short stick and looks very balanced in your hand...Told you yesterday on the phone that I was trying to incorporate the knee bending after and during floor tiller, you can feel the difference in the limbs and their balance early on...I was able to get that piece of OS bending and braced evenly without floor bending...With short bows this method works great...

[half eye]

First off, I'm glad ya like that Don....I agree and like it because you can literally feel the bend as well as see it. Glad it works for you also.

Well fellas here is today's effort. The first couple pics are where I clamped the back bow to the main bow to look at the two at both rest and brace to make sure I had enough movement area between them.
     Since I wanted to skin both bows, and they are quite skinny which makes "normal" carving fairly problematic for me......so after a little cogitation I decide they would look good with Onieda style belly scallops. Since the backbow was a tad heavy I just dove into that without regard to loosing any weight. When it came to the main bow I wondered about the weight issue.....but ultimately decided I wanted to know how it looked more than any weight loss. So now both bows have belly scallops and flat backs for the skins. The main bow did loose 4# so I'm still on target.
     The only thing I'm not sure about is scalloping the snaky main bow and how that would look in a "wiggle" pattern but think that turned out good. So here are the pics....closing in on ready for skins, finish and strings...we will see    2 sets of pics
rich