A classic bow experiment

[osage outlaw]

Bowmo offered to make me a spoon from it. 

That wood was total junk.  No backing was going to turn it into a shooter. 

[JW_Halverson]

I saw that video on Facebook!  It didn't say this was ol' paper-rings, but I had my suspicions.  It's all good, it's all good. 

[Hamish]

You've got plenty of wood like this? Then you owe it to your inquisitive nature to try making one with a backing to see how it will go.
That is an experiment I'd like to see.
Like you said that one had plenty of "chalk" in it, even rawhide  and a more even tiller might not have saved it in the long run. A piece of bamboo or hickory I reckon you would go alright.

[Buckeye Guy]

Classic to much early growth ring break right there !
sorry I missed the explosion.

[osage outlaw]

No amount of backing would have turned this bow into something worth shooting.  Just because it is osage doesn't make it good bow wood.  It was 80% early growth.  Now if I can find one with the opposite ring structure, that will be interesting to experiment with. 

[Hamish]

No amount of backing would have turned this bow into something worth shooting.  Just because it is osage doesn't make it good bow wood.  It was 80% early growth.  Now if I can find one with the opposite ring structure, that will be interesting to experiment with. 

Yeah, your probably right. Still you have made me want to sort through my stock of osage to find some billets with questionable ring quality, for my own experiment. I have a fair bit of thin ring stuff, though from memory the early/latewood ratio is probably 50;50, though no thicker than 1/16"max. Even that would make a lot of difference compared with 80% earlywood.

[Stringman]

Yessir, lotsa learnin at this years classic

Hey..

[Pat B]

Osage doesn't break straight and clean across the back unless it has no structure. This bow was thick and physically light in weight. I was surprised it made it to 32" before it blew. It would have been a waste of good materials to back this bow. Boo or even hickory backing would have crushed it.
 My thoughts were that it would not lift a splinter because the rings were so thin and the early/late ratio was way out of whack in the negative direction.
Del, the early "wood" is the honeycomb stuff and the late wood is the hard, slick stuff. Like Clint said, this bow was 80% honeycomb.

[Aaron H]

HEY!

[Stringman]

HEY!

What?!?

...oh, hey.

 

[bradsmith2010]

Ok I am still not convinced,, I think it would hold the compression,, if sinew backed it could have made a shooter in my opinion,,
I think if you had been shooting it through a chrono when drawing it to 30 plus,, you would have seen that the lighter mass of the bow was allowing pretty good performance,,,you did prove it would break, but alot of bows would have broken at 30 plus draw,,
maybe the bow would have been a dog,, but I have a feeling there was a shooter in there if sinew backed,,just my thoughts,, I don't think it can be fixed now

[Otter]

Classic to much early growth ring break right there !
sorry I missed the explosion.

Lol I witnessed it .... As load as it was when it exploded I don't know how you didn't hear it ... If I remember correctly Clint said it snaped at 35#

[Otter]

Take that back ... 32# .... It looked like it would be a 90 # pull as thick as it was

[PatM]

The bely side looks like it has a bit more latewood to it. With sinew and the pithy part acting like a foam core it seems reasonable that a fast shooter could have been possible.

[Stringman]

To some, the world will always be flat...