load of fence post

[upstatenybowyer]

Fantastic job Randy! That bend looks really nice to me. All the work was worth it. Must feel good. 

[RandyN]

I made it over to Brad's this afternoon so he could shoot the bow. He said it shot nice.

The current specs on the bow are;
64.5" NTN
Braced @ 5"
60 lbs @ 24"

We shot it with my heavy tillering string, 18 strand dacron. I made it heavy so when I had an oops moment, lower limb about 10" up from the tip, I could still continue working. We used a 70 lb spine arrow, cut to about 28".

Here is a pic of Brad with the bow @ about 24". Brad, thanks for the feedback on the bow.

[DC]

Looks real good

[bradsmith2010]

I got to shoot the fence post,, it came a  long way and must have wanted to be a bow,, the arrow pass lined up with no heat bending,, even though it had quite a bit of character,,
seems the aged wood was really resistant to taking set,, and held a nice profile,with no heat treating,the mass of the bow felt nice as there was no hand shock at all,, osage can be a bit shocky if its overbuilt,, I had perfect arrow flight,,, and the bow was smooth to draw,, and felt balanced in my hand, the arrow came off my knuckle like a wisper,, so I felt the tiller was balanced,, very nice bow,,very nice job on the tiller ,, on a  stave that was a bit challenging,,I hope to shoot it more at the longer draw,, the wood itself was such a nice rich gold,, it was beautiful,, amazing that it was hiding in there for so long,,I just love osage,,   I hope Randy gets to shoot at an elk with it,,
I added two pics before and after,, that tells the story,,bow makers have to be creative and use their imagination to see a bow in some of the wood we work on,, not for the faint of heart,, and will definitely develope a since of patience and determination,,

[Sidewinder]

I just read the whole post and all I can say is amazing job guys. Really amazing that you overcame all that and got a shooter with a good tiller. Congrats.   Danny

[RandyN]

Danny,,Thanks for reading this post. It was a bit of a challenge getting it to this point but its still not finished. The goal is to extend the draw to at least 26" and if I feel brave to 28". Reducing the weight a bit, this getting old isn't for sissies. And then putting a nice finish and handle on.
We wanted to post a couple pics shooting it, which makes it a bow even though its not finished. I'll post pics when I am finished.
Hope has the sister stave to mine. He should be posting pics of his once work slows down and he has some time to work on it.

[bassman]

Excellent work.

[bradsmith2010]

worked on my fence post stave a bit today,, took it down to nice thick ring,, still have a few checks,,but I think they are ok,,this is from the same  stave as Randys bow, so I am encourged it will bend,, I am going to put the rasp to it and get it to bend,, then I think I will sinew back it with some reflex,, I was gonna make a self bow,, but now my imagintion got the best of me,, and I have some sinew,,

[Danzn Bar]

Looking good, can't wait for more
DBar

[bjrogg]

That's looking like a pretty nice stave Brad. How long is it?
Bjrogg

[RandyN]

Brad's stave is really nice. I know he will get a nice bow out of it.

There comes a point in the making of every bow were we have to make a decision. Actually, there are many of these points as we proceed. Will a bow come out of the stave we have to work with, like in the beginning of this post. Then how far do we push to make the bow what we want it to be? In the beginning I said I had no expectations concerning a style of bow and I didn't have a specific draw weight in mind that I had to hit.

In Dec. this bow had a draw weight of 60lbs @ 24". It shot very nice and had reasonable performance thru the chronograph. Well, my draw is closer to 29" so I wanted to try to get the bow to 26", then make a decision on continuing to increase the draw or just shoot it @ 26".

We have been having nice weather so I decide it was time to increase the draw and in turn reduce the draw weight. Put the bow on my tillering tree and started exercising the limbs to check the tiller was still good. Pulled it to about 20" and everything seemed fine. Decided to pull it a little further, around 23" and heard a funny sound. I've heard that sound before so I stopped and checked the bow closer. Here is what I found. Sorry, took the pics after clamping to see if the crack would close. You can see the crack on just under the clamps.

[RandyN]

Decision time. Do I try to fix it or do I give up on it and cut the good limb off??

I decided to fix it by putting a sinew wrap on the limb that is trying to twist apart. I can still cut the good limb off later if I need to. But this is a good opportunity to show how effective a sinew wrap can be. And that you don't need to give up on a perfectly good stave, which this is not a perfectly good stave. Checking back through history, many Native American bows had sinew wraps on them. Weather this was ceremonial or out of necessity to fix a problem, I don't know. But they used sinew for a long time for many different things.

Here are a couple pics of the sinew wrap. The fist ones that look horrible, are right after wrapping the sinew. The next couple are the following morning, today. I will let it cure for about a week before I do anything else to the bow.

[bradsmith2010]

bjrogg,, my stave is 47 1/4 tip to tip,, I apologize for being so slow,, I will try to get it bending asap,,
Randy thanks for posting that,, looking good, I think it might work cause your split or crack is in the middle,, and also a weight reduction should ease some of the pressure on the bow as a whole,,
I will keep my fingers crossed the sinew will keep it together so I can shoot it at a longer draw,,

on my stave I am thinking I will sinew back it, and hope to get to 24 inches of draw,, with bend through the handle,, or maybe some short extensions,, spliced on the get to 24 inches,, i am pretty comfortable shooting at that draw,, I am going to try knox,, unflavored gelitan,,for my glue as suggested on another thread recently,,

[RandyN]

Well, I finally finished the bow made from an old fence post stave. Yes, it was a bit of a challenge at times and I had to make a few repairs along the way, but I think it came out nice. The specs on the bow are: 65" NTN with a draw weight of 55 lbs @ 26".  I decided to stop at 26" because of the the top limb was trying to separate in a spot where it had some twist in it. You can see how I fixed this area with a sinew wrap, couple posts up on this page. Its holding together great. The wrap allows the area to bend a little but still lets it twist back to make it look normal when its pulled to 26".
This will drive Brad a little crazy but I had to shoot it through the chronograph. The reason for driving him crazy, I used my tillering string, 18 strands to see how it would perform. She shoots a solid 160 fps with a 525 grain arrow. Might do a little better with a normal string on it. Brad, I will have a decent string on it before I bring it by so you can shoot it. Then we will have an honest account of how it shoots.
But it does shoot where I was looking.
Pics of the bow in a few days after I get the finish on it and a handle stitched on and oh yeah, a string.

[RandyN]

Have you guys ever finished a bow and think wow this shoots nice? Me too. But there are other times when you think your finished and then something else happens. That's the case with this one. It had to try my patients once again. I guess to see if I could really get it shooting.
A little history since it has been a long time since this post started. My top limb does not lay flat. It is twisted almost 90 degrees off center. When drawing the bow, this limb twists all most back to straight. The limb tired to twist apart about mid-limb so I did a sinew wrap and its holding fine.
When I was shooting in the new string, after about 50 arrows the string started slipping off my top limb. The string continued to slip off when I shot multiple arrows. Somewhere between 5-10.Decide to do a sines wrap at the base of the nocks. I put a small piece of leather on the back under the sinew to create what I hoped would be a string stop, since the string would come off and slip down the limb. It worked great. After a couple hundred arrows today, the string didn't move.
Here is what the fix looks like.