Minimum distance from the outside of stave for bow, Osage

[OkieGrant]

Hi All,

I'm making my first osage stave. I first got it down to one clean ring and now i've got it reduced down to about a 2 1/2" wide stave and the profile of the bow drawn on with pencil following the grain of the wood (originally it was 3.25" wide, the bit I cut off had 8 or so knots in it. The remaining stave is pretty snakey and has some knots. The most obvious placement of the bow is very near where the stave was split, hugging one side of the stave pretty close (around 1/8" from the edge). Is there any issue with putting the layout of the bow very near the original split? Anything I should be looking our for?.

[Badger]

  1st thing I usually do is clean a stave up where all the splinters are gone and only fresh yellow wood. That way I can see if there are any surprises waiting for me. If not I think going right to the edge of a cleaned up stave is fine.

[SLIMBOB]

Plus 1 Badger.  An issue to consider when working that close to the edge is having the edge undercut a bit on the belly.  Some rounding will generally take care of it, but if the angle is severe, as some are, you will need to account for it.  An eight inch should be enough play room.  As Badger said, round it off smooth and remove any possible splinters that could spell trouble.

[okie64]

Pretty much same as what the other guys said. Sometimes you will have some tear out close to the edges of split staves. I usually try to have a half inch or so of wood on each side of the edges of the bow just so it doesn’t taper too much toward the belly, especially on a thick stiffhadled bow.

[OkieGrant]

Thanks for the responses. I am concerned about some tear out on one side Okie64. I think before I decide to move the bow in further i'm going to work down the areas with a rasp and get the one side that is close to the edge roughed out. If there are areas of concern at that point i'll shift the bow more toward the center of the stave and deal with an additional knot I was trying to avoid.

When I get more done i'll post some pics of whatever my creation is looking like like, failure or shootable piece of wood.

[Pat B]

What are the dimensions of your intended bow?

[Eric Krewson]

It only takes about 1" of width to make an osage bow of any poundage. At 2 1/2" wide you have plenty of stave width to play with. I make all my osage bows 1 1/4" wide.

[SLIMBOB]

As an additional thought, trying to avoid knots in Osage is in my opinion not always optimal.  Some of my favorite bows have knots from tip to tip.  I will try and position knots close to the center of the limb when I can, but even that can be impossible on some staves.  I will just try and not let them fall on the edge of the limb and then just tiller through them.  Food for thought....As an example, you can do a search for "Knotty Boy".  Osage bow covered with knots.  Some were right on the edge and the voids had to be filled with super glue.  Pretty high poundage bow to boot.  65 pounds or there about.  Point is, I will eliminate them when I can, but work them into the build when its called for.

[OkieGrant]

My initial layout is 67" nock to nock, flat bow design w/ a stiff handle (4"). I'm undecided on a shelf or not, probably will start w/o a shelf (I hunt w/ a recurve, so having a shelf sounds familiar). 1 1/2" wide at the fades narrowing to around 3/8" at the tips (i'll probably take it to 1/2" at the tip and see how i'm feeling about it before going further). I realize it may be wider than needed at 1 1/2" wide, but that is my starting point.

I draw 28". That said, i'm been messing with my anchor point in the off season and my draw has changed some during that process according to my clicker on my recurve. I'm somewhere in the 28-28.5 range I believe. I desire a hunting weight bow, but i'm not that picky on the actual finished weight. I'll shoot for 50#, being happy with 45-55# @ 28 with the tiller looking good. I'm not planning to back the bow as of now.

For tools, I think i'm pretty set and plan to use hand tools. I've got a sharp draw knife, dull draw knife, Hatchet, cabinet scrapers both curved & straight, rasp and a bunch of files. I've got stuff to steam & bend of needed but would have to make forms for reflexing tips. Undecided on whether or not i'll do that.

Good notes on the knots. All of my reading indicated it might be easier to include knots (following the grain around them) rather than exclude them, but when I layout the bow including knots, it still ends up having knots at the edge of the bow. There are quite a few large knots in the stave. I think in this situation by happenstance the bow will fall in the section that doesn't have knots.

Question about knots and reflexing the tips. Is there any rules around this? If there is a knot within 8" of the tip, do you choose not to reflex? Or just reflex a shorter distance.

I'll try to take some pictures tonight of the stave to explain.

[bradsmith2010]

Save the reflexed tip for ur next one

[TimBo]

"trying to avoid knots in Osage is in my opinion not always optimal"

I can second that.  I have made the mistake (only a few times  ) of picking away at staves until there is not enough for the original planned width.

[SLIMBOB]

I say reflex away.  It will be a bit more challenging to reflex if its a big knot, but entirely doable.  Brads advice is sound, but if you want reflex tips then don't let the knots scare you off them.  One caveat....I dont mind breaking one so I will throw caution to the wind and make a bow, like I see it in my mind.  I wont do something foolish, but reflexing the tips is pretty safe.  Again, take a look at the post I mentioned.  I had 2 really big knots 6 inches from the tip.  You can see them in the pics.  I had to get it pretty hot to bend it, but it bent without much fanfare.
As to the shelf.  That....I would leave for another bow.  Much easier to glue on some horn, wood or bone for your shelf without the problems a cut-in shelf can bring.