How would I best make a light warbow of somewhere in the range of 80-100# draw weight at 30" made of osage orange?
Would it need to be backed by boo or something like that? How would I rough out the dimensions to make it work well? A flatter or more rectangular cross section? How long should OAL be? 74-76"ish like the Mary Rose examples or should it be shorter/piked to make best use of the material? How thick at the handle, mid limb, tips? And can it have self nocks or is that a bad idea even with osage? What about antler tip overlays?
Just wondering about design options and ideas if anyone would have them. If anyone has tried this before please share your experience and what you learned from it, if anything. I have a few osage staves that are a little over 6' sitting around and I would love to make a warbow to work my way up to (I would probably use it at first more as an exercise bow to get stronger on both sides before I shoot something like that regularly, so its shooting capabilities do not have to be exemplary on the first atempt, it just needs to be durable!)
(apologies if there is already a good thread on this topic and I just haven't seen it)
Edit: Looks like there's a great example, similar draw weight and dimensions that Toomanyknots did a few years ago! I'll see if he still frequents this forum and send him a pm.
Thanks ya'll!
-Ren in SW VA