finished my first war bow, after several years off from bow making. self osage.

[chef-d405]

Sup peeps! Just finished this out. All it lacks is sealer.  Pics unstrung, full draw, braced. 1 1/4" string follow right after un-stringing. Was up to 3" string follow before heat treat. 72 1/2" ntn.  Nocks 3/8" wide by 1/2" deep. 1 1/16" wide at handle by 1 1/8" deep. Had some wrap around burning on the heat treat that really, really worried me. But, it didn't blow up. Lost over half the string follow. Love it. It's a great shooter.

Pics can be found here: (all pics were too big for the forum to post, my apologies for the reddit link.)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bowyer/comments/xsixi4/osage_self_war_bow_finished_heat_treated_final/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

[superdav95]

Congrats on the bow! The tips look a bit stiff still for a war bow to my eye from the pics.  Maybe that was the intent and what you were going for.  Limbs however look fairly evenly bent in full draw.   Looks like you really toasted it.  Did you use a heat gun on this bow?  Depending on how deep you went with penetrating that heat I’d be a little nervous about exploding.  I’ve had a few explode on me and it ain’t fun.  A couple I attribute to overheating on corrections.  Whitewoods take the deep heat much better then Osage or yew in my opinion.  Even then you got to be careful about too much heat.  It may just be the picture and may just be surface scorching and not too deep and be ok.  Just be cautious with too much heat is all. 

As far as posting pics here create a link and post you pics in the body of your write up.  That’s an alternative to trying to post large pics anyway.  Best of luck. 

[chef-d405]

Duly noted on the tips, this is my first elb style bow. I've  only ever built flat bows, so the perfect  tiller on them is a  bit new to me. This stave was only 1 1/4" wide at the middle and very wedge shaped when I got it, so a narrow bow was really the only option. I just kinda rolled with it. The heat treat was done with a heat gun. There's a close up of the belly toast on the reddit post. Didn't seem super dark to me. But, again duly noted. With the amount of string follow it initially took, I definitely felt it needed fixing.

[superdav95]

Duly noted on the tips, this is my first elb style bow. I've  only ever built flat bows, so the perfect  tiller on them is a  bit new to me. This stave was only 1 1/4" wide at the middle and very wedge shaped when I got it, so a narrow bow was really the only option. I just kinda rolled with it. The heat treat was done with a heat gun. There's a close up of the belly toast on the reddit post. Didn't seem super dark to me. But, again duly noted. With the amount of string follow it initially took, I definitely felt it needed fixing.

Well for a first go at elb I’d say you did pretty good actually and it looks good to me.  I hear ya on the heat.  I’ve fixed some bows of my own with heat treatment and breathed new life in some tired bows too.  Keep posting updates on your progress.  Cheers.