Never give up on a stave or billet

[Eric Krewson]

 I have a bunch of less than stellar osage, great rings but firewood to most people. I tried to sell four billets of this osage for $35 and had no takers, thought about giving it away but ended up stacking it up in the corner of my shop for 5 years.

I developed a lot more bow making skills over the years and decided to chase a grain on one of the billets just to see what was under the bark. Eureka! Snakey wood! I chased a grain on two of the billets and got out my heat gun.

Here is what I started out with, dogleg and lots of propeller.



After two weeks of heating and straightening I finally got a center line lined up.



The finished result, never give up.

[Mark Smeltzer]

Eric
Nice save,  I normally sell the better staves I harvest and save the less desireable ones for myself.  I would feel bad for selling them to someone but I know there is a bow in there!!  The heat gun is one of the most used tools in my shop.
That is going to make a nice bow.

Mark

[sailordad]

that is so cool

amazing what ya can do with a little heat and alot of perseverance

cant wait for the finsihed product

personnaly i dont have enough experience to work with stuff that snakey but i sure like the ones you more experienced pump out


                                                                       tim

[Eric Krewson]

Here is the direction I am headed with this bow.

[brian melton]

Very nice Eric.

[FlintWalker]

Looking Good! It seems to me that the ones that put up the most fight, make the best bows.

[Pat B]

Beautiful character bow, Eric and great save. You know they don't make bad osage...just some is better than others. I really like working with challenging staves. They are the best teachers if one only listens.  Is that a stave or did you cut it and rejoin the billets?          Pat

[bcbull]

 relley looks good eric  ,,can we get a full draw on that /haha snakey osage is also my favorite  brock

[medicinewheel]

fantastic job!
hey, where's the full draw??
frank

[George Tsoukalas]

That's awesome, Eric. Way to stick with a stave! Jawge

[Eric Krewson]

Sister billets went into this bow.

[cracker]

Very nice looking bow. Thanks for sharing.R.C.

[uwe]

Thats what I did last week. My wife would like to have a somewhat lighter bow (Drawweight). I had a snaky stave, she liked for a bow. Digging out the backring, I saw cracks in length direction. But what was a shock to me, where the cracks in the handle rea, which are more to the back, as well in the upper limb, but here on the back.... Sinew wraps saved the bow, she did about 60 shots.
What did I do more to stress the poor osage? I put a reflex into the whole bow and some nice recurves. Osage seems to forgive it... A few shots more and we can think of a grip. I wouldn`t have liked to make a bow with more drawweight as 35# out of this stave. I would have had heartaches with this idea.
"So never give up on a stave or billet", look for the right design and drawweight.

By the way: she looks good!

[Eric Krewson]

Every piece of osage is different. The real dense, heavy stuff will correct better with heat. The light, chalky osage will often crack if you try a tough correction.  I have about enough wood in this bow to make a 45# bow if it was ordinary osage. Being very dense stuff it has a low limb mass and is 65#@28".

[Pappy]

Nice job Eric,it always make you feel good when you get a bow out of something most people think is junk.
   Pappy