Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Frode on August 14, 2010, 01:39:50 pm
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So, after being on the road for a few days, stuck in a room with people teaching other people how to have ideas about things they already do for a living... :-\ :P :-X
I came home and totally lost my train of thought on the hickory/elm longbow I was working on, saw the posts of all the recent explosions and de-laminations, stared at all the new pins and odd streaks cropping up in the elm :-\, and decided to let that one lay for a bit.
I have a quarter log of osage, well seasoned, with a crack (check?) in one end that seemed like a natural place to try splitting off a stave (yes, I have actually never split wood before :o). For those of you who actually do know how to work wood (which I believe would be all of you, except me), it would have been high comedy to see me on the floor of the Underground Lair, with a camp ax, a mallet and a couple of accidental wedges, teasing this thing into two pieces. But tease it did, and with enough left over for a real bow if this doesn't go well. And even if it doesn't go well, it gives me a chance to practice chasing a ring.
And finally, here's my question; as you can see, this stave has a pretty good twist from end to end, as well as being a bit snaky. Oh, and, it's 74" long, 1 3/8" wide in the middle.
Should I try straightening it now, or should I get it closer to the shape of a bow first?
As always, your help is greatly appreciated,
Frode
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That is a challenging piece of osage but if any wood will work, osage will! ;) I would take it down to floor tiller stage, determine where the bow is in the stave and remove all but 66" that will be your bow. At that time you can clamp it to a form and remove most of the twist(unless it was removed when you reduced the stave) with dry heat. By removing wood from both ends you should be able to remove and end checks.
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i agree with pat, get it floor tilered and roughed before you try straightening, less wood to move.looks like a great stave though.
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Thanks Pat and walkabout! I don't have any illusions or expectations about this one, other than it being a chance to practice on osage. If the bow gods declare it a walking stick, I'll still be a happy camper (but a working bow sure would be nice ;D). I'll post as I go, but this may be a slow one.
Thanks,
Frode
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Oh, Frode...she's beautiful, just beautiful. I love that stave, just the right amount of snake to it, and I never worry about twist (ain't that right, sidewinder???)
If it really scares you, I'll get a straight piece sent to you if you send me this one! But I think she only has eyes for you. Remember, watch out for the bows and women, their curves can throw you for a loop!
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I like that stave! I'm getting ready to post my first osage bow, soon. I had to straighten it out about 3" and remove some twist. I tried when the wood was far too thick. Get it to near bow dimensions, slightly thicker, and you will be amazed at how easily you can work the wood. I did mine by hand using the driveway floor and the garage door wall for leverage. Worked great! I'm glad i took my time with mine but had I known how much of a joy the Osage is to work, I would have moved much more quickly with the stave.
I say jump in and enjoy the swim!
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...remove all but 66" that will be your bow...
Pat, on further inspection, whoever set this log up sealed it up right, and near as I can tell the crack I used to split it is the only checking, so that's a relief. Just out of curiosity, why 66"? I like the length (66"), seems like a good manageable sized bow, but I wondered if you saw something in the stave (width, amount of snake?) that suggested that particular length?
Oh, Frode...she's beautiful, just beautiful. I love that stave,...but I think she only has eyes for you. Remember, watch out for the bows and women, their curves can throw you for a loop!
Truer words, JW, truer words! ;D
I like that stave! ... you will be amazed at how easily you can work the wood... I'm glad i took my time with mine but had I known how much of a joy the Osage is to work, I would have moved much more quickly with the stave.
I say jump in and enjoy the swim!
Parnell, I was quite surprised too! I've used my draw knife on oak and hickory, but only for crude work, and then it seemed like it was all fight. This osage though, the blade just glides in and follows the curves of the grain. I already have finishes in places smoother than I usually can get with 220 grit! And you can cut in then rise back out to avoid a knot like slicing through butter! Sure is sweet wood!
Frode
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And when osage is really well seasoned and your tool is scary sharp, it is a sheer joy to raise curls. I am always amazed how easy the wood parts in front of a good sharp edge when you consider it's density and hardness. Just a little harder and the rockknockers would be stealing our scraps!
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Here's my next question; If I take the recommended 66" out if this stave from the center, or from the narrower end, I'll have this rather, shall we say, aggressive, swirl right at mid limb. If I take the bow from the other end, it moves the swirl out toward the tip, a bit, say 4" or so. I can narrow this area left to right without much trouble, but compensating for the three small knots (did I mention the three small knots right in the midst of this jog?) will make for a stiff section, I would imagine.
Would one way or the other make much of a difference? If I leave the swirl mid limb-ish, I'll have less twist to coax out, and wider limbs overall, but I don't know if that outweighs the challenge of the swirl? ???
Thanks for your help,
Frode
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maybe someone whos dealt with this type of stuff can chime in with better advice, but i think it would be safer to have that swirl toward the tip than to have it midlimb, much less force near the tips than midlimb.
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Frode, I picked 66" because it isn't too long nor too short. At 66t/t you will get about 64n/n and for 28" draw that is a good safe length.
I try to consider all options and place the bow in the optimum location on the stave. A few small knots can be utilized in the working portion of the limb by giving them a bit more wood around them. By doing so that area doesn't have to be "stiff". It can bend there but that is an on site judgment and hard to say from where I sit. You can work with the swirl also. If you place it out near the tip you will have to reduce the tip weight by reducing the wood in the swirl. If it is in the middle of the limb(working section) you can leave a little extra wood around it to help support it but that area need to bend also.
It is all about learning the properties of the wood but also how that wood acts around certain maladies so you can make an educated guess as to how you want to approach the problem. Unfortunately you will eventually have to decide what to do and reap the consequences or victories as they come. As long as you are learning, nothing is lost.
Now might not be the best time for you to tackle that stave but if you do decide to go for it, you will learn a lot about wood and wood bows that you can't learn from reading books or replies here. A few years back I spent an entire winter with 3 pieces of osage most would have made firewood with. I was determined to make shootable bows from these three staves and by spring I had 5 shootable, well tillered bows with lots of character. Some were very light weight and one or two were hunting weight bows...but I learned more that winter than the 15 previous years.
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@walkabout, that was my first thought too, but it never hurts to ask.
@Pat, thanks! I like to gather as much information as I can before I start a project, but you are absolutely right, nothing teaches like experience! I will move forward!
Frode
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Pat really covered this well, the only thing I would add is that I've recently been bit by wood damage that occured by a knot letting water into the center of the limb/trunk of the tree. The wood turns an off pink and gets extremely brittle. If I saw that in your case I would definitely keep the "swirl" towards the limb tip where it won't be bending. Having more than one knot clumped together in a limb is pretty common with osage and really common with mulberry. As long as they're small you'll be able to get the wood to bend, but I'd keep every bit of bow width (and a little extra thickness) at that spot for sure. Good luck, I really like that stave. My thin ones are usually triangles so there isn't much heart wood. That one is much better.
Good luck,
George
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That looks like a tough stave, Frode. I've made at least 200 bows and broken half that over the course of 21 years of doing this. I would find that stave very challenging. Jawge
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...Now might not be the best time for you to tackle that stave but if you do...
...I would find that stave very challenging. Jawge
OK, this is the part where Archie hooks his finger in his collar and beads of sweat and the word "GULP!" appear beside his head. :D I am now officially in "measure thrice, rasp once" mode! But I'm going to give it the old college try!
Yikes! How old do you have to be to quote Archie?! ( :o How old you have to be to use the phrase "Yikes!"?!)
Frode
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Well, the easy part is almost done. The back is mostly clear of sap wood, the limbs have been narrowed some, and the belly relieved from the fades out just enough to allow it to start bending. The second and third pics are of the same knot cluster, different angles. I'm finding that after I get down the heartwood on the top of the knot a nock file is great for winding in and around the clusters. That and some 150 grit paper alternated with the corner/edge of a coarse flat file seems to clean everything out. At this point, it feels less like woodworking and more like sculpture. Which, at the end of the day, is a good thing.
Frode
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...Now might not be the best time for you to tackle that stave but if you do decide to go for it, you will learn a lot about wood and wood bows that you can't learn from reading books or replies here. A few years back I spent an entire winter with 3 pieces of osage most would have made firewood with. I was determined to make shootable bows from these three staves and by spring I had 5 shootable, well tillered bows with lots of character...
Better wood yields a better bow. Bad wood yields a better bowyer.
About the time you are going to throw a tool, chant the above mantra while you fill a bucket with icewater to soak your head. It works. I recommend no more than two pounds of ice per gallon.
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love that crazy stave! Are you greasing the wood up good before dry heating it? (crisco, olive oil, ect.)I cracked a few by not doing that and also by being impatient bending out flaws. Good luck!
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love that crazy stave! Are you greasing the wood up good before dry heating it? (crisco, olive oil, ect.)I cracked a few by not doing that and also by being impatient bending out flaws. Good luck!
Postman,
I haven't got there quite yet (still cleaning up the back and knots a bit), but I had planned on using olive oil, unless something else works better? I'm open. Hopefully I can start untwisting it this week.
I tried olive oil on an old bow I'd been reworking ( a lumbering red oak jackhammer hand shock machine), putting a little recurve on the tips. The first one developed small cracks across the curve, probably from not soaking enough heat into the wood, but the second one seemed to go well.
Frode
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So, after filing and scraping and rasping, I got it to floor tiller. I wrapped a temporary hemp and TBIII nock on one end, and between that and the big knot on the other end, was able to get a long string on it and pull it on the tree just enough (2" max.) to see that it was bending about equal. I wont put any more stress on it now until I get it straightened out some.
Here are a couple of pics of my high tech bending fixture. I had something better in mind, but I'm out of baling wire and it's too dry to spit.
First a liberal coating of olive oil, and when I say liberal, I mean there was so much oil on it I almost went back in for some sun dried tomatoes and garlic. But, I'm not good at multitasking - I can't eat and build a bow at the same, let alone chew gum and walk.
Anyway, a wrench, a clamp, and gravity pulled about 30-40 degrees of twist out in just a few minutes (10? 15?) of slow even heating, never going beyond the oiled sections. It's cooling now, so by supper time I ought to know if it took or not.
Frode
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About two hours after the untwisting event, I went out and saw that the warm sun had loosened up my clamps, and everything was lying on the ground, but no harm done!
The twist is still out and both tips are lined up with each other. Of course, I can now see that both tips are twisted in the same direction relative to the grip, but much less than the original ends twist (first photo). It should be relatively easy to square grip and tips in the next heating.
You can see in the second picture that the string tracks a bit to one side (half an inch, maybe) right at the grip, and the last photo shows that the stave now has right at about 2" of natural reflex. I may try to address both track and twist in one heating if I can clamp everything down just so.
Frode
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I would say you are doing well on that bow also :)
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how'd you get osage over in norway?
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Looking good, Frode. That stave is looking even more interesting than before. I'll be watching the progress, for sure!
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how'd you get osage over in norway?
??? ...unless... you've recognized my screen name! I found it while doing some reading on pre-Viking era Scandinavia, still apparently a common name, but traceable back to the sixth century, at least. Any name with less than twelve letters that survives for 1400+ years is a keeper. :D
Well, I did a little more un-twisting this morning, and it generally seemed to go pretty well, but it leaves me with some questions.
I've heard not to temper the back of a bow, that it would weaken it. Is that different from heating the wood to bend? Because I've been applying heat to all sides of this well oiled stave.
By the time I was done, the most heated areas had a nice deep golden color, not burnt, just deeper in color that last time. A little light filing and sanding seems to take most of it off, so I wonder if I just cooked the oil. Or is that a sign of too much heat?
And, the biggie, after everything cooled, I noticed a couple of cracks, running along the ring lines. One is barely visible, a couple of rings below the back, and the larger one is a ring below that. The limb wasn't spreading or separating, so I assumed the cracks might not be too deep, so I filled them with super glue, clamped them (which didn't change the appearance of them one iota), and filed them smooth after an afternoon of drying. Is this one done, or can I wrap this area with silk and glue, as I've seen done on some bows?
And one more, I wiped down the back with isopropyl alcohol, to try to remove the olive oil, so I could glue on a silk backing if it comes to that. It feels fairly clean and oil free, but is that sufficient? Is there a better way?
Thanks,
Frode
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Side crack wood is bad wood. Every single bow I attempted to make with wood that showed side cracks in the wood failed and I am not a beginner bow maker by a long shot.
When I pull an osage stave out of my pile and see side cracks, no matter how small, I write on the stave in big letters"SIDE CRACKS" to make sure this piece of wood doesn't end up in a bow attempt. I then commit the wood to my scrap wood pile for tool handles.
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Oh boy. I do agree with Eric. There's one shot. Try to remove wood from the edge until the crack is gone. Jawge
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Hmmm. Well Jawge, I filed down and down and down, and after an eighth of an inch the big crack still wasn't gone. And since this was such a narrow stave to begin with, I'd say she's a beautiful... Walking Stick! :D :D :D
On the other hand, Eric, if I cut it down, it surely would make for some nice tool or drawer handles. The big knot end I cut off to get to 66" is destined to become a dibble for next spring, one of a kind, to be sure!
I don't count this as a loss by any means... I learned to chase a ring with no fear of ruining a good stave, and what osage is like under the knife. ;D
Thanks to everyone for the encouragement and suggestions on this one! There's enough left on that log for two more full length tries (and not nearly so curvy, now), or I could try a splice, or even a take down. So many options, what to do, what to do... ??? ::) :D
Thanks again!
Frode
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That's the way it goes, Frode. Sometimes you gotta just love the process. Jawge
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Frode, You picked a challenge, for sure! The biggest difficulty in that stave, as I see it, is simply being able to trace a straight line along the grain from one end to the other, since no split ever runs perfectly true. I've worked alot of skinny staves like that and it's a crap shoot as to what length you'll get out of it after pencil tracing the actual grain. Cut it off where it runs off. The whoop-de-doo, if it remains, is another issue...not in itself, but in that it looks like it tapers to a tight "V" and there is very little wood beneath it. There may not be enough thickness after flattening the V to make a bow from that spot. Keeping a radiused belly will help. Keep that sapwood if you must, but if it comes down to it, cut off the V in lieu of the check if the grain allows. Last, but not least, is that wicked side check. My experience is that they aren't "necessarily" deal breakers, but they definitely aren't good, either. Get rid of what you can (narrow already, I can see), going down to 3/4" width if you must. Sinew wrap anything after that. A backing, as you suggested though, isn't needed for this stick and won't do anything to solve the other issues. Since you're already this far, pencil along the grain to see what usuable wood you have, and trim the fat from there. Then you can decide whether or not to dump more time and effort into it or to call it. If you find green lights on all fronts (or even just all yellows), I'd try to keep this one pretty mildly stressed, meaning kind of light draw weight for whatever dimension you can muster from it. Looks like you're doing well so far, but deciding when to call it is tough. All of us only have so much time and energy to put into such things, and the decision to cut everything off becomes tougher the more we already have into it. Good luck! I've been at that point a bunch of times.
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@Jawge; True enough. Sometimes there's nothing better at the end of a looong corporate day than sitting down and working around one of those knots, even if you're not really "accomplishing" anything. Good therapy.
@Alpinbogen; You've stayed my hand, which already held the saw. I think I'll hang on to it and try a few more things (like learning to work with sinew, on a small scale).
Frode
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OK, first off, this is a testament to the properties of osage, and not my skills at bow making :o ;D!
After careful consideration ;), I decided to go Myth Busters on this little stick (you know, after the theory is fully proved/disproved, and the only thing left to do is add more dynamite and just blow it up!). I did a little more filing around the crack area, think I got it all, re-smoothed all the edges, wrapped the former crack zones with silk thread and super glue, moved the bending back into the fades a bit, and generally evened the curves out. I also cut off the major knot at one end and put maple overlays on both ends. I didn't really expect to pull it, just use it for wood working practice. It was also the recipient of my first three attempts at string making, but that's a whole 'nother story. Well, the long and short of the story is that I took it to practice to show some folks my progress smoothing out my first piece of osage, and the Marshall (range safety officer) asked how it looked drawn. I told him I had concerns, but took it over to a safe place and pulled it back about 20-22 inches, and he proclaimed it actually pretty smooth, and asked if I was planning on shooting it. I said probably not, though I might plink a couple out at half draw just to say I'd done it. Much to my surprise, no ticks, no splinters, no cracks, and no explosion! Over the next hour or so, I gradually took it up to consistent 22-24" draws, still no problems :o. It's light, if it's 30# I'd be shocked, and the string doesn't track as true as it should, but it actually shoots pretty smoothly, putting an arrow on the target from 20 yards with very little drop.
I think this bow is probably retired now, though I'll try heating and straightening to bring the string into line with the grip, and generally finish it up for looks, but I thought ya might like to see how this story ended up! Thanks again for all the help and comments!
Frode
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Sweet work, Frode, old boy! Those maple overlays look cool and will really pop once the osage darkens with age.
Guessing from your remark about the Marshall looking over the bow that you were shooting an SCA event?
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Thanks JW! Yup, SCA, the occasional RenFaire (one coming up in October, in fact), but mostly we just like to shoot wood bows! ;D
Frode
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Looks pretty darn good to me I'm surprised it made a bow that was a really chalenging piece of wood. Good job.Ron
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Ron,
Not half as surprised as me, heheh! Thank you!
Frode
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Cool Bow looks like it was a challenge to make for sure. Got it bookmarked for Sept BOM too. :)