Primitive Archer

The best choice depends on personal preference, bow weight, and shooting style. If you’re looking for durability and stability, go with Douglas fir. If you prefer lighter arrows and ease of crafting, Port Orford cedar might be the way to go. Happy shooting!

It sounds like the arrow is hitting the bow to me too. (Alternate post-April Fool's theory: The air displacement from the string is causing the brim of your hat to crack like a whip.  Try a John Deere cap with the brim backwards.  If that works, and you really want to learn about making bows, you can rotate the brim forward by 5 degree increments until it starts making noise again, back off 5 degrees, make a note of that angle in your bowmaking journal, then switch to a wool watch cap.)

Tim!  I missed this one somehow.  Thanks for the laugh.  But let's suppose it is the arrow hitting the bow.  How does one know for sure, and what does one do about that?

    I tried it once and gave up. I really do admire the guys who do them.

All, thanks for the advice, I think I'm making progress.  The shape when braced was very uneven so I took Eric's advice of heating out the hingey thing.  And I worked on the other area Badger noted but I couldn't take much off as I'm afraid of losing weight.  I've been shooting it like Pat B and Nonback suggested.  It's almost at full draw and shooting well - but as the string is not centered on the riser you have to protect your wrist!  It's still a bit uneven but I'm going to keep going to full draw.

Sorry to see it didn't work.  I hope you figure out why it didn't.  Could re-heating it have caused a problem?  There have been so many successful bamboo belly bows with bamboo backs that you would think it could easily handle the compression of the osage.