Well, now I understand the respect given to this wood. Really remarkable stuff to work. I'd like to say "Thank you" to Mullet for his generosity in giving me the stave and also the buffalo horn I used for the overlays. I hope I did the materials justice, Eddie.
This stave had a little twist and a kink and it took me awhile to build up the confidence to get on with it. Once I committed to getting it done it went just fine. I really learned so much with this one, applying horn overlays to a stave, osage's heating characteristics with straightening the stave out, tillering with the kink, and the wood's ability to resist set, to name a few.
The stave wanted to have some natural deflex out of the handle, originally I was looking to keep this bow 62" long, but when flipping the lower limb, a questionable pin knot crushed on me, so I chose to shorten the bow. At first I was a little annoyed, but now, I'm glad. I love the length of this bow.
It is now 58" ntn, the bottom limb an inch shorter. The stats are 58# at 28". Buffalo horn overlays and hard leather shelf with a hemp wrap. From floor tiller to finished bow, there is .5" of set which I'm amazed at. So different from white woods. I finished it with 5 lite coats of tung oil.
It shoots the way I'd hoped it would, so I couldn't be happier to have an Osage bow to hunt with and stand up to our humidity!
Osage is such an incredible gift from nature, I'm lookin forward to my next one, already!
I hope ya'll enjoy the pictures.
Thanks,
Parnell
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