This is the "leopard skin tissue paper bow"! ( my wife calls it " Daddy's little kitty"
)This bow is more than just a pretty face. The stave for the bow was from an osage hunt with Chris Cade. I was splitting the log from the middle of its length, the wedge slipped and this piece came off. It was about 3" wide, 1 1/4" thick in the centered and tapering both directions to the ends. I knew there was a bow in there somewhere and knew then it would have sapwood in it because of the lack of good heartwood. The bark fell off while it was green but spray shellac saved the day.
Jump ahead a few years and I have reduced the stave to a decent 1 1/4" stave, 60" long. I brought the 1 1/4" out to mid limbs and tapered to 3/8" tips. The top limb has 3 clusters of pin Knots(above the handle, about 2/3 out and just below the tip) that I snaked around and the bottom limb is a little snaky. I used my Nicholson #50 to round everything off, the edges, pin clusters and belly so the cross section is basically oval. I added some deer rawhide(withTBIII) to the back for obvious reasons. You will see in the pics how thick the sapwood is...probably 1/3 the limb thickness.
The handle wrap is hemp saturated with Massey finish with a Ferret's Floppy rest. The tip overlay and handle underlay are shoe leather saturated with super glue and antler cap on the very limb tips.
She is 60" t/t, 57#@26". She shoots well but is a little heavy in the hand and has a definite thump when shot. I imagine the excess wood needed with a sapwood backed bow is where those things come from. I'll shut up now.... Pat
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