youth osage "elb"

[k-hat]

this bow was designed more to be reminiscent of an elb than to be a true elb.  it was plan B for a bow I was making for a coworkers kid.  the first stave had some bad tearouts from splitting that doomed it to fall underweight for an elb, so it became the short static recurve I posted recently.  Both of these came from a standing dead osage tree a student cut down for me several months ago.  Love getting preseasoned wood   As expected, it was a little gnarly and had plenty of bugs and rot on the outer layers, which happened to be paper thin in the outer 1/3 of the 4" diameter log (another reason the first came under weight).  This came from 1/2 of that log, handle has some of the center rings in it. 

I started big and worked down slowly, looking at Shaun's osage elb build a bunch and bugging Del a few times .  At first rough out, it was proly a 120# bow!   So i redrew my lines, determined not to be underweight, and carefully worked the sides and belly down to elb-ish dimensions.  Strung it at low brace, threw it on the tree, and i'll be if it didn't need but a tiny touch up of tillering!   Yeehaw, love when that happens!!!  Forgot to mention, i did wrastle quite a bit of twist and wiggles out of it to get it as straight as it is before the reduction.  Nuff talk, here she is:

Name:  "Dead Standing"  (how the old English archer left his opponent, and of course the tree she came from)
67" ntn
1" wide handle tapers to 3/8" tips (approximate)
7/8" thick to a hair under 3/8" thick at tips (handle is somewhat stiff, left more wood there for grip)
Deer antler nocks
27#@28" (the kid has about 24" draw, so he has growing room.  She can go out to about 32" where she should hit high 30's)

I made a half dozen arrows to go with her with red and black feathers to complement.  Sorry, no pics of those (cept one in the money pic!).

Still hadn't applied the floppy rest at pic time, so the grip still has some extra string, just ignore it









Thanks Del for your input!  Y'all enjoy, critiques are welcome

Forgot the antler nock detail!!...

[Pappy]

Beautiful work,the kid should love that.Hope they don't knock the tips off.
They are sweet looking made like that but don't take much of a beating if hit on the end ,and you know kids.
   Pappy

[Del the cat]

Yeah that's great, I'd have loved to see it shoot at 120# 
The overlay horn nocks give the right feel, but I agree with Pappy I'd reduce 'em a tad so there's only as much length beyond the wood as the length of the glue line or maybe a hint less.
The prob is, it's very tempting to use the tip as an arrow rake.. I know I do (on the extremely rare occasion I put an arrow in the grass ).
Out of interest, on my conventional ELB nocks I try to follow the same principle, more nock with wood inside it than not.
I generally make the bottom nock pretty short stupmy and solid as it will get whacked on the floor.
I had an overlay slip off on me one time, the guys said I should add a six inch nail for security So I made a little silver nail and pinned it
http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/equipment-malfunctions.html
An Osage ELB is on my to do list this year, I'm looking forward to that one

That tiller is real good, not easy at a lower weight and an undulating stave.
Feel free to ship it over for a fuller evaluation
Del

[Badly Bent]

Beautiful bow K-hat. Real nice color in that osage and the bow is just graceful looking both at full draw and braced profiles, heck its
graceful looking just sitting there unstrung too. You did a great job on that bow.
Greg

[k-hat]

Thanks Pappy and Del, and i appreciate the caution as well (that's a neat fix on your overlay Del, looks cool!)I didn't do a close-up of the lower nock, but it is short and stumpy like you said for that very reason.  I just hated to remove much of that antler tine on top!  Didn't realize it would be so subject to getting popped off (as i've never had that happen... well, i've never used horn/antler nocks either!)

I'm delivering them at noon today, so i don't know that i'll be able to do anything to that top one.  I'll caution him heavily on not doing any raking with it, or shooting in wet weather lol   I WILL keep this in mind on future adventures in antler overlays.

Thanks for the compliment Bent.  I'll admit i'm a little jealous of the recipient!  I hope it's not lost on him.  He has an interest in english archery history (hence the elb), but he's been begging his parents for a wheelie bow.      We are hoping this will keep him from moving over to the dark side (insert favorite cheesy star wars quote here)

Thanks again guys

[blackhawk]

Cool...gotta keep the kiddies involved

[BowEd]

Perfect for the kid to grow into.