Osage Board bow

[king3933]

I have an Osage board about 72 inches long 1 and 1/2 by 2 and 1/8th wide. If i try to make a longbow out of this do i have to follow the grain as in a stave or can I just rough out  and back with some other wood and finish tillering?

I can never find any Hickory in my part of Ohio in the stores, however, they do have white oak, red oak and some times Douglas fir boards. Would these work and which would be the best to back with. I would like to get 60@27 but want to tiller out to 28 inches for a safety factor.

I have tried to make bows before and have broke more than I got to work and never more then about 43@27 and 66 inches long.
I used white oak board, my IBE, Osage and another white oak all broke before I got done tillering. The last bow an Osage board bow I had at 64 inches and was out to 24 inches when it broke. I had just removed more wood and worked the limb 10 times out to 24 inches, from 23 inches and put string in groove to look at curve and about 30 seconds later bang, broke in 3 piece's.The curve looked fairly even to me, however it broke top limb two places and bottom limb one place.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

God Bless:
Gary

[richpierce]

Do you warm up and exercise your bows?  I draw short half a dozen times, then longer, same, then to the desired length for checking tiller.  I don 't leave it at draw that long.

You could back the osage board with bamboo or rawhide or sinew.  Lots of bow supply places could sell you hickory laminations for backing.

[Justin Snyder]

Grain isn't as big of a concern if you are backing it.  There are lots of good backings, silk bamboo rawhide and others. When it comes to wood, I don't know that anything is quite as forgiving as hickory. Find a cabinet shop and ask them where they get their wood. They will probably have hickory. Justin

[Kegan]

If you're going to work on an osage board, I'd take the oppurtnity as an excuse to back it with bamboo. Legendary combo- bbo.

[koan]

With the size of your board you might be able to chase a ring for the back. I would check that out first....Brian

[The Burnt Hill Archer]

i havnt got any experience with osage none around here and i havnt got much of a bow making budget. but i did make a bamboo backed red oak for a friend and man was that thing a sweet shooter! i love bamboo, its been said before that its natures fiberglass. i would definately like to try a bbo sometime in the near future, just as soon as im done with the hickory selfbow im currently working on. all things considered, if it were me id probably go with the bamboo
Phil

[tom sawyer]

How is the grain on your board?  I think this is a common cause of bows breaking, having grain that runs at a severe angle in the working part of the limbs.  Of the backings you mentioned, fir is probably least desirable and white oak the best.  But you need to find a thin piece that has near perfect grain running the length of the working limbs.  Thats one nice thing about bamboo, you know it has straight "grain".  They sell hickory or rawhide (and maybe bamboo) backings at Three Rivers Archery (a supporter of this magazine).  Or back with a linen cloth (not synthetic) or some people have successfully used blue-jean material.

[king3933]

I alway work the limbs as I am tillering to work the wood fibers and listen for any sound that may sound like a tick or crack. It is hard to tell on a board if the grain is front or back for I haven't that much experience. I can stay with the grain but would only get a 56 inch bow 1 and 1/4 wide and still not sure how to tell if it is the front or the back. Board has about a 4 inches of the one end twisting to the right about 3/4 of and inch.

How do you tell if the board is front or back?

[tom sawyer]

If there's any crown to the rings at all, that will tell you.  if the rings are pretty much flat, you have to look closely at the spring ring.  It tends to be more abrupt between the previous year's ring, than the sumnmer growth of the same year.

It really doesn't matter though, whether you use the outer side or inner side for the bow's back.  You can even use a quartersawn cut, as long as the grain runs along the length of the bow with few runouts.  Rings give you some cluses, and also the little flecks that are within a ring tell you about straightness of grain.  You'll see ring lines on two sides, and the flecks on the other two.