10 years later... my Osage is ready.

[superdav95]

What my shop needs is a dust collection system. Everything is covered with dust and the floor is taking on a Osage orange cast to it. It did start out like the picture above but that didn’t last. Started out a shed for me and my wife but I kinda took it over and now my wife says I have to build one for her. 

Dust collection is great investment.  I will never go back to a shop without one.  All that dust your breathing in will be hazardous to your health. 

[lenador]

I try to stay pretty organized but it always turns chaotic. I have to stop myself and put everything away and start again.

[lenador]

Cut in nocks and put a shorter string on it with basically no brace and continues tillering. One side doesn't seem to want to bend further towards the tip despite taking material only from the past half this while time. I think it may be because of the slight twist in the tip so I'm going to attempt to straight that and see what it looks like after.
 My goal was 50# and I'm at 50# at 25" right now so I should be around that as long as things don't go arstray.


Here is one at my 28" draw with no brace. The bottom limb is what I'm not liking.

[lenador]

Jumped into some straightening of the limb before I moved forward tillering. I probably should have done this earlier but my inexperience is showing. First I wanted to straighten both tips out because both had a good flip to them that made the limbs want to twist when tillering.


Next I wanted to fix a prop twist on one of the tips. Used an old pipe wrench and some leather with the heat gun for this.


Right now it's on the bench clamped and cooling doing the final alignment of the tips.


Then my main focus is going to be getting the outer limbs working more and getting some shape to the nocks. I ordered another cheap Amazon string to atleast get it braced to finish the tiller

[Muskyman]

Looking good so far. For me bending limbs is kind of scary. I’m starting to get a little more comfortable with it but it still freaks me out a little.
Good luck.

[superdav95]

Can’t remember if you mentioned if you used heat correction on the belly of this bow yet.  Also was the prop twist there before you started scraping?  If not then be aware that your scraping may be the cause.  Uneven scrapes can cause twist.  Just something to be aware of.  It looks good at 28”. The bottom limb is a tad stiff in the mid-outers.  It’s a challenging stave so congrats on getting to this stage !   If you corrected some already on the belly use caution.  Best of luck.  Lookin good

[lenador]

Can’t remember if you mentioned if you used heat correction on the belly of this bow yet.  Also was the prop twist there before you started scraping?  If not then be aware that your scraping may be the cause.  Uneven scrapes can cause twist.  Just something to be aware of.  It looks good at 28”. The bottom limb is a tad stiff in the mid-outers.  It’s a challenging stave so congrats on getting to this stage !   If you corrected some already on the belly use caution.  Best of luck.  Lookin good

I have not corrected it before and yeah the prop twist was pre existing. I'm using a counting method to make sure I'm tillering nice and even.. or as even as I can get with my experience.
 Yeah the outer limb especially on the bottom limb is pretty stiff. It doesn't help that it has a natural deflex near the handle area. Either way I'm excited that I e made it this far and I'm looking forward to trying to keep the natural handle look.

[lenador]

Got the tips perfectly where I wanted and I also worked the natural delfex out of the one limb. Tried like hell to tiller the outside of the bottom limb. Ran out of poundage. I called it off at 42#.



I'm not happy with that bottom limb but it was pretty even side to side so figured I'd put a strut on it and see what it did. Slowly pulled it a few times until I got it to full draw. Pulled it to full draw a few times and put 20 shots though it... WOW! No tuning at all and this thing feels amazing compared to my red oak D bow. I didn't know what I was missing. It is so smooth and feels fast. 8 paces and 3 under and I was point on. Good groups right out of the gate. Also no string slap like my other bow.
 New string will be here tomorrow and I'll shape the nocks and handle. If I'm lucky I'll be hunting with it this weekend.

[superdav95]

Congrats man. Looks great.  Well done.  Osage is wonderful stuff. 

[Muskyman]

Congratulations, looks really good to me. A lot of people like having the outers a bit stiffer. Now go out and kill a deer with it and it’ll be perfect..

[lenador]

Too much celebrate too soon! 20 shot last night and this morning I strung it and started to work the limbs and it made some pop noise. I inspected it and didn't see anything. Figured... Might as well see what happens. First full draw and BOOM!




I'm pretty certain this is due to 2 things, 1. I had my lowers working too hard from the start and tried to chase it with tillering and ran out of room. This is a lesson to be spot on with your thickness and that was challenging with this stave. The stuff lowers may work but with this bow 1.25 width I think I pushed it too much. I bet you could get away with the skinny width with a better tiller or lower weight. 2. I left the tillering string on too long and my tiller looked better with it. One I went to a proper string I could quickly see my problem was worse than I expected.
 Hopless bastard taught me something's and those 20 shots we had were enough to hook me into another one. Failure isn't an option but it is a great learning tool.
In hindsight I wish I would have not been so set on the weight of the bow for myself and let the bow be lighter but atleast working.

[lenador]

Congratulations, looks really good to me. A lot of people like having the outers a bit stiffer. Now go out and kill a deer with it and it’ll be perfect..

We celebrated too soon. 😂

[SDBurntStick]

That's unfortunate but when they break its a good learning experience.

Side note....as a guy in the electrical trade, I am wincing at the sight of that panel in the background lol.

[lenador]

That's unfortunate but when they break its a good learning experience.

Side note....as a guy in the electrical trade, I am wincing at the sight of that panel in the background lol.

100% agree. To me this bow was nothing more than a learning experience and a very good one.

[Muskyman]

Well that sucks. I kinda thought you were home free. On to the next one

Side note....as a guy in the electrical trade, I am wincing at the sight of that panel in the background lol.

Never even noticed it SD but being in the trades myself I do understand why you picked up on it. Masonry is my curse.