Rossi Rifleman

I know some of you folks are into archery, so I thought I would share my journey of building a new bow for next year's deer season.

Last March a friend gave me this osage (hedgeapple) stave. I attempted to slit the sapwood off. It didn't work too well. I had to resort to draw knife. Osage bows need to be scraped down to 1 single growth ring on the back of the bow ( the side way from the archer).

Once the stave is down to 1 growth ring, use bandsaw to rough shape a bow. When laying out the bow, one must follow one grain down the length of the bow. So the bow is not always straight like you see fiberglass bows. So times you get a little S-curve in a limb. That's no problem as long as the string tracks through the center of the handle.

After the bow's profile is shaped, you start the process of "floor tillering" by scraping the belly (part of the bow nearest to the archer's belly) to get it to start bending. I don't have a picture of floor tillering. The technique is to hold the bow at the handle with the belly up. Put the tip of a limb on the floor about 12" behind your foot. Then push on the handle while looking down the lower limb to watch how it's bending . Better floor tillering means a better bow, because you're not stressing the wood too much early in the building process.

More details and pictures later tonight.

When I had thinned the bow enough during the floor tillering, I addressed some more issues with this stave. The tip didn't allow the string to cross the middle of the handle. They would have to heated and bent into alignment. Also, there were several roller coaster humps and dips that I'd hope to flatten. Osage excepts heat bending better than any wood I've worked with. Even so, it took me about 5 heating sessions to get it right. I would scaped and reduce the wood on the limbs between each heat correcting session. Once everything was aligned and mostly flattened, I used caul and heat to flip the tips into a recurve.

Once the tips are drawing 6 to 8 inches with a nice arch, it's time to brace the bow for further tillering. Bracing the bow puts the limbs at the angle they will be shot from. Leaving the bow on a long string to long can/will dramatically reduce the quality of the weapon.

One continues to remove wood from the belly until the targeted draw length and draw weight are achieved. Never pull the bow passed the intended draw weight. All through the scraping and tillering process you watch for stiff spots and weak spots while keeping the limbs moving at the same bend. Weak spots you don't scrape, but you remove wood from the stiff spots.

You have to listen to the wood. Sometime the bow you want to make isn't the bow that's in that stave. For example: I wanted a larger handle so I would not have the need to put on a leather handle wrap and/or build it up with leather. I actually prefer the feel of wood in my hand rather than leather. I, also, did not want to build a bow that would bend through the handle area. But in splitting the slave from the log, the grain followed around large knot creating a crack line that ran through the handle and into the fade out of the handle and limb. I thought the crack in the fade area might doom this bow. Fortunately, I was able to scrape through the crack on the fade and still have enough wood to reach the 50# pull I wanted.

About 30 hours of work over a 3 to week period (the wood needs to neutralize between heating correction sessions) it's ready to shoot, it ready to shoot. I still have a tweaking to do like: thinning the tips just a little more, building up and wrapping the handle, polishing the cow horn tip overlays and putting the a finish on the bow. I might even put a snake skin on the back of the bow as camo and to make it prettier.

I'm pretty happy how this bow has turned out. It shoots better than I do since I haven't shot a bow since last October. When I do my part it puts an arrow where I look. I'm looking forward to it accompanying me in a tree stand come Sept.

I'll post more pictures when I get her dressed up for date night.

Great detail Moon.
A friend from church gave my g.son a bow he'd made. If I had known how
much effort went into the making I no doubt would have appreciated it more.

LOL, still recall we lost probably half the arrows I had bought. You'd think
they would put a "homing" device in those things ! Of course it helps if you
hit the target.

The SCDNR range has two archery lanes that you rarely see anyone using.

Thanks for sharing ... Jim

AWESOME

that's functional artistry.

Moontre nice tiller. I have to be in the mood to build a bow, haven't for awhile. I have a mulberry and a hickory stave that have been in the garage for a few years. I might have to check the moisture and start on the hickory, much easier to work as you know. Thanks for getting me thinking about it.

Nice!

Thanks Lowkey and Btora.

ksmoose, sounds like it's time to make some shaving. I haven't worked with mulberry, yet. It's on my bucket list. I have a mulberry tree on a fence roll on the front of my farm that about 8 diameter with good straight bark lines if I remember correctly. I'll check that one out in a couple weeks. It might need cutting.

Moon, just like working with osage. I made the wife 1 out of mulberry.