Building an Osage Selfbow

I will try. This will be my 4th bow, so I am still learning as I go.

Here are a few more pictures of it roughed out. I left a lot of excess in the handle area. It will be easier to file the curves.



It is still the full thickness. I didn't have time to cut it down. I will leave the handle area thick and taper it down to the tips.



Here is some of the sinew that I will be using. I need to start stripping it down so it will be ready to use.



If this bow doesn't turn out good, I have plenty of wood to keep trying.

pretty cool finding that thorn in there! Agreed that the sapwood ratio is slightly high and the stave is a great candidate for a sinew-backed bow. Looking forward to seeing it come to life.

Cary

Here you can see the difference between the spring and summer growth rings.



The spring growth is lighter and crunchy, like little tiny honeycombs. It is brittle and not very good to use as the bows back. The summer growth is dark, dense, and is what you want for the back. The goal is to have one single summer ring for the entire length of the bows back. If I cut through it, I will need to go down to the next good ring. That is why I haven't finished cutting the bow out yet. I want to make sure that I have enough wood to make a hunting weight bow.

Before I get to far, I want to remove the excess around the handle area. I used a round file and shaped the left side to where the lines were.



I then mark the handle and fade lines on the side of the bow. I will be scraping them off of the back and I might need to reference them later on.



Here I have filed other side. From the top, it is starting to look more like a bow.



I had to quit for the day. A phone call telling me that supper was ready had me heading for home. I did grab a handfull of deer sinew to take with me. With a full belly and the table cleared I got to work. A short time later me wife walked in and said "now your shredding deer tendons on our kitchen table"? I smiled and nodded yes. She sighed and said "I love you" and walked away. Sometimes city girls just do not understand.

Here is some of the sinew that I have ready. It takes a lot of time to process it. It took me 1 1/2 hours to do three pieces. This is my first time using sinew, so I am learning as I go.



I will not be able to post any updates until Tuesday evening. Hopefully I will get a lot done in that time.

great pics.

keep your eyes open for a dull drawknife - they work great for working the back to one ring. Good choice on the ring for the back

Well, I didn't get as much time to work on it as I had hoped. I had a sick little girl at home. I did get the rest of the sinew processed. It took around 7 hours to do it all. Today I finished chasing a ring. I decided to go ahead and take the back down to the final ring since I am backing it.

Here is the back completely done except for a little island of spring growth that I removed after I took the picture.



I then layed out the depth on the sides. I tapered it from 1" at the fades down to 1/2" at the tips. I always try to leave plenty of wood when cutting out the depth.



Here it is after I cut it out. It now looks like a bow, just thick and boxy. The one side has a lot of reflex and the other side doesn't have any. This might be a problem. I will have to get some advice on how to fix this.



The grain on the belly looks great. When it is done, it should have a nice feathered look to it.



Here is another view of the difference in limbs. My little helper is looking it over.



It will be a shame to cover up the back of this bow. It has some great color. The limbs are a dark orange color and the handle area is a light yellow.



Thursday I will start to straighten it with some heat, and maybe start thinning out the limbs if everything goes well. Thanks for following along

I was able to spend about 30 minutes working on it today. I work nights and spent most of the day trying to sleep.

Here I have marked the area that I want to straighten. I put vegetable oil on the area that I will be heating. I love this stage of bow making. The wood heating up and the oil makes a nice smell.



I use a heat gun made for removing paint to heat it up. I concentrated the heat over the area that I want to bend the most.



Once it got hot enough, I bent it back and clamped a scrap of wood behind it to hold in place.



This is what it looked like before.



This is how it looked when I was done.



I will leave it over night to set. It will relax a little after I remove it. I will probably need to do some more straightening. Here I have marked an area near the limb tips that will need some attention.



Yesterday, I picked up a farriors rasp. It removes a lot of wood in a hurry. I tried it out for a little bit and it made yellow shavings flly.



I will post another update Saturday evening.

Looking good! This has to be my favorite thread on here! Thanks for taking the time to document your project.

I have a stave that my parents bought me off of Ebay 2-3 years ago for Christmas that I've never started due to time and other hobbies, but this is getting me interested! I've had it son long, I don't even remember what kind of wood it is. (sad I know)