Building an Osage Selfbow

Excellent thread going here. Will be following this closely

I have a friend that I gave a hedge apple tree to after I had to cut it down. He split it into staves but never got any further than that. I think he discovered it was more work than he was willing to do.

The tillering can be difficult. There are a few tricks that can help out. My first bow was a big learning experience. I was aiming for 50 lbs, but ended up with 30 lbs. The second was really close to 50 lbs. A cheap and easy way to learn to tiller is by making a red oak board bow. You can get a 1x3 at Lowes for around $5. You have to find one with the right grain though. A 50 lb bow can be made from one of these. I started to make a red oak bow, but lost interest and went back to the staves. It is almost complete, I really should just finish it up. I put antler tip overlays on it.
I plan on getting the osage bow to floor tiller stage tomorrow. I have been exchanging emails with an expert who makes sinew backed native american bows. I have hit him with about 10 questions and have got some great tips. My goal is to have this bow finished by the end of this month.

Scrub-buster, you'd better hurry up, we got a 3D shoot in about 3 weeks.....LOL!!!
Great work with this build-a-long, I am really enjoying it.

I had hoped to put the backing on yesterday, but my grandmother had a heart attack and I spent the day visiting her in the hospital. I was able to do it today though.

Here are my supplies. I put a layer of rags down and then some pieces of plexi glass. I put bundles of about 7 pieces of sinew in between the pages of a couple of magazines. I made the glue out of knox gellatin. It is basically animal skin and bone ground up. I just added a little water to make a thin syrup and then heated it up.



Here is my glue heater, a broken coffee maker. All you need is the hot plate.



I brushed a thin coat of glue on the back to start out.



I put a bundle of sinew in a bowl of hot water to soften them up.



I then squeezed the water out and put the bundle in the glue for about a minute.



Then, I pull the bundle out of the glue and squeeze out some of the glue and put it down on the back of the bow. I took a spike antler and smoothed it down. I started in the center of the handle and worked my way out to the tips.



Two hours later and I am done. I was amazed at how sticky the gello glue was. I made quite a mess, but it cleans up with water. As it dries, it starts to clear up.

Here is how it turned out.





Now I just have to let it dry. It might take a week or so. Hopefully it will start to pull it into a reflex. I plan on putting on a second layer. Now I have a few days to work on the back up bow.

It's coming along!

I should have started out the thread with this, but here is where the stave came from. I cut this tree in March of last year. I split it into staves, removed the bark and sapwood, and then let it sit for almost a year. It should be seasoned enough.



A few wedges, a hatchet, and a mini sledge is all you need to split a log.

WOW! YOUR LONG BOW IS COMING ALONG GREAT, that has to be a" awesome feeling" being ten yards on the ground in a blind and get a good shot off with a long bow that you made from scratch, and go over and see your deer ,AWESOME,i'm very proud of you!!..scrub-buster and you have talent!!!!........... ...................turkey scout

Wow, that is awesome. Now imagine how it's gonna feel when you see that first arrow drive home....

Today, I was able to do a little more tillering. But first, I roughed in the nocks. I measure a 1/2" down from the tip and make a line.



Then I mark a 45 degree angle on each side.



I use a hack saw to get the groove started online.



I then take a small square file and start filing the groove.



Next, I switch to the round chainsaw file.



Usually, my grooves never line up on the belly of the bow. This one turned out pretty good on both ends. They are only roughed in, they will need more shaping later on. I discovered that when you file sinew, it smells like burning skin and bone.



I rounded out the sides of the belly again. It had become almost flat from sanding. I used the farriors rasp and a flat file. It is hard to see from the picture, but the sides are now rounded off.



Now that I have nocks, I can use a better string. I like to use a long string with the pouches on the ends at first to make sure it is bending somewhat even. With the new string on it, it is bending a little different. The string lays flat on the belly when strung.

Here it is with the strings on the nocks. The lower limb is shorter, so it will need to be stiffer.



Now that it is bending some, I can use a tillering gizmo. It is a block of wood 6" long with a pencil threaded through a nut in the center. The lead sticks out just a little bit.



With the bow drawn, I run the block of wood along the belly. Any flat areas will be marked by the pencil. Any areas that are bending good will not be marked. Getting this picture was interesting. I had to draw the bow, hold the block, and take the picture.



Now, I sand the areas that were marked and hopefully get the bow bending a little more even.



Here is how it was bending when I had to stop and go to work.



Each time I remove wood, it takes a little longer draw length to get to the weight. The trick is to get the limbs even and the weight and draw length to match up to what you want. A few mistakes and a 60 lb bow can turn into a 30 lb bow real fast. This happened to my first bow. I should be able to do some more tillering on Thursday and Friday.