Cut a sapling last winter and dried it out. The tree was only 4" or 5" across. I guess the witewood to heartwood ratio was so that it split itself lengthwise in several long slits as it dried. I should have split it then!
About 4 months ago I reduced the sapling down by splitting it along the splits caused when it dried out. The rough staves have been laying in my building since.
The bottom center of the osage sapling was all punky wood. This left me very little heartwood to make a bow from. But, I did end up with two staves 66" long and about 1 1/2" wide to play around with.
I decided to leave the whitewood on to have enough wood to work with. So,,, the belly will be a very thin layer of heartwood backed by the natural thickness of the whitewood or sapwood.
To make them a little different I left the bark on the backs in the none working portions of the handles and the handles are left wide at this point.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_0044.jpg)
Then the staves were shaped and the under layer of bark was scraped off to the 1st whitewood layer or ring. This picture shows between the vice at the handle out to where I have scraped off the softer under layer of bark. Even though it is whitewood it still has some osage yellow tint to it.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_0056.jpg)
A few thorns popped right off with the bark. They can give ya a pretty good stick. Saplings have thorns!
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_0041.jpg)
Not a good close up picture but here at an old limb hole there is a small verticle crck and was caused by drying. I think it will be okay, I'll fill it with super glue before tillering.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_0058.jpg)
Needs a little heat bending!
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_0048.jpg)
I thought there may be issues with heating the whitewood but it did well.
I use a little mineral oil, a heat gun and a pair of leather padded visegrips and eyeball the twist. Just holing it till it cools is the hard part but it works for me.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_0043.jpg)
Here is a pic from the side of the rough worked fade and handle area to show the thick whitewood baking and the thin heartwood belly.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_0046.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_0047.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_0062.jpg)
A shot of the back of one of the two staves
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_0049.jpg)
Belly shot
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_0050.jpg)
The two about ready for the tiller tree
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_0059.jpg)
Well I put one on the tiller tree but decided to go ahead and make a caul to put in a bit more reflex. I bet the whitewood will be better off with that reverse set before tillering begins
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_0052.jpg)
Side by side, two sapling staves from the same tree
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_0055.jpg)
Looks good Joe, are one of these your swap bow?
Looking forward to seeing how this one turns out. Looks good so far.
Purty darn nice Joe..
Lookin' good! Jawge
Kris, I don't think so. Just some practice.
The swap deserves a hunting bow of solid heartwood!
Neat!!!!!
Cool build Joe. I like sapling osage. The whitewood is stronger than most folks think. I have made bows with a few rings of sapwood, 50/50 sap/heart wood and all sapwood and all made good bows. When you don't have access to much osage you use what you can get! d;^)
I have been wanting to cut a new growth limb that is about that same size. Maybe Thursday is the day. Thanks for posting this. They look great.
looks good man! That is how I remove all my twist too. By hand does suck, but it works well.
I didn't use a caul after all... Decided to see what the osage sapwood is made of.
Here is one of the staves after tillering to about 4"
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_00641.jpg)
More tllering & about 6" of brace
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_00642.jpg)
At about 27" draw. Could use some more tillering (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_0063.jpg)
A little handle work. note the bark left on at the handle
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_00631.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_00632.jpg)
After shooting a bit
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_00633.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_00634.jpg)
Back after a coat of true oil
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_00635.jpg)
Belly showing heartwood
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_00636.jpg)
Profile after shooting a few dozen
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_0064.jpg)
Looks real good Joe. What are the specs?
I noticed the handle of the drawknife is that your tally sheet??
Sean
Nice work Joe. A good friend of mine,Sonny Iman,made really nice bows from Osage saplings.Sonny would add a handle section, glue and lash it with rawhide lace. They were stunning and full of character.
Bluegill, yes I started keeping track at some point in the game. Only shooters get a mark!
Specs are 66" nock to nock 48# @ 27".
Trying to add some tip overlays to the other sapling. It's gonna be different! :o
Cool bow, Joe. It sure doesn't take much osage to make a hunting weight bow?
Pretty darn Sweet!
Very nice Joe!
No it doesn't take much osage to make a hunting bow....
Here's a comparison to one of my heart wood bows at 62" 60# @ 28" VS sapling 66" 48# @ 27".
The Pic shows the thickness above handle and fade.
The difference here is heartwood vs sapwood, length of bows and limb widths. The limb thickness is about the same.
The sapling is 1 1/4" wide at the fades and tapers to 1/2". The heartwood bow is 1 3/8" wide at the fades to mid limb then tapers to 1/2".
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/Saplingtips2.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/Saplingtips3.jpg)
Before & After, 1st stave
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/sapling2.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/sapling21.jpg)
Started on the 2nd sapling this morning. Wanted to try something different and recently got an idea from one of the tradgang posts. I believe it was Keenan???
Here's one of the tips. They might be a little long and add a bit to the handshock factor but, I think they look cool!
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/Saplingtips1.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/Saplingtips4.jpg)
Here's the other end
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/Saplingtips.jpg)
Profile
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/sapling22.jpg)
Holy Cow......now those are some tips,really neat stuff.
Man, that's just flat out cool!
I had a hard time on this one with the upper mid limb twist. Could have used some more heat bending. Guess I just got in a rush to finish the bows so I can get started on the swap bow.
Here's the second bow at about a 5" brace. Working up to about 6 1/2"
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_00431.jpg)
About as good as I could get at 28" without loosing any more weight
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/DSC_004312.jpg)
The second one ended up 66" 40# @ 29".
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/Saplingsisters3.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/Saplingsisters4.jpg)
Heartwood on bellies
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/Osagetree/Self%20Bows/Saplingsisters8.jpg)
I'll call these the sapling sisters. One sitster is a bit twisted and the other sister is a bit horny! :knothead:
lol.look good, those tips are really cool.do you use epoxy to glue your horn tip overlays on or something else? I did a mock up piece awhile back to see if i could use TBIII and found out itll hold pretty well, but ive never seen anyone else use it.
Nice Job!
Those look awesome. Great job!
Good thing you made two different sisters. Having one that was twisted and horny together could be a problem. d;^)
Walkabout, I have used TBIII on horn nocks and know others who have, all with good results.
the spring clamp kinda gets in the way, i think...but i like the sapwood/heartwood contrast on these bows, man!
its great how any given stave will act diferently than another, even when taken from the same part of the tree.the way they seem to have their own will as to what kind of bow they want to be is one of my favorite things about building.
IMO, the best way to build a wood bow from a stave is to let the wood tell you what it wants to be rather than trying to persuade the wood to do something it may not want. That is the fun of building wood bows...every one is different, unlike a glass lam bow that is pre-engineered before hand with almost identical results with each new bow of that design.
About as much persuassion I give is PLEASE DON'T BREAK YET! :pray:
Pat, sometimes you got to work with what the wood gives ya too! In this case they were from the same log, each stave came out a little different. The 1st one provided bit more heartwood than the 2nd. You can see this on the belly's,,, the lighter bow has less heartwood. Guess you're right though as I could have worked the other down a bit to match it better???
In the future I will try and keep the heart wood as wide as the bow is gonna be.
Walkabout, I use TBII on the tips.
haha ive had a few that made it by lots of hoping and moments where i waited for the dreaded snap,it can be kinda like skydiving when you hope your chute opens.the one i got in the works right now falls into that category.