It's not completely finished yet, I just put another coat of Tru Oil on it this morning. Those snake skins soak up an unbelievable amount of finish! I guess it needs to fill the pores where the scales were?
Anyway, believe it or not this bow was backed with 3 different species of snakes and all were road kill. The one in the middle is a spread head, or hog nose snake. I wish these little guys got bigger than about 20" cause I would definitely back an entire bow with them, very pretty markings. The next ones on each side are just common brown snakes or some people call them water snakes because they are normally found around ponds, lakes, and rivers. The people around here swerve out of their way to run over them because they think they are copper heads.
Then lastly the end 8" section of the tips are black snake.

I know it's like the coat of many colors, but I needed the experience putting skins on before I use my 37" diamond backs on a bow. As it turned out it's really not as difficult as I thought it would be, just a very time consuming and meticulous process.

I got a little creative with the tips, and I just had to do it cause I could see a snake head in there wanting to come out.      

 

 

 

 

WOW! That bow should have been named "Mutt" rather...............sweet bow. Who says the stave has to be snaky to be a character?

Yep, I guarantee there ain't another one like it anywhere on the planet.      

It has a little Ed Scott flavor to it with the tip art.

Awesome Chris, and the art work on the tip is too much. BUUUUUT I could never hunt with it, I would look down and see the snake eyes and beat it in little pieces. Yep I am one of those people that swerve doesn't matter what kind of snake.
Looks like it needs to be spitting arrows at some pigs....... maybe when this water goes down  

Hey, I like that Chris! Shows a good imagination and resourcefulness. Looking forward to your next one..........Art

Thanks Y'all!!        

Nice Chris.

Yeah baby!
I like it.

CJ

Very nice job...I like it.

Thank you Art, Roy, Capn', and Stick.
I just got the last coat of finish on it this evening. I think that makes 5 or 6 coats of Tru oil? That should be plenty and I'm gonna let it dry good for a whole day and then do my handle wrap and arrow shelf pads and call it done.

I'll also wait till then to buff it down a little just to tone down the glossy shine. I like to hit it with some super fine 0000 steel wool then spray it with Pledge furniture polish and wipe with a clean white T-shirt. It makes it nice and pretty, but not game spooking mirror shiny cause I'm gonna kill somethin' with this bow!  

Saaaaweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!!!!                      

Very nicely done Chris.  Man, I CANNOT wait to get started on my bow off that caul.  The skins are very cool.  We have a lot of Hognose around here and I see them on the rather frequently and I had planned on keeping an eye out for some.  Your's appear to be darker and have more orange and earth tones than ours up here.  Since I am near Lake MI and it's dunes most of the ones we see are buff/sandy in color with some nice highlights of yellow & orange.

Interesting creature bow, SEMO. Looks really nice... And deadly.
Stan  

Thanks red, Lee......Those hog nose snakes come in lots of different colors and I think it varies from one terrain to another? I've seen them in almost solid black, to sandy brown like you described, plain brown with black highlighted markings, and then this color with black spots and bars. I think they are kinda cool looking too, I wish I could find about 4 of them and do an entire bow with them.

Some people around here call em spread heads cause they will flatten their head out like a cobra and hiss at ya.

Gotta take a second and give credit to this guy. I used his "Snake Along" to learn how to put these on. He said to skip the super glue step because it's not necessary. Thanks Eric!
http://tradgang.com/noncgi/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=045038;p=1

cool bow semo. I like the curves. How does it shoot? What poundage did you end up with having? the boo thick like that

Thanks Dave, I ended up with 50# @28" and I did leave the boo a little thick. I got nervous when I was sanding it down and thought I was getting too thin. I found out that I could have went down quite a bit more. It turned out ok, but overkill on the bamboo backing. Next one will be thinner and even from one end to the other absolutely does make a difference in tillering. It's hard to get it perfect on a belt sander.

It shoots my 491gr. CX Predators like darts even with a Magnus Stinger on the tip. I have no worries out to 20 yards, that's about as far as I'm comfortable with till my shooting improves. It's not the bow, it's all on me my form needs work.    

That's pretty cool  

Looks awesome Semo! I love all the little touches you added to the bow. It looks like it can put em down      

Nice looking!