1st selfbow

[arrowhead archer]

I'm building a snakey osage selfbow and the string runs down the middle of handle when bow is unbraced but as soon as I brace it one of the limbs start to twist further than when unbraced any way to fix this, I have a lot of hours into bow already. would appreciate any advice!!!

[TroutGuide]

Post some pics and they can help. I will try but I'm not far ahead of you.  Pics are easy on photobucket. Even from a smartphone.

[Pat B]

Check the limb thickness from side to side along each limb. I'll bet you will find one side thicker than the other. I lightly grip the limb, thumb on top, fingers under and slide them back and forth on the linb. You should be able to feel the thickness difference. Scrape the thicker side and check the tiller.

[Eric Krewson]

The last osage bow I built, actually it was a BBO that had the same problem. I always mark my side taper guidelines on each side of the limbs and never cut lower than my lines. I call these lines the road map for you bows limbs.

Since I started marking these lines I never have a limb dogleg off to the side when a bow is strung, well, almost never.

My last BBO was as even side to side as I could make it, great string tracking unstrung but about 1/4" off with a visible dogleg when strung at normal brace. I suspect a change in wood density on the offending limb where the dogleg started.

A little wood reduction from the weak side had no effect so out comes the heat gun.

I put a little dogleg in the unstrung bow which made the strung limb arrow straight at full brace with perfect string tracking.

Sometimes you gotta' to do what you gotta' do to make a bow, there aren't any rules to follow, just do what works.

[John Scifres]

That's pretty common with snaky bows.  It's just real hard to tell how all those twists and turns are going to affect a dynamically bending bow.  Think about how all those fibers are running through your bow.  Picture them as strands and then add in the variability of wiggling around branches and different thicknesses as the grow and growing conditions and it's easy to see how they will react differently when bent.

As Pat says, your layout and removal shouldbe checked first.  Make sure the limbs are equal side to side and the width taper is consistent.  It's easy to get off track on snaky bows and often difficult to see.  Compare your limbs against each other also.

As Eric says, sometimes you can lay it out perfect and it's still twisty and you just have to adjust your bow a touch with heat.  Or you could live with it as an eccentricity of a natural bow.

Take some pics and let's see.

[arrowhead archer]

Thanks guys I was more interested in the perfect tiller that I didn't pay enough attention to limb thickness side to side. Got them equal now and adjusted brace height so it tracking true now. Lost a little weight but what the heck I'm a old archer with bad shoulders anyway. If somebody here will show how to get pictures on computer I'll sent some when bow is done. Thanks again for your help