Last year at the Tennessee Classic Gary Davis walked up to me and handed me this 53" osage stave and said he wanted to see what I could do with it. As usual with Gary's staves it had a bit of backset but had straight limbs and was in good shape to begin tillering. It was obviously meant to be a kids bow as Gary had marked it with "35#". When I saw it I immediately thought a short sinew backed bow.
I flipped the tips a bit and did a little tillering to insure both limbs were about the same. I made a small loop of sinew which I used to draw the handle down and attach to a small cup hook while lifting the tips up on blocks giving it about 5 1/2" of backset.
About a month ago,I began adding sinew I recovered from my second failed attempt to sinew back Elkie, a bow I made for a 2006 elk hunt. Just the other day I added about 3 or 4 back strap sinews over the first layer. I will let the hide glue/sinew cure out for at least another month before completeing this cool little bow. I plan to add snake skin backing, tip overlays and a handle wrap but those will be later. Here is how she sits now...
...here you can see the sinew loop holding down the handle area...
Topic: 53" sinew backed osage (Read 249 times)
