How Would You Do This One

[Dan Landis]

When I roughed out this osage stave I found the crack shown below.  There was no evidence of it in the stave before roughing out the thickness.  The stave is 68" ttt, and the crack is about 10" long, and is about 5/8" deep.  Could it be filled with super glue, or would it be better to cut it off below the crack and make a 58" bendy handle bow?

 

 

 

Thanks for you input.....Dan

[PEARL DRUMS]

If it stays at least 1/4-3/8" from any edge I wouldnt worry. I have built some dang gnarly osage bows and cracks never slow them down, neither do knot holes. Mostly bad tillering is to blame. Fill it with good CA glue. Keep filling it until it wont accept anymore.

[Pat B]

Being on the belly side makes it less threatening than being on the back. Like Pearlie said fill it with super glue and go to tillering. I use cheap super glue. It all works fine for filling cracks like this.
  You can tell by the coloration that this check is old. It may be caused by wind or some other trama many years ago and the tree grew around it.

[John Scifres]

Yuck.  I hate old wind checks or shakes like that one.  I haven't had a lot of luck if they stay in the bow.  Do what you can to get rid of it and then try the superglue thing.  You could probably make the bow 60-62" and thin or narrow it enough.  I have made a few bows shorter than 60" and have come to prefer a little longer.

[beetlebailey1977]

Being on the belly you may be able to make a bow out that yet.

[Dan Landis]

As you can see in the pics there is some twist that needs to be taken care of, should it be done before or after filling with CA glue.  This stave also has other issues, a large knot about mid limb and a narrow area (1-3/8") where the grain went around another knot, these are both in the same limb as the crack in the photos.  Because of the knot and narrow area, I feel my best chance for success will be to use the CA glue and keep the limbs as long as possible to spread out the stress.  I'll try to get some pics of the entire stave tomorrow....Dan

[Pat B]

Dan, I'd take it down to at least floor tiller stage before taking the twist out. You could even get it to low brace before removing the twist. Then you don't have too much wood to heat. Also, by then all of the crack may be eliminated.

[Dan Landis]

Thanks Pat.  I'll start removing some wood and get it to floor tiller and see where I'm at then....Dan