A Strange Limb Bow...

[Osagetree]

About this time last year I decided I wanted a couple limb bows. I found an osage that had been blown down several years back. Because the roots were still in the ground this tree continued to live. Several shoots sprung up vertically from the blow down and they seemed to be large enough to make bows out of.

Some pics of the shoots or limbs the wife took as I cut them.
   
   

Once we got them home I opened up on side of each stave to allow the moisture to escape and prevent the small staves fom checking completely through.
   
 The limbs are the two on the left in this picture.
   

Opening up a place for the moisture to escape was learned a few years ago when I tried this same thing. I did not open up one side and when the white wood shrunk as it dried, that caused the staves to split and check all over ruining the staves.

Though I managed to make a couple walking stick from them. The sticks are thin, light in weight and very strong walking sticks that are very helpful knocking spider webs down or pushing greenbriers out of your way when scouting or hiking. I'll have to post a pic of my stick later.
Not a good shot of my osage walking stick but a good example of how handy I've found it to be.

 

Here you can see it. We'd been poking around for morel mushrooms.
     

Okay back to the limbs... I stripped the bark, whitewood and chased a ring on one of them this morning. After laying out the bow on the stave, I roughed it out to almost floor tiller stage.
I noted that the center of the stave was still holding a vein of punky wood right up the center of the stave. I found that if I went beyond the punky wood on the belly side of the stave, my limbs would be to thin for a hunting weight bow.

 By the way, the stave had checked badly but, only where I had opened it up for the moisture to escape. Even in the handle area the handle had an extra large check clear through the center of the stave but, it did stop at the center in the punky wood.
I put almost 8 hours in this today not counting the time it took to find it, cut it, and set it out to cure.

What to do, what to do? I am going to have to try and do something to save this bow.......

[Pat B]

Joe, checks run with the grain. You can build a bow with checked wood. You may have to bind it in a place or 2 but it should make an interesting bow. I don't know what about the punky wood. If there is enough "meat" around it just remove the punky part and see what you've got.

[KellyG]

Nice joe. Hope to see what you do with it.

[Tony Chinn]

Whatever you do I'm sure it will turn out good, a true artist you are.

[Roy from Pa]

Joe, the last picture on the bottom right, where were you?

[Osagetree]

Appalachian Mountains above High Falls on Shavers Fork River, WV.

Probably looks alot like SW, PA huh?

I'll update this later this evening...

[Shaun]

Too much gear, makes my back tired just looking. Now that I think back, I was young once...

Ignore checks running with the grain unless they run off the edge of your layout. Fill em with CA if they end up in the finished bow. Almost sapling bows, since they are growing straight up as shoots. With horizontal limbs, the top makes a better bow.

Give us some pics of your progress...

[Black Mockingbird]

Otter Creek Wilderness eh?..... my wife grew up minutes(literally) from there. I'm down that way often,n get to play around in that area.

Osage is king...make a bow..it'll prob be aok   ....as you should know  

[Osagetree]

Here's one of the limbs from the bow. You can see the pulp vein with the punky wood removed.
 

The profile after a couple heat treatments and getting it tillers out to about 5". Most of the reflex is natural but, I had to line up the tips  a bit.
 

And a shot of the back. It's 63" long.
 

[Stiks-n-Strings]

Looks like your gonna get it worked out just fine Joe. I'm sure it will be a great bow.

 How the heck you been anyways ol bud.

[Roy from Pa]

Yup looks a lot like Pa. I thought ya was over here stealing my Osage:)

Bow is looking nice, Joe.

[Osagetree]

 No way Roy,,, I would never do that!

Like I said, the checks went clear through the handle. It was more like shredded wheat than checks so I removed all the splinters in the handle clear down to the punky vein.

A kinda harmonic handle I guess maybe to amplify the hand shock?    Weird huh?

 

[Roy from Pa]

It's different:)

[wood carver 2]

When I saw the groove left where the punk was removed, my first thought was that it would look great if it was filled with colored epoxy. Is the groove only on the belly side, or does some of it show on the back?
The split handle looks cool too. Will it still be strong enough to shoot like it is, or would it be best to fit a filler strip into it?
Dave.