This journey began in January when I decided I was going to cut down an osage tree and try my hand at crafting a selfbow. After all of the splitting and cutting I was left with about 30 staves. I made one attempt before this one and did everything wrong from the start other than chase a ring so I don't really count that one. After that attempt I knew I needed to let the wood dry longer.
I began by picking out a atave and removing the bark. Chased a ring and got it close to dimensions. I made it 64" long and 1.5" wide. It was about 1.5" deep as well. I sealed the back and ends and then put it up, and waited, and waited, and waited. Now granted I didn't wait as long as some, but I measured the stave for 2 months twice a week. Surprisingly the last 2 weeks it lost no weight. It was then I decided to start working on it. The first thing I did was to take CA glue and fill all of the cracks. This bow had a lot of wind checks and even some dead wood? (The brown streaks) A lot of the cracks went the whole way through but I filled and clamped and filled some more. I wasn't aure if it would lead to a failure or not but I had come to far.
Anyway after all the standard layouts and rasping and scraping and sanding, I can finally say that I have successfully built a selfbow, from a tree that I cut down no less. If I made one mistake it was that I got it bending too much at floor tiller. Amazingly my goal was 50#@27" and I was within 10lbs after floor tiller. I only had to make two slight corrections once it was on the tree and a few scrapes later I was at my target weight with a good bend. Next rime I will get it just bending and get it on the tree. I sablnded to 400 and applied 6 coats of tru-oil. A cork rest and a deer leather grip glued with barge cement. It has taken less than 1" of set which I think is pretty good. Also as you can see each limb goes a little different direction but I didnt bother correcting because the string went through the middle of the handle.
Last look on the tiller tree before finish:
Some finished pics:
Topic: My first selfbow complete! Osage 50#@27", 62" ntn (Read 1947 times)
