Can I use this osage?

[longstick]

got me a limb about 3" diameter, can it be used for building an osage selfbow or MUST I use a stave?

[shamus]

that's small. The bow will have a high crown, and puts  a lot of tension stress on the bow.

you can make "a" bow out of it, but your design options will be limited.

pictures would help.

[Pat B]

Yes you can provided the limb is sound and not twisted too bad. I have made bows up to 60# with osage limbs and shoots of only 2" in diameter and that was including layers of sapwood.  You will have a relatively high crown but osage can take that better than most other woods. You want your belly to be flat or slightly crowned.
 Do you have any pics of your limb? That will help.  Pat

[longstick]

Ill gather some pics of the limb up this afternoon, looks as though I MAY be able to put some R/D in it

[Pat B]

Have you built a wood bow before?    Pat

[longstick]

why heck no...have friemds who build them but Im thinking I can get more info here more expertise

[Pat B]

If I may suggest you starting out with a simple straight limb bow instead of a R/D style. The R/D bows are complicated to tiller and not what you should be starting with. Once you learn the nuances of tillering then you can move up to R/D, recurves and reflexed bows. Would hate for you to get discouraged before you get started good!        Pat

[longstick]

thx Pat..good tip there, I just want to put one together we have so much Osage around here

[Springbuck]

Wish I had that problem, all that osage!

  If you can't use it, I can.  I've been meaning to try a decrowned sapling bow for a while!  Good luck on it!

[Clay Hayes]

One common charactoristic of osage is that many of the limb grow in big arcs.  I've made several short D bows from limbs that were arced like this.  One started out with about 10 inches of backset.  I heated the handle section and bent it to about 2 inches.  It's a neat looking little thing.  Looks kinda like one of the hybrid recurve/longbows, but it's short.

You'd be amazed at the strain a high crowned osage bow can take.  The bow I was mentioning above is only about 46" and it draws around 45#s at 25".  I've tried to break it.  It just won't splinter.

ch

[Springbuck]

I mentioned a decrowned bow.  If you flatten the front and back both and then work it until the rings show on the back as parallel lines, essentially like a double QS or double bias-ringed stave, you can make a bow.  It is a little tricky, and knots still require attention.

  Or you can flatten back and front, essentially making a board out of it, and back it with something.

[tim-flood]

split it down the middle and use the middle for the back.

[George Tsoukalas]

Decrowning right is tough enough for the experienced but almost impossible for the inexperienced. Antway, it's not needed just leave the stave an inch or 2 longer. longstick, what's your draw length? Jawge

[Roy Steele]

I've made a few O'sage limb bows.Work it just like a stave.