Osage first try (ding ding)

[J. Holden]

Was that a handle I saw?!  Lookin' good Kelly.  I read in SEMO's other post you're down to 6 arrows.  I hope my craftsmanship isn't to blame.  Course that leaves the blame on your shooting then      Glad to see your time is being filled.  Keep up the post.  We're all pullin' for you.

-Jeremy  

[Pat B]

Semo, that's whats so cool about selfbows. Each one is different. Each one has it's own charactoristics and it's own personality.  
   There are some basic rules of thumb(an old archery term) about bow building that are common with all wood bows. Once these basics are learned, the sky is the limit. Then, it is almost your duty to discover the charactoristics and personalities and make them bloom into a viable bow. If you work WITH the wood you will be rewarded.

[KellyG]

Jeremy,
yep 6 for now. I broke the feild point right off. the other two were nocks. I will shoot them until  I 3 then  I will start looking into makeing and arrow out of the cane here or salt cedar braches, or ever olive shoots. Priorities bow first then something to shoot off them.

Pat we shall see soon enough if I have gottan any of the basics down yet.
thanks,
Kelly

[SEMO_HUNTER]

Pat- The Osage will quickly let you know what it will let you get away with and what it won't. All you have to do is put the time in required to make some mistakes and learn from them. I'm getting smarter with each build, not bragging just fact. I'm learning something on each bow I build and I keep challenging myself so I don't get lazy about it, or bored.

One quick question while I'm thinking about it, for tip twist do you cut the nock deeper on the side that the tip leans toward?
I can't remember.
I'm thinking about some more tip overlays on my next build.

[KellyG]

Oh in about 2 hours I can go and start working on my bow. I wish the clock would speed up just a little. I need to get that tree finished, get temp knocks cut in, the get the bow exersiced and start taking wood off. I just hope it is not like reading a book, you start out a page here and there. Then you get near the climax and just can't stop, you look over it is 2300hrs (11:00pm) and you think ok just  few more minutes want hurt the next thing you know the book is done and it 0300hrs (3:00am) and you have to be up in a few hours. I am getting that funny feeling. I just hope I can put the book down so I can enjoy it one more night. Oooh that took 10mins off the clock 1 hour and 50 minutes to go and i will be working on my bow.
Kelly

[SEMO_HUNTER]

Why do you have to wait?
Are you on the time clock and if that's the case your sitting here goofing off on Trad Gang and not working? Shamee....shamee....shammee!    

Just a tidbit of advice that I use Kelly when working the belly down, especially when your quite a ways out yet and need to remove lots of material before you get close enough to just rasp a little bit here and there. I use my home made draw knife as a scraper as well as stripping chunks of wood off, but when I'm working down the belly I turn my knife up on edge and scrape the living crap out of it. Keep it even all the way across the bottom side of the limb as you scrape from the fades straight back toward you, then I push it back toward the fade again. You can remove some wood in a hurry by doing this. Then I take my rasp and smooth the edges down and taper the edges of the belly toward the center. Round edges are much stronger than sharp edges, and my experience has been that sharp edges on the bow make a fret or splinter easier to get started. So I usually round the belly on all my bows from the edge toward the center to form a sort of "D" shape with the back being flat on the ring side then rounding toward the center of the belly.

Hope that makes sense?

[KellyG]

Yeah I almost for got before you tiller round off the corners on the back at least.
Not on the clock but just watching it. I dont like to leave to early, just in case I am needed. Plus it is almost dinner time. I can't mantian my shape by not eating.
thanks,
Kelly

[J. Holden]

MMmmmmm, I almost forgot how good chow can be when cooked by Uncle Sam.  Have more chipped beef on toast for me.  Hopefully you're working on your bow right now.  Can't wait to see...

-Jeremy  

[SEMO_HUNTER]

I actually like chipped beef. If there's mash potatoes to be had of course, open face mystery meat with gravy.....mmmmmmmm

I do have some MRE's that I bought a long time ago and I've got 2 cases of them for a unforseen event should it occur. I have opened a couple of them just to see if they were any good. One that I opened was beef stew and it was actually quite yummy, the other one was beefaroni or something like that and it tasted like dog food...Alpo would have been a step up from that garbage, but I guess it would keep you alive should you ever need something in your gut?
There's lots of other cool stuff in the MRE's as well, matches, aspiring, candy, a food heater bag, vanilla milk shake, sometimes granola bars.

Sorry to go way of topic, just thought about that since you mentioned military food.

Now back to bow building.

[KellyG]

Ok watch out for the shakes they can come out as runny as they go in. I had over baked chichen cooked carrots and brocolli.

[KellyG]

Ok I worked on getting my bow to length for tip to tip buy simply cutting off the ends with a hand saw. Then I filed down the splinters that protruded. Once that simple task was done it was time to work on the tillering tree.
Fist you attach the fulcrum to the wall. At about eye level in this case standing ( just because I felt like it and had the room).
 
Ok now lay out your lines. I am in this room temporarily so I use 1" duct tape. I first started with in this case about 4" below the top of my fulcrum and marked it and use a level and went out from there drawing a line both directions then I took a measuring tape and made marks ever 1" in the middle and both ends. I guess on how far out from center  need to go and had plenty to spare. I did this for about 25" down.
 
don't ask why I have two strips of tape up already. Ok I was doing it the hard way first one at a time. Then  I realized if I make each end I could just tape afterwards.
now onward
I add the tape at ever other inch mark to give a nice contrast and see the inch marks. I also rubbed the tape vigorously it seem to heat it up a little and make it stick better. I my hands at first then the tape roll. this heated up not only the glue of the tape on the wall but on the roll also.
 
You could use it at this point but would have to pull the string up close. This is not the best thing, I know and will freely admit this (so you know I am serious) that bow can brake on the tillering tree and it can be very explosive. Just think the bow you are trying to build can launch an arrow thru and elk. Now what is the difference if that arrow was just part of the bow?

[KellyG]

So I am adding pulleys to mine, and a rope
Top pulley
 
and bottom I am not going to use the top. I don't have a scale to put in to see what I am drawing. remember the more pulleys the stronger you are.
 
And here we are full view.
 
there is more I did knocks and even put it on the long string.
So now I need to right that

[KellyG]

Ok on to the temp nocks and long string.
First I measure from the tip of the bow on the back a 1/2" on both sides of the back. Then I eyeballed a 45 degree angle an confirmed I was close with my leaves 45 bubble. I held it over the top of my line and it was close. I measured from the tip down the belly where his line came to the belly 1/8". Now I use that to mark the other side of the belly. Of course I did not get any PICs for some reason I deleted the pics of the layout.
so I started with a round file on one side chose one and filed the grove in pushing from belly to back up my 45 degree line. That was what was comfortable for me. Once I had a deep enough grove to keep the file from trying to walk where it was not suppose to go. I move to the front and did the same
then the other side. Here I was pushing the file from the back to the belly but to help keep the 45s lined up I use a nail in the off side grove and lined my file up over and filed in my grove.. Once I had a good start I round the edges of all the connecting points of the groves and had a Nock in my bow stave.
Nail method it worked so stop laughing.  
 
ok twisted limbs knocks front
 
and back
 
now the knotty limbs front
 
and back
 
there is more I put it on the long string I mean who could resist. I have a new tree, and nocks in the bow stave come on you know you would have do the same.

[KellyG]

Ok here it is with a long string tight across the bell. Not tracking well I mean It could be a center shot no problem.
 
a closer look
 
enough to get about 1 1/2" out of the left (twisted) limb and 2 1/2" out of the right (knotty) limb. I see a hinge in the make in that inner third that is where a know was the wood that came off. I was sticking out the side about and 1" below all that wood left.
 
ok here is an end pic of the twisted end the back it the narrow top and the belly the wide bottom. Should I try and fix this now or just leave it.
 
Ok now I have given yall plenty to look at and mull over let me know what you think and what is next. I really don't know. I would try getting more of a square limb on that twisted on and see if it was bending more. But that is just a blind stab.
thanks
Kelly

[KellyG]

OH and it took me long to post the last three post than to do all of them.

[Pat B]

Kelly, string grooves on the sides only. NOT ACROSS THE BACK. It might lift a splinter right there.

[KellyG]

Well now I just learned somthing the hard way. I bet I want forget if it does lift a splinter. I threw the filings away so I can even glue them back in LOL.
Come on Pat what else you got, what is next?
Thanks for the tip on the groves I wont repeat it more than  a few time I promise,
Kelly

[snag]

You DON'T file string grooves in the back? How do you string it then? Not everyone is going to do tip overlays...? Now I'm confused....doesn't take much.

[SEMO_HUNTER]

It's ok Kelly, I did that my first time around also........until I found out that it's not a good idea. Who knew right??

You can glue tip overlays on the nock ends later on, it's really not a big deal to do. Me or Pat can walk you through it and you can use some of your cut offs from the stave to use for tip overlays and your TBIII that you carried over there with ya.
Or worst case scenerio, you make it 1" shorter no big deal so don't stress yourself out about it.

Your making progress bud, just keep up the good work.

Your next step will be to take wood off the belly evenly and begin the tillering process.

I'll let Pat walk you through that one, it's too hard for me to explain and I probably do it differently than the other guys.

[KellyG]

Thanks snag and SEMO,
I will not make that mistake twice. Hmmm tip overlays, I already know what I am going to do there is a eucalyptus tree that was cut cause it was dead it has a burgundy hue to it.  
Now should i repair that mistake now or waite. I guess it will have some static tips now also.

If I need to repair it now, can just make about a 4" overlay or should it be longer? I think that if I wait and the bow makes it thru the tillering I can mesure the thickness from back to belly on the tip. Then measure down the back fo the bow from the tip to say 4"; connect the dots from the tip to back makeing a diagonal line on the side and file down to that line then make a overlay to match and glue in.
Just think.
Thanks for your imput,
Kelly