Flat or round

[ranger 3]

Flat or round belly on an Osage stave bow?

[Pat B]

Osage can handle a radius belly.

[red hill]

I like a slight radius on my Osage bows.  But I'm also a very long way from being an expert.

[Bowjunkie]

I make my osage bows with completly radiused limbs... usually fairly narrow and deep.

I've never made a bow with a completely flat belly (well one, it fretted) regardless of the wood species. I've 'squashed' the rounded cross section down more or less depending on the wood's ability,  but have never found it necessary to make them as flat as a board.

[PEARL DRUMS]

I use oval or round bellies on every wood I use. If the wood is weak enough in compression that it needs a flat belly to live on, I wont use it.

[John Scifres]

I've grown more and more fond of a flatter belly.  I seem to get a better bow.  They are still never completely board flat.

[Eric Krewson]

I start floor tillering with a peak down the center of the belly and gradually whittle it down as I get to the finished bow. Very dense osage will end up with an almost, but not completely flat belly, weaker stuff will be a little rounder.

I like the look of a radiused belly more than flat. I make my osage bows 1 1/4" wide,they have flat, parallel sides and a slightly radiused belly in most cases.

[Black Mockingbird]

Either or and everything in between....it just depends on the wood species used and its design....for example in a mollegabet lever bow that has short wide working limbs its best to make the cross section as rectangular as possible to distribute the stress the best(proven fact)...but if in making a longer bow that has a narrow long working limb its better to radius it somewhat(at least well rounded edges),and again wood depend on the wood species in a longbow as to how rounded you can go....one person will say flat is better and vice versa...and believe me when I say both ends of the extremes are dead wrong...this topic has been beaten to death for years amongst bowyers....each side is right,and sometimes a flat belly is a better application of use(and vice versa) than a full on round elb cross section...you need to understand the species of wood and design used to know the best appropriate cross section.

[Bowjunkie]

I agree with that, mostly. I'm just not interested in board-flat bow bellies, so I make adjustments in other design parameters. For instance, in a bow such as you mentioned, I would either change wood species, give it a tiny bit more working limb in width and/or length, shorten the stiff handle length, levers,  whatever I had to do to minimize set... exCEPT make the belly flat :^)

[Black Mockingbird]

Exactly Jeff...and that's called knowing your wood species and how to design it according to a specific design    ....now if were strictly speaking osage here it can handle pretty much anything ya throw at it and hold up well enough,and even be under designed and still hold and last a lifetime of thousands upon thousands of shots...and that's reason number umpteen thousand why OSAGE IS KING!!!!

I've done almost every cross section imagineable with osage(even concave belly for a certain reason),and it does just fine...as long as ya don't way over build it to the point of losing your remaining half set of yellow stained hillbilly teef

[Bowjunkie]

Yep... amazing stuff that thar yellarwood.

[Roy from Pa]

I guess it's ok:)