Rawhide -Backed Osage Static

[wooddamon1]

Figured I'd share my fifth osage build here since I've enjoyed seeing everyone's work over the years. Not perfect, but my best shooter so far and first static besides an ironwood blank that's in the works. Very thin-ringed stave but I work with what I got, so I ordered up the rawhide and slapped it on after it looked good on the floor tiller.



66" 50#@28"



I'll post the steps as I went through them if I can tell what's what on my phone screen.

[wooddamon1]

Form work with dry heat, don't think I got it hot enough evenly throughout the length, but I started out with decent reflex.

[wooddamon1]

Yep, that pic is out of order lol. Here she is all clamped down on the form.

[wooddamon1]

More pics.


Boiled the tips and into the form to clamp and cool off.

[wooddamon1]

No issues with the bends after boiling for 30 minutes, that was a relief.

[wooddamon1]

After I let the tips cool and refining the floor tiller, I added the rawhide with Tite-Bond 3 and wrapped with a bandage, which I'll either skip next time or shorten up the time it was wrapped for. Brought it in the house to dry and stay warm since the temps were dipping pretty low out in the garage.

[Mad Max]

 

[wooddamon1]

Rawhide dry and trimmed.

[wooddamon1]

Well okay I guess I can post at least a couple pics at a time. Here's some as I went along.

[wooddamon1]

Some more pics.

[wooddamon1]

Now it's getting to the fun stuff. Handle and tip shaping. I added some walnut overlays from a buddies gramps woodshop.

[wooddamon1]

Sanding her all down and some tip work getting everything nice and smooth before flinging a few.

[wooddamon1]

Tried to copy a cool camo technique I saw on another site, didn't turn out like I planned, but it'll work. Blotched and swiped my dye colors around with a couple turkey tail feathers on the rawhide. Also the first 3 coats of Tru-Oil.

[Kirkll]

Very cool!   

I have a few questions…. What is the brace height on the bow in the photo of it sitting on the chair?

What prompted you to do a rawhide backing before tillering?  Were there issues with chasing rings? Or just the thin ring nature of the stave? 

My experience is very limited in the self bow dept brother… so please excuse my ignorance here.

Kirk

[wooddamon1]

And some full draw and finishing touches pics. So far I have around 150 shots through her, FF string braced at 7". Very quiet and seems quick. Shoots very nice for me. Thanks for looking!

[wooddamon1]

Thanks guys. Kirk, yes the rings were a definite factor in deciding to back it before tillering. I've chased rings on some gnarly stuff but this one had very thin, wonky rings that I didn't trust myself not to mess up. So, I got it the best I could then checked the bends at floor tiller, which was easy thanks to the straightness. Then glued on the wet rawhide and proceeded from there. Probably not the ideal way to do things, but so far so good.


Oh, and brace on the unfinished pic was probably around 5" or so.

[Shredd]

  That's purty sweet...  Nice job..!!

[wooddamon1]

Thanks, Shredd!

[Pat B]

Very nice bow, Damon. I like everything about it. 
 On the heat treating you can heat the belly until you get color, even dark color without hurting anything. Just be sure the heat doesn't wrap around the edges to the back.

[wooddamon1]

Thanks Pat, appreciate that!