Last spring at the Tennessee Classic Gary Davis walked up to me and handed me a 53" osage stave. It was marked with "35#", apparently meant for a kids bow. When Gary handed it to me he said he wanted to see what i could do with it. Well, here she is.
In early October I heated and flipped the tips a bit and did an initial tillering. Then I set up a jig to hold the stave in reflex as I added the sinew to the back. I made a loop of sinew and hook it to a cup hook on the base with the tips raised on 4" blocks...
I allowed the first layer of sinew to cure for a month before adding the second layer. The first layer was a heavy layer of shreaded leg sinew. After the month wait I added about 4 shreaded back sinews and a few weeks later the coachwhip snake skin. The sinew and snake skn were glued with hide glue.
Just before adding the snake skin I added a sinew wrap over the ends of the sinew and another wrap over the ends of the snake skin at the tips. The tip overlays are Am. bison horn, the handle is wrapped with hemp cordage set in Massey finish with a floppy rest. The bow has 4 coats of Tru-Oil and 3 of spray satin poly.
She is 53" t/t(51"n/n) and now pulls 52#@26". I made a silky dogwood arrow that weighs 508gr with 125gr point and she spits it with authority. Her total mass weight is 13.5oz. Here are a few pics. Full draw will come this evening. Enjoy...
Topic: 53" sinew backed osage (Read 391 times)
