Please show off your self bows!

[steadman]

Holy cow!! Pat and Richard, my hat is off to you as well. I especially love the lines of the recurve, Pat! NICE!!  

[Mark Baker]

Nice Pat!  Is that a backing or paint on the back of "Herbs bow".  Almost looks like a bark backing.

I love the tissue paper idea.   Also, those animal prints you posted earlier.   I'll have to try that on some of my plain jane models.

[ron w]

Pat ,you are a truly talent man.    Makes me want to hide some of the stuff I have made.....

[Pat B]

Mark, that is choke cherry bark backing on Herb's bow. I like that stuff. I cleaned most of the moss and lichens off of it so the coppery colored bark would show through.
  On this osage static recurve I left all the mosses and lichens on the choke cherry bark and just put Tru-Oil right over it. It has held up as my primary hunting bow for 3 years now and is still going strong.
 

 

 

  This is an interesting thing that happened with this bow. I bought an osage stave from Mike McGuire when Herb Reynolds asked me to make a bow for him. The stave I bought was cut a month before. I got a belly split and two back staves from this one. I made Herb's bow and this bow with the 2 back staves. I had this one shooting just over 2 months off the stump. It felt dry and worked like a dry stave but began to take set and developed a few frets in the lower limb. I set it aside for about a year. At that time I added a thin tapered piece of Argentine osage to the belly of each limb and re-tillered her. Now she shoots like a champ and I never had any more trouble with her.

[Mark Baker]

I always wondered about chokecherry bark....I have a bunch of it around here.   I'll have to give it a try too.   I did build a chokecherry bow several years ago, and shot it a bunch.  It dried out a bit too much the first winter, and it blew on me.....been meaning to build another but have'nt got around to it.  

Walt...I've located a couple big junipers that have washed up behind the house, we'll go and check out this weekend when you come over.  There is definitely some usable wood there, maybe billets for a bow project.....but lams for sure.

[DVSHUNTER]

 

 

Hickory backed with boa and horn/purpleheart overlays

[Mark Baker]

Here's a couple more pics I was able to dig up.   First couple critters, the moose and velvet deer were taken with an osage selfbow named "Bullwinkle" that I made just for the Alaska trip.   It has taken a bunch of game for me.   Wish I had "better" bow pics.

 

 

The next is an osage bow....it was a very narrow stave and so I built it more like an english longbow, with a deeper limb profile.   I also backed it with rawhide "just in case".   I took a few deer with it.  I named it "Twist and shout" for the way the limbs twisted opposite each other when strung.   It eventually developed crysals on the belly and I retired it.

 

[Mark Baker]

Perhaps the slowest, ugliest bow I ever made, but a safe one!  I took a few deer with it.   I could never come up with a name for it.....just an osage club!  I ended up giving that bow to Alex Roche who has gone on to build a few selfbows himself.

 

 

[Pat B]

Mark, give choke cherry bark a try. It is very strong and will add a bit of performance as well as protection.
  I also have a few bows that don't want to be named. All the othere name themselves.

[DVSHUNTER]

 

 
 

And a yew bow keenan hoeard made for me
 

[Covey]

Very cool bows fellas. Gonna try my hand at building one myself sometime this spring. An Amish friend of mine has made several. So he's gonna show me the ropes. Hope all goes well!

Jason

[Walt Francis]

Everybody, those are some great lookng bows.

Pat, I love those bark-backed bows.

Mark, Sounds like a plan.

DVS, Is that a Python, Boa, ? skin on the bow with the pink tips?

[House]

Great looking bows fellas!  It is just what I needed to see, I am in the process of building my first osage selfbow!  I am hoping it'll launch a few arrows soon...I am already planning out the next one...I think I have found a new passion!

Travis

[DVSHUNTER]

Walt, that is a boa skin i used. Ive still got the other half two but it doesnt have the same colors. They faded from tail to head unfortunatly.

[okie64]

After seeing some of the other beautiful bows posted on here I'm almost embarrased to show mine but heres a few of them anyway.

Left to tight in this pic are 50# osage, 65# osage, 48# black locust, 50# hickory, 48# osage, and 50# juniper.
 
 
The black locust bow is probably the ugliest one bit it is a lot of fun to shoot it.

[okie64]

Sorry guys I dont know why those pics came out so big, I resized them but I'll go back and try it again.

[PEARL DRUMS]

14 pages of show-off's......makes me sick   ....You guys build some sweet bows for sure! Cool thread as well.

[Walt Francis]

Jamey,
Those are some nice looking bows, the type I always hunt with.  If I fancy up my bows too much they are usually dontated to St. Judes or the PBS because I will abuse the heck out of them.  Besides, not many woods are pertier then  Osage after it starts to darken up.

[Pat B]

Well show off too Pearlie. I've heard of at least one incredible bow you have made but Ruddy will post those pics. I'm sure you have others.

[Mark Baker]

Walt said it, Jamey.....my favorite bow is still a plain old osage selfbow.  No worry's, just dependable.  

Still fun from time to time to purty them up, though, and try something new!