Where IS that one stave? You know the one I put away for a special time when I was in the mood for a long shot? Ah, here it is!
This is an osage limb that I bandsawed in half. This is the deflexed side of the limb. I'm gonna try a backwards bow. That means the back of the bow is not the bark side as is the typical way to make a bow. These bows work because the fibers of the back are intact...as long as there are no anomalies. As you will see, this one has a lot of anomalies. To start, we have a couple limbs on the edge of the bow-to-be. The one on the top is HUGE. I'm gonna see if I can bandsaw most of it away.
I got a lot of it out. I think the rest will go away after final shaping
This stave also has lots of reflex...like 5". That presents its own problems since the bow is terrifically stressed before we even get a string on it. On a stave with lots of...um...issues that could be bad. Yet another strike against the chances of this thing making a bow.
I start the layout by striking a line off the side of the stave that will allow me 1 1/4" wide bow.
After bandsawing that, I strike another line that makes a 1 1/4" wide stave.
After cutting that, I lay out and cut the final profile.
Then I scribe a line for the thickness. Remember, the bark side is the belly so it will be cut off. Now's the time for another challenge. Because this is the middle of the limb, it has a lot of pith, or punky stuff in the middle of the back of the bow. This creates the opportunity for lots of violations of the fibers that make for a strong bow back.
I used the Dremel to clean out all of the pith.
This made a really nice channel right down the middle of the bow back.
Remember those opportunities for problems. Here's a couple pin knots that split out during floor tillering. Because they run straight into the pith, they disrupt our back fibers. But also because of that, they can be removed and we can shore up our bow's back. There are a total of 7 knots that will get this treatment. After that I'll try floor tillering again. One way or another, this bow, if it gets to that, will be less than 40# at 26" and it is 66" long. That's overbuilt but because of the issues, it's the only way "No Chance" will have any chance :-) Stay tuned.
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I floor-tillered the bow and pretty much worked the bad areas out as they tried to break the bow. I'd bend it and wait for a split to occur, then work it down to good stuff.
Here's one area that I got worked out. It was starting to come around and then I had a particularly disturbing pin knot that was at such an angle as to not allow much margin for error.
I guess I didn't get below that margin :-)
It was fun while it lasted.