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Here's the vitals:
An osage bow made according to the instructions in Dean Torges' book "Hunting the Osage Bow"
Draw length: 26"
Target weight: 60#
Style: round bellied, assymetrical limb length, rigid handle
NTN length: 62.5" (63.5" total length)
Handle width/length: 1 3/8" W X 4" L, bulbous
Length of fades: 2 3/4"
Max. Width of limbs: 1 1/2" for 6" tapering to 1/2" nocks
Rawhide backed
1/12/00 12:00
If you've read Dean's book, you'll know that he recommends floor tillering a bow until you are about 10 pounds over weight. Essentially, we should have real even limbs by then and they should be bending pretty well. The final step, where we are now, Dean calls "Stalking Tiller". This is almost the final step. See the previous pages on this bow for some of the the other steps.
Here's a shot of the bow now:
And bent to 16" or so:
The lower limb is to your right and is a little stiffer than the upper
limb. There is also a little less movement in the near handle wood
on the upper limb than we would like. I'll take a few passes with
the Bowyer's Edge off the lower limb and try to loosen up that near handle
wood on the upper limb. The hingy looking spot towards the tip of
the upper limb is actually a knot. Look at the belly in that area and the
hinge goes away. The tip is a little stiff yet but we'll get to that
at later, longer draws. I weighed her at 16" and got 36#. If
we guesstimate 3# per inch of draw and have 10" of draw left, we get 66#.
We'll lose a bit of that during stalking of tiller, break in and finish
so we should get close to our 60# target.
1/12 1:00
This picture is a little crooked but I got some movement in both spots that I wanted it. I'm gonna draw it a little farther and see where we are.
Drawn to 20". Looking pretty good. This might be one of those bows that tillers itself ;-)
Drawn to 23". It's not not bending quite as much as I'd like right at the handle and the lower limb is still a bit stiff but overall, not bad.
Here's the side view profile. Showing little set so far.
That's all I can do for now. Later.
1/18/00 11:00
Here she is at 24" after shooting her about 100 times this weekend.
She's got a bit of a hinge in the top limb about 10 inches from the
tip but it isn't bad. I'm gonna try and work that out and get a littel
more movement near the handle in the upper limb.
11:30
Here she is drawn to my 26" draw after working on those 2 areas mentioned above.
She's still a little stiff at the handle and a little hingy in that one spot. I'll give her a few more scrapes.
The hingy spot is looking good now. A few more scrapes near the handle ought to fix that up nice too.
Here is the final product sans finishing. I've rounded the facets over and scraped her clean. A few more scrapes at the handle got that where I wanted. I'm pleased with the results. I'm gonna sand her out tonight and maybe get the dye job started. I'm thinking about doing something brownish and sunburst it like Dean instructs in the book. I've had good luck with that so far and think I'll do it again. I'm gonna also try to highlight the color in the rawhide since I like it so much. She finished out right at 50# which is lighter than I wanted but plenty for deer. I might just have to make a 60#er for me and one for Kenny to take elk hunting this fall :-) I've got 3 primo staves that came from this same tree just ready to go. If I do, you can count on them being right here in the construction phase on - "Stalking Tiller.....LIVE!" {Ya really gotta say that like Sam Donaldson to get the full effect]
Later...and thanks for all the help. I'll put up some shots of
her when she's finished.
2/5/00
