THE OSAGE SELFBOW

In an effort to further complicate my life, I've decided to attempt to build an osage selfbow. Until this point, I've been what you'd call a compounder. I shoot a wheelie bow with all the newest contrivances. In 1999, my family and I moved from our home of twelve years near the DC Beltway to Virginia's Shehandoah Valley. While riding around the area, enjoying the newly aquired slow life, I noticed a small farm with Mayapple trees growing in a straight line as if they were a fence. A little research and a copy of Hunting the Osage Bow by Dean Torges(a christmas gift from my son) and I knew I had to make my own self bow. Now some of you will come to realize what others already know-I have exactly no woodworking background whatsoever. I'm starting completely from scratch. I thought it would be great to do up a page on my website covering the process. This is the result, and information will be provided in stages, as time allows. I hope you find it enjoyable.


I figured I would have great need for someone to pester with trivial questions through this process. I've offered this assignment to Mr. Bill McNeal, an experienced Traditional Bowyer with lots of time making osage toothpicks to his credit. Bill, being the great guy that he is, has graciously accepted the offer.




We began the process in mid December 2000. I've been watching a forty acre abandoned farm in the country that sports a 200 yard osage row. Finally, through the farmers who lease the property for cattle grazing, I contacted the owner, Mrs E. She was more than happy to allow me to harvest a few trees from the property. Mrs. E, at close to 90 years old, says her grandfather purchased the osage seeds and planted them himself when he purchased the farm as a young man. Bill and Bill Jr. drove down and we had a chainsaw party, with Bill Jr. jumping at the chance to split some yellow wood. I have to be honest here and state that we cut enough wood for me to make around twenty bows, and this would have been a very long day had it not been for the McNeals!



We split the logs into managable quarters, and hosed the ends down with spray polyurethene to force the moisture loss to occure on the split sides. Next they were placed in my shed out of the weather.



This photo will give you an idea of the exceptional wood we have stumbled accross! For scale purposes, this quarter is probably large enough for three staves.




The next step was stripping off the bark and soft early wood. Once this is accomplished, the bark side is covered with shellac to continue forcing the moisture out of the split side. Rapid moisture loss on the ends or the bark side will cause checking, or shrink cracks in the wood due to uneven shrinkage. Note should be made that I attempted to strip one stave and seal it with spray polyurethane. I then left the stave in 60 degree air for 4 days or so and the wood checked so badly it couldn't be saved. My first pile of homemade toothpicks-LESSON LEARNED-USE SHELLAC! The bench was made from some rough cut oak beams left on our property from a logging operation several years ago.




The staves then go back into the shed to continue drying. I'm trying to get the bark and early wood off and the staves split before warm weather in an attempt to keep the wood wasp grubs from boring into the latewood.


On the second attempt, I went a little saw crazy and almost reduced the stave too much. Came close to my second pile of yellow tooth picks. Fortunatly, it was just large enough to continue on trying to build my flatbow. Note should also be made that my brand new cheapo wallymart table saw is now siezed up! (Note to self--When buying power tools to work osage--buy the bigger model!!!)Lesson #3 also learned the hard way. When you bring the draw knife accross a pin, it will lift a large section of wood out on the downhill side of the stave. This results in lifting wood out of the stave, sometimes(as was in this instance) into the ring you are chasing. I decided to set that now extremely small stave aside and maybe attempt a smaller bow for one of my nephews at a later date. I guess my biggest fear to date has been trashing this wood. This stuff isn't all that easy to get and the trees we took down were fairly old and really good looking osage. With that in mind, I don't want to move too quickly and end up with a big pile of yellow chips and sawdust.



Now I've finally figured out how to work around the pins and get down to the ring I want. We now have a good stave and I'm ready for a day trip to Bill's place. Once there, I'm told we will work this stave down to a shootable bow in one day (hehehehe-Bill hasn't actually seen how slow I go at this yet, and I think he's in for a long day. Not to matter, since rumour has it that Joyce is a great cook!!!



I finally arrive at Bill's place and it becomes very evident he's allready been in the cough syrup. Just kidding! I couldn't help but post this photo.



After roughing down the stave on a table saw, we began working the handle and limbs down. This was accomplished using a ferrier's rasp, a half round file, and very carefully, a draw knife. The basic approach was for Bill to do one side with me watching, and then turn me loose on the other side. I have to say that this approach was very helpful for me.



After roughing the stave down, we boiled water in a pot, placed the tip over the pot, covered it with foil, and waited approximatley 15 minutes. While the stave was over the pot, heat was reduced enough so that you could hold your hand under the stave, just beside the pot and not burn your hand. this insured that we didn't burn the stave.



When the time was up, we placed the tip in a form and very carefully bent it. Note should be made that we bent the tip extremely slow, and went close to 30 % farther than we wanted for final product to allow for straightening that occurs during final cooling of the limb. This process is a little scary for a first timer, due to worrying about breakage and losing all the time you have invested to this point. The name of this game is BEND SLOWLY!


While holding the stave and allowing the tips to cool down, the process of taking left to right roll out of the limb can be accomplished. Check out the smile on that bowyer. Bill really enjoys doing this! After the tips cooled down, we began floor tillering the limbs. This process involves moving back and forth from rasping in the vice to bending the limbs to check for uniformity in the bend or arch. The bow is still really heavy and needs to lose a lot of weight. I'll spend some time this week working it down.



The last thing accomplished during this session was fileing in the nocks. I'll spend a little time with this new bow in my house, allowing it to dry. Then I'll take some weight off it, and glue on some nice build ups at the nocks. Then there'll be anothe trip to the McNeal's place to finish it up. Once we finished fileing the nocks, we cleaned up and I got ready for the long drive home. But not before being fed some of Joyce's blueberry cake. I'd like to go on record here saying that I thoroughly enjoyed visiting with The McNeals. I was fed well, treated well, was made to feel right at home. Reminded me of my youth growing up in the country, where the people were genuinly concerned about others and walked through life a little slower allowing time for people to be a little more friendly towards one another. As far as the value of the help I received from Bill's knowledge of bowmaking---PRICELESS! Without the day I just spent with him, I'd still be scratching my head, and reading another book, second guessing my every move. Thanx a bunch Bill!!!




Bill suggested that I just accomplish glueing on the tip overlays at home and schedule another trip up to his place to finish working the bow down. That suits me just fine since this my first attempt at a selfbow. I searched around the area and found a company that sells exotic woods, and talked them out of a five dollar sample that should last a couple of years. I then removed the 300 coats of shellac from the back of the limbs at the tip area using denatured alchohol, roughed up the surface, and attached the zebrawood overlay material using Titebond II and clamped them off.





At the suggestion of several more experienced bow makers, I left the overlays clamped for 24 hours, removed the clamps and broke out the nock file and my dremmel tool(christmas present). I first filed the nock groves on the sides and then connected them across the top. I left the overlays failry thick, and will ask those who know if this will have any adverse effect on the performance of the bow, since I kinda like them with the built up look. The overlays are 1 1/2" long and measure 1/4" thick above the string. I realize they still need to be rounded off at the points and the osage tip will require some thinning at the belly side. I also question whether the area in the grove itself needs to be filed down more towards the osage limb.



I've decided to name this bow Patience, something that until this process, I have not been known to posess a great amount of.



Here we are about to fling the first arrow!



The next step was reducing the top and bottom of the tips with the dremmel tool. Then we mixed a homemade french polish consisting of equal parts shellac and boiled linseed oil and rubbed in several coats with a soft cloth lightly burnishing with 00 steel wool between coats.



The next step was to add the deerskin handle wrap and an osage arrow shelf. Once stitched up with rawhide string, we lifted the edges and squirted in a few drops of duco cement to hold it in place. We chose the duco based upon ease of removal. Wet weather hunting will dull the french polish and in time we'll want to remove the handle wrap and apply more polish.



Here we are all finished up and shot in. 62" NTN and a tad over 60#@27". I couldn't be happier with my first selfbow!


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