Long time ago I made a 5 curve bow out of a pair of nice, snakey and very old osage sister billets. All curves were steamed in, except the central at the handle which was induced as a backset splice. The greyish brown color was already in the wood. That bow came out a bitRead more
Bows
It doesn’t need much wood to make a serious bow from osage. This bow comes from a splinter, a left over from a thicker stave. It was only 1” wide and 5/8” thick at maximum, but super clean and needed only a bit of dry heat corrections for string alignment. This bow is made forRead more
I have made in the last time same short, wide limbed osage bows and I must say I like them a lot. It was a nice and clean stave, thick enough to get also a belly split – here is the back split. Some adjustments were necessary also some reflex was induced. Fade is 6”Read more
Some time ago a guy was here searching in my pile for BL staves. He came across a thick board, looked at it and sourced out. I was watching him and asked why he did that and got the answer it is a board and not a stave, so he let it here. In hisRead more
Nice stick with some character and a hole in the upper limb. I used it to get some pheasant feathers on. The stick was fumed with a chased ring as a bow blank,. After tillering I got that two tone appearance. It was a bit thin for a good handle, I glued on a pieceRead more
The billets for this bow came from a very old black locust trunk, seasoned + 75 years. The color of that wood is just beautiful like honey, not that more or less olive brown I usually have here. The grain shows up nicely. On the lower limb are two cluster knots, one of them securedRead more
From time to time I really enjoy working on simple stick bows, with a round diameter at handle and tapering somehow to the tips. Here is one of those quick made sticks, an Euonymus europaeus branch harvested in my garden just a months or so ago. You can see the origin diameter of the branchRead more
I found this wild growing apple some years ago in the woods near my home. The wonderful red-brown-orange color on the back appeared soon after debarking, no dye here. It has eight nipple knots on the back, is that cool? The little sapling had a diameter of about 2”, full width can be seen atRead more
Another fumed static (one week), full of character, laid out as a 5 curve. One limb had this form natural, the other limb got induced curves. Ridges beginning at the handle are tapering out past the fades. The levers got very deep string grooves with sharp ridges. Addy rings on handle and tips allows cuttingRead more
This stick is fumed for 6 days before tillering on the belly, so finally I’ve got a rich colored surface. It is a more flat limbed long faded design, I call it willow leaf (see front sight). In cross section it has a mild concave belly, but is no HLD in origin sense. I hadRead more