Hi, Guys,
I'm in the process of making my first bow now. I'm using an osage billet. The bow will be about 68" long when finished. I've roughed it out at this point, and over the next few days or weeks, time permiting, I'll be continueing to work the bow till it's finished. I looked at the same plans at vintageprojects.com, but all I did to get started was to order the billet, trace around another longbow that I already have, and I'm on my way, right or wrong. I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination. I figure that there's no experience other than just doing it that's gonna get the thing done. The only thing that I would change at this point,is to not make the bow from Osage. It's veryfiberous wood and really hard to work with. It's taken me quite a while as I have only used a drawknife and a spokeshave as what was suggested to me. The drawknife seems to have a mind of it own going through the woodgrain. I was told not to use a saw. I didn't ask why, and still don't know for sure about that part of it. I have a hickory billet, and I'll probably start on that one soon after the osage bow is done. A few years ago, I bought a bow off a fellow and he told me that it is osage. It has a very strong draw weight that I would estimate at about 100# or more. When I bought it, I took it to a bow shop here and the guy put it on some type of press to test it. He took it off the press before he broke his press. It was 90# at the 24" mark. It will need work before I use it, or I'll need to do some weightlifting before I use it.[&:]I hate the idea of tillering it down to bring it to a point where I can use it now. I'd rather not take the chance and ruin the guys handywork. After I tiller a few bows, I may decide to try to tiller that bow down, but not till I'm sure of what I'm doing. The bow was hand carved in 1940.