Ugly Sauce
Member
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2020
- Messages
- 6,216
Always "interesting" when a bow breaks. This is one of two Osage bows I made in the mid-1980s. The other one came out great, 46" and about 80 pounds. This one came out too light, probably around 30 pounds, it shot okay but I really didn't like it, (also a bit longer than I liked, for a native-type bow) so it has lived in the corner of one room or another since then.
I've been shooting the "good one" a lot lately, I did some work on it and brought it down to about 50 pounds, and found a good arrow shaft that it likes. So I thought I'd shorten the other one by about 4", give it a little more poundage. I got it tillered real good, but after shooting it a bit it went out of tiller. The top limb was perfect, but the bottom limb too stiff. I got to scraping on the bottom limb, and she was coming along, so I strung it to work the limb a bit before continuing, and CRACK! She busted.
In my defense it was not a good stave, and had some flaws, and was quite dry after it's like 40+ plus years standing in the corner. It was just too weak to stand the amount of wood I had to remove to get it re-tillered. And, I knew it might break, but what the heck! Worth a try. The big break you see is the lower limb, and the broken tip it off the upper limb. I think, suspect, that the upper limb broke first, and then when the lower limb snapped back it broke. Not sure, the upper limb was working fine before I started get the lower limb back in shape. ?
Oh well, again, my other one is a real jewel, shoots hard and accurate. Stacks really hard when you get to full draw, or about 22" so I don't have to worry about over-drawing it. It lets you know when it's "done". I've only had two bows break since the mid '80's, and this is one. So not too bad...not that I have made a lot. I made a long-bow out of Hickory not too long ago, it came out good but still haven't found the arrow/shaft/spine that it really likes.
Okay, fun with bows and arrows, thanks for listening.