Osage Selfbow

[Ddog]

Finished up another Osage flatbow. 64", 50#@28". Vinagroon stained, beaver tail grip wrap and strike plate. Buffalo horn tip overlays. Lots of twist and bumps in the stave that show through. Bull snake skin accents. Plan to hunt turkey with it if this water dries up here in my areas.

 

[Ddog]

A few more pics.

 

[Trumpkin The Dwarf]

Love a good selfbow! My 32” draw and slow shooting style aren’t very conducive to me owning or shooting one though.

 

[LostArra]

Love a good selfbow! My 32” draw and slow shooting style aren’t very conducive to me owning or shooting one though.

Yew

Finished up another Osage flatbow. 64", 50#@28". Vinagroon stained, beaver tail grip wrap and strike plate. Buffalo horn tip overlays. Lots of twist and bumps in the stave that show through. Bull snake skin accents. Plan to hunt turkey with it if this water dries up here in my areas.

Great looking bow.
I love bull snake skins on a bow. I just hate killing them. I got two skins when a lady driving in front of me on a country road hit two at once as they crossed the road. I guess it was the snake rut.

I had to Google vinegaroon but that is cool. Looking forward to gobbler pic.

 

[Trumpkin The Dwarf]

Yew

I'm listening...

 

[wildwilderness]

That’s legit! What do you estimate the initial cost to acquire all the tools needed to make a self bow? And to buy a stave (or 2)?

 

[LostArra]

I'm listening...

Henry V's Welsh bowmen were pulling 100 pound yew longbows and sending 900 gr arrows thru French chain mail. Yew of sufficient length will handle a long draw and perform well especially backed with rawhide. A bigger problem is finding good yew. I traded some of my osage stash for yew and still had to splice it.

I've seen clean osage selfbows made for long draws (not 32") but backing with rawhide is good insurance.

 

[Kentk]

The beaver tail grip wrap is new to me. Did you dry/tan it yourself? Can you explain the process?

 

[Ddog]

Trumpkin,

I have a buddy with a 32" draw that wants to swap me a bow for a flintlock. I figure I'll use the standard bow length calculator formula to figure it out when I get a chance and dig out a longer stave. Draw length X 2 (64")+ whatever handle/fade length (8") added in. So around 72" depending on bow design. Some guys are doing deflex/reflex bows that are rather short for the draw lengths they're achieving. But, yeah, like Lostarra mentioned, war bows can handle some long draws depending on bow length.

 

[Ddog]

Yew


Great looking bow.
I love bull snake skins on a bow. I just hate killing them. I got two skins when a lady driving in front of me on a country road hit two at once as they crossed the road. I guess it was the snake rut.

I had to Google vinegaroon but that is cool. Looking forward to gobbler pic.

Thanks. I got these originally in a trade a while back. I used to run across them when I lived in CO quite often. Beautiful snakes.

I made my vinagroon in a Gatorade bottle a few years ago, still use the original stuff. Just gotta keep the lid loose or it can blow up I guess.

 

[Ddog]

That’s legit! What do you estimate the initial cost to acquire all the tools needed to make a self bow? And to buy a stave (or 2)?

Thank you.

Tools themselves are fairly cheap, for instance draw knives can be found on eBay, flea markets, etc. Vintage Greenlee are great. That and a farrier's rasp, a Shinto rasp and some files, sandpaper, etc is all you'd need to get started. Also some sharp card scrapers. You can get as elaborate as you like with it. Band saw for blanking out staves, etc...I have maybe 100 bucks into my basic, most used tools.

As for staves, they're getting ridiculous, but I've been lucky and had buddies hook me up with guys getting out of the building game and selling off their staves. Also, I've cut ironwood at my hunting property to season and had people who know I make bows offer hickory logs, etc.

 

[Ddog]

The beaver tail grip wrap is new to me. Did you dry/tan it yourself? Can you explain the process?

I got this one from Etsy if I remember correctly. It was tanned, but was a light tan color. I used Fiebings light brown leather dye to color it. They can be purchased in rawhide form and home-tanned or purchased tanned in different colors. I like the feel of it on a bow grip. As to the application, Big Jim has an excellent tutorial on YT that I follow pretty much to the T.