MDM: Master Bowyer

Weeks ago I started a new project: I am making an osage orange self bow. A friend gave me a quarter of an osage orange log from a farm 40 miles south of Kansas City Missouri. It had been seasoned for fifteen years and was ready to become a bow. Osage orange is arguably the best wood for making bows in the world. The native Americans prized it for bow making and would travel hundreds of miles to get it.
Many years ago my father gave me a flat bow that he had as a young man in the 1950's. I used to shoot it when Sharon and I first got married in 1983. Since then it has been kept in a closest with all of the other things I wish to keep from going missing! I am using this bow as a pattern. I figure that by the time I'm done it will be 67" long with a 50 or 55 lb. pull at 28". Only problem is I don't know if I can pull a 50# bow. Dad's is a 50# pull at 28" and it's hard enough!

I have used only three tools to work the bow: a knife, a wood rasp, and early on, my great- grandfather's draw knife he made in the blacksmith shop. My hands are dyed yellow and my left hand is numb (I'm not kidding!) from scraping layer upon layer from the back, belly, and sides of the bow. It is finally ready to be tillered.

What is tillering you ask? It is where the limbs of the bow are just thin enough to start bending when you push on them and you start to slowly scrape material off the belly of the bow to give the final bend or "bow" that you are looking for. In my case I hope to scrape off enough material so that when an arrow is drawn back 28" it will have taken about 50 pounds of pull to do it.
Below are some pictures of my new bow ready for tillering and Dad's old bow. Notice how "snakey" the osage bow is. It is very rare for an osage stave to have straight grain and is usually twisted and crooked.


Side of osage bow.



Osage bow on left and Dad's bow on right.



The belly of both bows.