You folks along with the gents who wrote the Traditional Bower's Bibles 1 & 2 (those I've read so far) have motivated me this year to create my own bows. Scrounging, working, cutting, drying, pounding and seperating has finally produced enough material to equipt a small army, or at least some friends and myself, a few wittled bows for this coming year. I am currently using a couple board hickory bows and look forward to starting more of them and self bows, too.
(http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b357/owenschr109/Archery%20Materials%202007/OsageStavesandHickoryStavesandBoard.jpg)
Not all of the chunks but a goodly pile to work with of osage and hickory. The Ash is in the garage rafters.
(http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b357/owenschr109/Archery%20Materials%202007/Deerlegandbacksinew.jpg)
When I read the chapter on sinew I thought, "What idiot would take the time to do that when there is perfectly good fiberglass available?" I answered my own question. There is about 55 leg tendons there and 4 backs. The two magazines are completely full of sinew threads, too.
(http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b357/owenschr109/Archery%20Materials%202007/RecurveJig.jpg)
This is a recurve jig I sawed out the other day for a future project.
I'm afraid I've caught the bug.
Looks like you should be busy for awhile. Have fun and make sure you post some of your creations.
Bill
:bigsmyl:
Don't fight it - go with the flow. Its almost the time of year to start scraping and rasping. Have fun.