Last night as I was working on a new bow and thought I had a good ring for the back. After I cut out the belly side I decided it wasn't very good and decided to take it down another ring. I had it all off but 5" inches at the tip when...Bam,the whole end came off. I figure it would have broke there if this hadn't happened but what I need to know is can I make a 50" bow around 40#? Do I need to flip the tips? Or is this not worth messing with. The wood is osage (10 yrs old). I have made another bow 60" 47#@28 with the sister stave to this one. Any help? Thanks.

John

I bet you could!

I made this one 52" nock to nock, 30# @ 26. I didn't have a lot of wood to work with, my stave was a inch wide at it's widest point.

http://onemississipp.googlepages.com/whippersnapper

Nice bow Dustin. I'll keep working on it and see what happens. Anyone else with experience on short bows?

John

Where are you at in Oklahoma, I grew up outside Ada.

I later found out about a guy in Ada that builds bows.

http://myweb.cableone.net/selfbows/default.htm

He may be lurking around the board somewhere!

I met him at OJAM this year. Super nice guy and yea I think he is on here some times. I live in Luther. I am going to visit JDs shop sometime in the near future.

An osage, 50" bendy handle bow could be made to draw 25" and still be OK to shoot.  Much more draw than that and it will be really uncomfortable.  I'd flip the tips.  The available width will tell you how much weight you can get.  40# should be pretty easy with anything over 1".

John, it is 1 3/8" up to midlimb then narrows to 3/8" at it's tips. I thought I'd flip the tips about an inch. The bad thing is there's not alot of belly wood left at the tips because of going down a ring. I'll work on it tonight and try to post pics tomorrow. Thanks guys.

You could always glue on some tip underlays.