i have dropped in weight significantly,, i once used a 67# bow but now after shoulder surgeries and commercial plumbing destroying my joints  my comfortable draw now is 44lbs but i still could handle up to 50 for one shot hunting bows.

I have an old and very darkened osage self bow made by the late joe mattingly. Its 57# and i struggle to shoot it accurately now,,, when younger I competed in every self bow event possible with it and won around 30 trophy's with this bow he named the notch because of a knot hole thru limb. 


What do you guys think,,, leave it as a wall hanger now or should i look into
Having the weight dropped so the bow can be back out in the woods.

If you plan to use it I'd say definitely drop the weight. If you don't think you'd use it much it would be a shame to try to reduce a bow with such a personal historic value made by a celebrity in the selfbow archery world as Joe Mattingly.
If you do decide to reduce it take it very slow and exercise well after each wood removal. If the tiller is still good I'd take a few scrapes off each limb, same amount from each limb then exercise and check tiller. Continue until you get to a comfortable weight. By exercising after each wood removal you help that wood removal register. Otherwise you may hit a point where too much bend to one or the other limb then you start chasing proper tiller.

Pat thanks for the posts,  how about the color change will the osage go bright yellow again after scraping and if so will it eventually go dark and match the untouched wood,,,,,, or would that take another 20yrs!

after thinking about it while sitting in 2hrs of traffic im leaning towards not messing with it and just take it out for a hunt or two where i could get off one or two shots. I have other mattingly bows that are 46 to 51 and much easier draw.   

I just did this with a bow that I believe was made by Earl Hoyt Senior.  Picked the bow up at a Estate sale along with a lot of other original Hoyt bows.  The wood on mine is so old that it stayed dark.  Even if it lightens up, you can put it in the sun for a couple of afternoons, and it will darken up nicely.

Yes, it will probably be yellow if you scrape it. Depending on how old the wood will determine on the color. It could be bright yellow, yellow brown or dark brown like rainman said. Exposure to sunlight is what makes the color darken.

I decided to just not mess with it right now,,, i was thinking of going to mojam next year and may bring it so people can see it in person and help me decide if i should scrape it while there. 

That's a good idea. If you decide to reduce it MoJam with it's high temps a lot of sunshine would be a good place to start the color change back dark again and plenty of experienced bowyers there to help with the reduction.