How long do they need to dry?

culleng, It depends on the wood and the relative humidity of your area. A good rule of thumb is one year for each inch of thickness. That can be speeded up considerably by reducing your stave to near bow size...but, there is nothing like well seasoned bow wood, no matter what specie it is.     Pat

Thanx Shaun, The copper heads do look nice on that bow too.

Pat B, Them nice arrows and awesome looking bow pic's

Mark, great looking bow's.. I want to try Osage soon.

Thanks Sal. I finished up 3 more this weekend with obsidian points. In this set of 6 cane arrows the average weight is 610gr(551gr to 648gr). I weighed the bows today and the yew pulls 47#@26" and the osage recurve pulls 48#@26". The way these cane arrows recover the 13gpp doesn't seem to effect my shooting ability with either bow at 20 yards. That works for me!     Pat

Here's Your pic's Pat B.

Thanks for posting these pics Sal. I think I'm ready for the season. I hope the deer will cooperate. I have lots of good medicine accumulated it these items. At least 12 different people contributed with gifts of wood, stone, steel, feathers, fur, bark and sinew. I guess the rest is up to me!!! d:^)   Pat

I was a little slow on this post. Here are the three bows I will use this season. The Meland is for Antelope out of the blind not a selfbow but the arrows and broadheads I will use are hand made. The two selfbows were made last year. The "bucks only" (second bow) has already accounted for a deer. I was concentrating on making my own arrows and broadheads this year. The last picture is soon to be new selfbows.


The arrows self nock arrows for selfbows

Selfbows and soon-to-be selfbows

My practice range

And all for this. He was in my front pasture if I just could have gotten him to go by the blind.

Great pic's Jack... Nice pet you have in your yard, too.... What is that a shepherd?


No I'm sorry that's Dinner, what was I thinking    

Thanks mysticguido

That lope likes to circle the house and drive the dogs crazy. But he is smart enough not to break the 30 yard barrier.

Crazy thing is he is in my front yard and my tag is for Rawlins 100 miles away. I do have a doe tag for the area around the house though.

Nice bows and arrows, Jack. Will you describe your self bows and arrows.
  Beautiful country you live in. One of these days I'd love to see it for myself...and try to sling an arrow at one of those pronghorns.
  Thanks for posting your self bows. I'm a sucker for beautiful all wood bows.     Pat

Both of the selfbows are of Osage. The one is sort of a hyrid design I like it is narrow like a english longbow and even bends into the handle, it has a radius belly, it is 68" nocktonock. It is about 1 1/4in wide at handle to just past mid limb then tapers to 1/2in at the end. The "camo" is mud flag girl (rednecks should not be left without adult supervision). The other bow is more of a flat bow design but also bends right to the handle. It is about 1 1/2 inches wide to just past midlimb then tapers to 1/2 at the nocks. It is mostly flat on the belly, it is 66" nock to nock. It is backed with bullsnake. Both use floppy rest and either leather spiral wraped handle or I use 80lb test braided fishing line.
Arrows are ash that I made from a board. They are 3/8 at the broadhead end and taper toward the nock end. I sand all but the first 2 inches of the shaft till I get the spine I want. The feathers are from local birds turkey and goose split ground and burned by myself and one of my hunting partners. The broadheads are desgined after the griz 190 in tradepoint fasion from a saw blade with single left bevel.

Nice bows, Jack. Did you hand plane the arrows? Lately I have been using either sourwood shoots of cane arrows. I have a set of ash shafts that a friend is tapering for me now. Can't wait to try them.
  I love Mickey's floppy rest. I've been putting them on most of my bows lately.     Pat

I rip them down on my table saw, then run them past a router using a jig I copied from the how to section of this site. Then either hand sand or I have a jig I made to spin the shafts so I can sand if they are overly heavey. I have used a hand plane as well just stepped the process up a mite. I love ash it just seems to weigh and spine perfectly for my use out of my bows in the 55-60lb range selfbow or the Meland when I shoot it.

The floppy rest is all I use now, simplistic perfection.

Nice Jack!  Mud flap girl... "Bucks Only" ... Now that's some original gear!!!    

Great job!

Thanks Molson now if I could only make it so. Shot a doe with it last season.