The Osage Bow Part 1

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Tags: Pathfinder,Survival,Bug Out,Bushcraft,Scouts,Scouting,Primitive,Primitive Skills.Traditional,Archery,Bone,Stone,Tools,Self Reliance,Navigation,Orienteering,Tracking,Trekking,Camping,Backpacking,Hiking,Tents,Campfire,Fire,Wool Blanket,Kit,Emergency Preparedness,Spear,Hunting,Cooking,Fishing,Game Cleaning,Meat preservation,Nature,Naturalist,Trapping,Traps,Primitive Traps,Handdrill,Bowdrill

Video Transcription

morning guys well afternoon guys Dave Canterbury with Pathfinder school brought you guys back out here today uh-huh

I thought I was going to pull a sneaky one in duct tape it's live and you can see how that turned out since I've put on the tillering tree it snapped off again so that didn't happen now sometimes you can get away with like this limb that we had the hinge in I put some duct tape on that hinge and I probably could have got away with that because I've bent this thing pretty good on the ground in front of me and it's not going to break but this one here was just too close to the tip where it broke just no way to repair that so we're going to go ahead and it just kills me to ditch something like this and I told you I was gonna throw the way anyway and I hadn't done it yet so now I'm going to actually burn it and trash it but because I want to make a bow with you guys on video I've got another stave right here that I've had actually in a corner of my office for I'm guessing two years okay and this is Osage orange there's no doubt that this thing is going to work out okay for a bow now this is going to be a very fun bow to work with because you can see if you look at it the limbs are actually offset on this thing it's got a lot of character and it's got some reflux already in it right here and it's got some reflux in it right here but these limbs are no way shape or form the same and they're actually curved ones curved this way and ones curved the other way so it's going to have a lot of character when we're done with it but it's a nice piece of Osage orange a lot of guys have asked me now what's the best Woods to make a bow out of in the Eastern woodlands this is it Osage orange is the number one best wood I would not take anything over Osage if I could get a piece of it like I said this piece has been curing in the corner in my office for about two years it was just hacked out with a saw to a basic shape and left there and now I'm going to start working on this boat with you guys I won't see if we can't get this one finished up for this series coming to spare you guys a lot of this because we've already been through all this with the other boo but first thing I want to do is I've got this thing squared off so the first thing I'm going to do is take my axe and basically get these limbs rounded off a little bit so I don't have square corners on these limbs and when I get that done I'll work on looking at getting it to where it needs to be the floor tiller so we'll get that done we'll get one limb subfloor tillers and we'll show you that as we go you can look at this and see where it's thin and words thick it's got some areas on it here that are going to have to be thinned out a little bit especially down here this lower limb down on the bottom here it's thicker than it is up here in the fade so we're going to take meat off of that immediately and once I get this thing rounded down a little bit that's what we're going to do then we'll concentrate on taking that meat off first and then we'll see if we can get the floor tiller and we'll go from there guys I want to show you one of the really good things about these dry staves as you can absolutely tell where you've taken wood off compared to where you have it in the beginning stages of this and it makes it real easy to tell what you've done with your work now this Osage is really bright yellow when you first cut into it but as it ages and since it turns this dark brown orange color that's why it's called Osage orange it's also called bow dark as what the Indians called it in Eastern woodlands this was the preferred bow material of the woodland Indians one thing that you need to realize when you're working dry wood like this takes a lot longer to work a piece of wood down even with a good sharp axe then it does when you're working wet wood the dry wood doesn't give it up near as easy as wet wood does so you just got to take your time with it be careful you still don't want to get any real deep gouges in it that you can't take care of later with a rasp or what not and just trying to keep these limbs fairly round on the backside on the belly the bow trying to keep it fairly round and as I go I'm looking at the floor tiller and see how it's bending right now it's hardly bending at all but that's very typical of osage anyway Osage is a very hard strong wood and these limbs will have to be pretty thin before this thing is going to fill at all you can get away with you know pretty thin bow when you're talking about Osage your limbs are going to be very wide you can still have a 60 70 pound bow very very easy out of sight so it's going to take quite a while to work this state down to get the same type of tiller on it we had on that other bow or obviously we don't want quite that much tiller because we want to be a stronger bow but what I'm saying it when I'm getting out I guess is that you're going to take a lot more meat off of this bow number one because it's dried never came because it's a lot harder piece of wood and you have taking a lot more meat off of it to get tiller out but it will end up with a smaller lighter bow because of that that will have the same amount of poundage and because it's such a dense fibrous hard wood you get a lot of good good reflux out of this bow when you let when you let go the string from draw and you can make some really really powerful fast both kind of Osage orange that's why it was the preferred bow wood of the Indians because it was so good for that I mean it's just a great wood for making bows out of so I'm just trying to take a short strokes and keeping everything as even as I can as I go clean with the tiller a little bit as I go to see where I need to take more meat off of just like we talked about the last video that you can see I'm taking a lot off of that and it's hardly flexing at all that's good what I want is before I put this on a tillering treat I only want two to three inches of flex so when I'm holding the middle of this boat flexing that limb I only went flex two or three inches now this has got some good reflex in the limb already the other got reflux in it as well so that's going to give me a lot more power in this Bowie anyway when I'm done but this process is going to be a long process I'm not going to sit and film it all for you but I wanted you guys to see a good finished bow made out of natural materials made with very few tools to show you that can be done and you can make a nice good service will bow without the aid of shop tools and things like that

in the woods so we're going to continue to work with this and I'll get back with it

okay I do when I explain to you guys this point I want to talk about this it's a good little lesson while we're on this bow there's a couple different ways that you can make this bow or this limb flex more you can make it thinner you can make it narrower or you can taper on the sides now what I'm saying by that is you're going to be taking meat off of this limb but there's a lot of different ways you can take meat off this limb to get the same effect and at this point I really don't want this bow much thinner up in here than it already is it's already I don't know I'm going to say 5/8 of an inch thick maybe up here at the fade I don't want a much thinner than that a little bit maybe right here but so right now what I'm working on is beveling this over at a 45 degree angle pretty much all the way up the limb to the fade and then I want to see what the floor tillers like so understanding what things you can do to make your limbs flex more is very important when you're in the initial process of making your bow because it's going to dictate the shape of your bow in the shape of your limb and how it flexes and the D style bow or a curved bow and the belly side is generally considered to be the most powerful type of bow that you can make for a regular static long bow not a compound bow not a reflex D flex but just a static long bow you know a curved D style design is generally considered to be the best so that's kind of what we're working on here a little at a time now the other thing I want to show you real quick is I when I cut this bow out originally and put this thing out to dry I drew a center line up this both in the center point of the bottom limb up to the center point of the top limb and I'm kind of paying attention to that center line on my limb as I go as I'm taking meat or thickness off of the limb I'm paying attention to where that center lines at because that's going to be the center line of my string because both of these limbs are offset from each other remember that so I want to keep them in a straight line when the bow actually bends to each other I don't want an angle there so this is center line all the way up this bow and I want to pay attention to that while I'm making this limb and keep it centered on that center line okay now you can start to see that we're getting some flex in this limb now see how the limbs starting to flex the other side won't flex at all okay that's good that means we're getting where we need to be and you can see that limb is getting pretty thin and still stiff as a board

I mean that's just if that's what osage will do for you osage gives you a real heavy-duty bow that doesn't have to weigh a whole lot so now the trick is with a bow like this it's all curvy and reflexed already is you've really got to pay attention to your tiller now to get meat off the right places so you don't screw that up because you got off this thing shooting off this way to begin with plus its reflex this way so we really got to watch what we're doing now but we're getting a slimmed-down to where we get some flex in it now and now get to the point we ought to be looking at our other limb okay guys well hope you've enjoyed this first segment on the Osage boat we're going to continue working on this with you guys over the next few days and hopefully we'll come out with a nice shootable hunting bow like I said this one did season for quite a long time couple years not necessarily to have a season that long the season is probably good enough but this was just sat until I decided I was going to work on it and I thought since I broke that last bow and times getting really short now I'm not going to shoot very many more videos to be honest with you I wanted to try to finish this segment up I also wanted to thank all the guys that are posting videos on my channel now I've got Chris Cooper I've got Matt Cooper outdoors

I've got Pat who's new posting videos on my channel he's doing a good job I've got Malkin out Johnny Rambo one one one one one from UK he's gonna be posting videos there's going to be some videos posted in the next few days by paleo man gym down down south down there he's a very very good flint knapper he's putting together a series right now flint knapping basics that he's going to post on my channel and i welcome all the people I've still got bushcraft on fire I've still got Rob Fraser for canteen shop comm course I got critter my lead instructor at the Pathfinder school he'll be posting videos hopefully on Monday he's on a three-day winter camp right now hopefully he'll be posting videos on Monday we'll get some more videos posted on there so sage Bo as we go and like I said I really appreciate your views I appreciate your support and thank you for supporting me and my channel we'll see on the next video