One of the evils of the self Bow is string follow, or taking a set. This robs the bow of all hint of performance and usualy it is the end of the bow. One of My Osage bows took a set and this is how I fixed it. Hopefully the fix holds.
My favorite Osage bow I made took a notion it wanted to have string follow instead of reflex.
Most say it can't be changed, some say it can, so I tried to put it back like it was.
The faulty area was on the lower limb, and just at the fade. The bow is 65" 1" wide at the fade tapering to the nocks.
To try to put back the light Reflex it had I clamped it to a caul that tapers from the fade to 3" at 66", and slowly heated it and tightened the clamps as I went . I used a heat gun to do this.
Next I laid the lower limb on the belt sander to flaten the problem area, from half way up the fade to about 8" up the limb. Next I put it back in the caul and clamped it down and re-heated this area good and hot. While it cooled I found the piece that was band sawed from this area originaly, and cut a patch from it full width and about 1/8" thick. I feathered it to nothing on each end and fit it to the limb and fade section of the riser. Then I toasted the patch with heat. It clamped into position perfectly, and then everything sat for a few months till last week. I glued on the patch with EA40 and cured it for about 2 hours under a 500 watt Halogen flood light.
The next day I had to do some scraping and sanding to get the tiller right on the long string, then on the short string. All was looking good, then as I was drawing it farther I could see the top limb had to be scraped mid limb to make both look even.
It seemed as good as it would be getting so I jumped in and put some varathane on the bare wood, to match the original finish.
It turned out looking great, and very hard to notice the patch. I rounded the patch where it fades into the limb and it just looks like grain here, The riser end of the patch is a bit noticable to me because I know it is there, .Today I strung and shot it for an hour, and after letting the string off it still has reflex.
I am a happy camper now, and just hope it maintains its profile. Shooting it was just like it always was, quiet and no jaring shock.
It was a lot of tedious work, but Osage is so hard to get here it would have been a shame to leave it as it was. In the end I know that sometimes you can fix things when you have nothing to loose and everything to gain.
Pete
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