Lowering the poundage on my osage...

[ishoot4thrills]

I made myself an osage flatbow back in '98 that is too much for me now. It's 67#@28" and 68" long with about 1.5" of string follow/set. It's almost 2" wide at mid-limb, tapering down to about 5/8" at the tips and very straight with excellent tiller. I'm thinking about taking wood off of the sides, since it is very wide, so as not to disturb the tiller too much, to bring the draw weight down to around 50-55#. Would this be an effective method of getting my target weight?

[brad smith]

you are talking about taking off about 10 pounds,, if I was going to do it, I would take a little off the sides and sand the belly as well.. checking the tiller as you go.. you want to make sure you keep the top limb a little stiffer as you go..
if you take off too much from the sides the more narrow bow might take some set.. leave it as wide as you feel comfortable... sounds like it wil make a nice bow at the lower poundage. Brad

[CallMaker]

A little off the width and some off the face. Keep an eye on the tiller. I'm not sure why you would want to leave the top limb stiffer.

[shamus]

If the tiller is fine, then take a scraper and scrape about 20 passes on each limb, on the belly side. Do not work the sides (this is not a fiberglass bow). The check the bow's weight.

Do another 20 passes with a scraper on each limb (be sure that you are doing getting nice even shavings), check the weight. Check the tiller to make sure it's still fine. Correct the tiller if needed.

Do 20 more scrapes and see if the bow is light enough. Keep doing this process of scraping the limbs, checking tiller , and testing the weight until you get where you need it to be.

It's a slow process, but it works.