Post: #1

PART 1 - Tools, wood selection, preparation

I decided to make this datasheet because of interest my „build-a-long“ ash bow produced and also I thought that there are more guys here interested in how to actually make a bow themselves, but they are simply in position where they don't know how to start. This datasheet will have three parts.

Aim of this datasheet is to build American flatbow type of bow, with draw weight of around 50 pounds at 28 inches of draw length (50#@28“). 50# is enough to kill almost every animal in Northern hemisphere and for target practice is easy on the muscles. Its important for target practice to have bow that is not too strong for you. 50# ensures that no grown man should have trouble with this poundage. Some even recommend 40# for beginners.

My advice is that you read thoroughly this datasheet before attempting to make a bow.

Warning: bow building requires some financial investments in order to maximize your success. Of course, you can do it caveman style (literally) and go with sharp stones and flints, but if you want to make proper bow, the easiest and fastest way, than you must buy at least couple of good tools. Good rasp and draw knife will do wonders and most of these investments are actually one time investments that will pay off numerous times. There are some other things that need to be bought, but I will mention them later.


1.1. Tools

Here are some of the tools/accessories you need in order to make your bow. I will try to keep list to a minimum:
- Hand saw - for cutting wood and it helps during shaping process; you can also use chainsaw to fell a tree
- Metal tape measure - I use self retracting one, one with both inches and centimeters is good choice
- Ruler - for bow layout
- Calipers - optional tool but I like to use it as gizmo for drawing thickness lines
- Marker - you can use sharpie, ballpoint pen or pencil for wood
- String - about 2,5 meters long, used for bow layout
- Paracord - about 3 meters long, for use as a tillering string, you can also buy proper tillering string from archery stores
- Draw knife - for removing bark, chasing the rings or even precise shaping of the bow
- Hatchet - for removing large pieces of wood during shaping process
- Wood rasp - very rough for fast removing of wood, and/or fine tooth for precise wood removal
- Rat tail rasp - for cutting of the string grooves, 5 - 6 mm in diameter is best
- Other, optional tools - spokeshave is commonly mentioned as a very good tool for small wood removal, very suitable during last stages of tillering, scraper is also useful tool for precise wood removal, I actually don't have these two tools
- Vise and clamps - important for holding wood in place while you work on it
- Tillering tree - this is most important accessory in bow building, it separates bows from firewood, I suggest you will make this according to instructions provided later
- Scale with hook - for measuring the draw weight
- Bow string - beginners should buy bow string instead of making it themselves, Dacron B50 is good material for bows under 40 - 50# in draw weight, but for bows over 50# I recommend using Astroflight or FastFlight material, which are similar to Kevlar in construction; for bow we are building (70 inches nock to nock) string should be around 66 inches long, but please see in the stores for the proper length
- Bow stringer - piece of cord with loops on each end, about 2 meters long, its used to put bow string on a bow, you can also buy it if you don't want to make it
- Sandpaper - grits from 100 up to 400, at the end bow needs to be smooth before applying protective finish
- Protective finish - pork fat, Tru Oil, beeswax, linen seed oil and „plastic“ finish in spray are all very good protective finishes that make your bow waterproof


1.2. Wood selection

When we think about wood selection, we don't focus only on the species of wood, but we also must focus on the shape of tree, where it grows and when we cut it.
There is lot of discussion on various forums about when to cut wood and general agreement is that bow wood is best cut at Autumn. So think about late September or October, up to November. When you cut wood you can notice two distinct types of rings; early and late wood rings.



We aim to make bow that has its layout drawn on the late wood. Late wood rings are harder than early wood rings. That is why we cut wood at Autumn, where late wood ring is immediately under the bark. If we would cut wood in Spring or Summer, under the bark would be early ring that is a bit spongier in consistency. Bow wouldn't be really „worse“ because of it, but as I said, its preferable to cut it in Autumn.

What about tree species? There is actually ridiculous number of species suitable for bows, but at the end it simply matters where you live and if you have money to buy wood or access to woods. Long story short, prefer hard type of woods. Look at each wood listed, see if its available in your area and see what exact species it is.
Contact me if you have access to tree that is not listed below. Here are some of the popular wood choices:

- Apple
- Ashes (American ashes, European Ash)
- Birch
- Eastern Red Cedar
- Wych Elm
- Holly
- Hazel
- European Hornbeam
- Hophornbeam
- Juniper
- Lemonwood
- Black Locust
- Honey Locust
- Maple (Sycamore Maple, Vine Maple)
- Mulberry
- Oak (White Oak, Red Oak, English Oak)
- Osage Orange
- Pear
- Hickory (Pecan, Pignut, Shagbark)
- Rowan
- Black Walnut
- Yew
- Elderberry
- Hawthorn
- Buckthorn
- Blackthorn

Of course I don't have to mention that you need to do cutting legally, so ask around, see what are laws in your country; I can't really help you with this. If you want to buy already cut and prepared staves for bows, there are some vendors that do that. I think they only function for North America.

Bow shape and where it grows is final thing we must look closely. Avoid cutting wood that grows near rivers or creaks. That wood tends to be softer and less dense than the ones in the hills.
Avoid excessively weird shaped trees as you cannot properly draw layout on it. Avoid trees that are really bent.
If the tree is straight but parallel to the ground because its bent near the root, choose the side that faces away from the soil. That side has much stronger cells because they must hold the tree against gravity.





Straight tree like this is very rare. You need to work with what you got.

I will be working with Hawthorn that has been cut in the October last year.


1.3. Wood preparation

Try to look for trees at least 6 - 7 cm in diameter. This ensures that you will have enough wood to make this into flatbow.
If the wood is much over 7 cm, such as 25 cm, a 30 cm or even more, split it using this instructions. This will produce couple of good staves that you can use later for either new bows or for firewood.
Cut the tree as closer to the ground and from that, cut it at length of 2 meters.
When you cut a wood, split it if you have to and paint the ends of the cuts or put wood glue on them.

Now comes the most boring part. Leaving wood to be dry enough for working.

Leave wood at least 6 months minimum to dry somewhere where you have nice air flow and where environment is dry. Attics are good places, top of the barn under the roof, balcony in apartment or inside of apartment. Put some bricks underneath the staves/stave as wood must be above the ground.
One thing to remember that you must not leave wood exposed to big temperature changes, such effect produces checking and will ruin your wood before you even started the bow!

After 6 months put wood in some vise or clamp it somewhere and use draw knife carefully to remove the bark. I put arrow indicating side where layout will be. Go slowly so the draw knife doesn't dig into the wood below the bark. Be careful around the knots; never violate a knot!







Side of the bow that looks at target is called „back“ and the side that looks at us is called „belly“.
Wood below the bark will form back of the bow and it must be in pristine condition. You don't need to remove bark from the whole stave, just remove bark from the side on which you will put the layout.
Hawthorn has this reddish underbark which is easily removed with scraping. I put the draw knife perpendicular to wood and pull it towards myself in short draws.





Then I proceed to gently rub the back of the bow with sanding paper to clean further. Bow is ready for layout.



Note:
One thing I should mention is that some of species listed have such structure where you need to „chase rings“. All trees have heartwood (middle area) and whitewood (wood immediately under the bark). Most of the trees listed have same density of these types of structures, but there are some species like Osage, Mulberry and Locusts that have whitewood so soft that if you would to make bow out of this species, it will probably break where heartwood and whitewood separates. That is why we need to chase rings on these species. We must remove the bark and remove all whitewood rings until we get to the first ring of the heartwood.
So for beginners I suggest that you don't use trees such as Osage, Mulberry and Locusts as its lot of work where you can easily mess up heartwood.

Post: #2

PART 2 - Layout and shaping

2.1. Layout

For this bow I am using dimensions provided by the picture below.
Note: If you are a imperial system user, use dimensions in the brackets; if you are a metric system user, use the dimensions before the brackets.
Conversion: 1 inch = 25,4 mm



Before we do this, we must ensure proper position of the bow on our piece of stave. Here we follow simple rule. As long as tips of the bow and center of the bow form perfect line, everything in between doesn't really matter. Some examples below.





Measure the length of the stave and cut it at 183 cm, that will be final length of the bow. Measure where is center of the bow (91,5 cm) and draw a perpendicular line.
Take a string and make two loops on the ends. Put some kind of weight on each loop. I tend to use hammers.





Rest the string over the whole length of the stave. Position each end on the tips of the stave so the string goes as closely to the center of the stave.







Now mark the small horizontal lines directly under the string where the tips are and where the string passes over the center of the stave. This string is representation of an actual position bow string will have. Bow string must go through the center of the bow, like I said before, otherwise bow would turn in your hand when you draw it.

Post: #3

Mark the handle dimensions. Follow the grain and draw broken line across the bow back. Whole thing will probably look wavy like this. We must always follow the grain.







Now we proceed to marking the dimensions on the bow. Starting from where the handle ends, divide the limbs of the bow in segments separated 10 cm one from the other.



You can see that longitudal broken line crosses these segments. We will use these crossings to accurately mark our bow according to provided dimensions. Use ruler or calipers to translate dimensions from the drawing on the wood using crossings as a reference so everything stays nice and symmetrical.



For the 41,5 cm, limbs are parallel and then they have gradual taper to the tips.
This taper can be done with a „feel“. Just try it to make gradual. I tend to draw whole limb in AutoCAD, draw the 10 cm segments and measure width on each segment, then use calipers to accurately translate dimensions on wood. If you have engineering program like this, you can use it, if not, doesn't matter really.
Now we have every dimension marked. You should connect the marked dots and bow is ready for shaping process. If you see knots where the edges of the bow will be, don't let your lines to simply go through them. You must go around the knot to make knot secure. If you draw a line through the knot and shape the bow, it will probably break on that place where you cut through the knot.




2.2. Shaping

Use a hatchet or a method described here to remove large excess of wood. Leave about 0,5 cm of wood, don't go too near the lines.



Clamp the bow with layout looking at side or put it in a vise. Put something like cardboard between clamps/vise and wood to ensure you don't violate the back.



Take the draw knife and clean the remaining wood from the sides. Stop when you touch the lines. When you clear everything you will get something like this.

Post: #4

Draw vertical lines on sides where the handle is supposed to be. These are for marking handle depth.



I use gizmo like this to mark depth of handle and limbs thickness. This long piece of steel slides across the back of the bow and lower jaw of the caliper shows where I need to put depth mark.





Mark the depth of the handle of about 4 cm. That will be enough.



Now we will mark the thickness. Where you see segments (10 cm apart lines), measure distance from the back of the bow to about 1,5 cm on sides like this.



This will be enough thickness of limbs to give you about 50# bow or even more, and you will have more „security“ when you remove wood during tillering.

For example, if you make limbs too thin and you realize later that you have lots of errors on limbs and that limbs don't seem to bend properly, you would end up with even thinner limbs and weak bow as you must remove wood during tillering process where wood is too stiff.
When you make limb thickness of at least 1,5 cm, you will get much more room to wiggle. And at the end when you measure the draw weight, if its more than you wanted, you would simply remove equal amounts of wood from both limbs. As I said, you don't have such options if you make limbs too thin. I learned that the hard way.

Now connect the dots and draw curved lines where handle meets the limb thickness. Proceed to belly wood removal.



Put the bow into the vise or clamp it somewhere belly up. Cut incisions with saw each 10 cm or so on the belly side of the limbs. Take the hatchet and hammer or chisel and hammer and strike off these segments, carefully observing if the wood is cracking too deep and going past the marked belly thickness lines. If everything is fine you will get this.

Post: #5

Now use the draw knife to get to the marked thickness lines. Alternate between short and long strokes while being careful so the draw knife doesn't bite too much into wood.





After you got to the marked lines, take the draw knife perpendiculary to the limbs and also draw towards yourself. This will create scraping movement where you will remove small amounts of wood shavings and that will make your limbs have fine texture instead of rough one.



You can use some straight piece of metal to check if your limbs have flat surface or if there are somewhere bumps or ridges. If there are, clean them. It is best for the belly side of the limbs to be perfectly flat as this will make our later tillering phase bit shorter and easier.

In this stage, when you have finished with wood removal, you should have idea if your bow is completely dry or not. If the wood has a bit of a moisture smell and it doesn't seem springy and hard on touch and the wood shavings are bit wet, your bow needs to have additional drying session.
That thing happened to bow featured in this datasheet.

Take the 2 meters long steel or aluminum profile and clamp the bow to it using three clamps. One for the middle of the bow and one for each tip of the limbs. This ensures the wood doesn't move or warp during final drying process.





Leave the bow like that for up to a month at the dry place where the air circulation is good. After that period, remove the clamps and check if something is bent / warped and also see if the belly of the bow had lost its flatness.
Sometimes phenomenon called „wood cupping“ appears on the wood. That means that once flat limbs on belly side are now a bit rounded looking in cross section. This is because the wood shrinks but not at the same time at all places. Google wood cupping if you want to know more.
If the wood cupping occured, take the draw knife and scrape again the belly to become flat again. You will probably do this in the few minutes as cupping is not severe deformation of wood. My bow suffered the cupping and I removed that very fast.

After the cleanup use the kitchen scale to weigh the bow.

Take the bow inside your house and weigh it every few days. If the weight doesn't drop after 3 days, that means that bow is finally ready for last stage. If the weight is still dropping, leave the bow alone but continue with weight measuring.


PART 3 - String grooves, tillering, final shaping, measuring the draw weight and installing the nocking point, applying dye and/or protection, conclusion

3.1. String grooves

Turn the bow belly down. Draw a line that is 25 mm from the end of tip. Do it on both tips.



Than draw the lines from the sides at the angle of 45 degrees. Do it on both tips.



Now clamp the bow near the tip, take the rat tail file and start filing grooves. Optimal groove depth is achieved when rat tail file stops sticking out (about 5 mm deep).

Post: #6

When you have made all 4 grooves on the bow, you will see that grooves are pretty rough and their edges are very sharp. That poses danger to both tillering string and the bow string so this must be corrected. Use the rough sandpaper and gently sand grooves and all their edges.






3.2. Tillering

This is the most important step in the bow building and a skill that is learned for years. Until now stave was just a piece of wood but now it has choice of becoming either bow or firewood. For tillering you will need a device called tillering tree. Tillering tree is a device which on upper end has a holding place cradle and on the lower end has a pulley with a hook. In my case its a double pulley system. Between this is a scale where the drawing lengths are marked.
Here are the pictures of my tillering tree.







Double pulley system means that I pull the bow with two times lower force than it actually is. That ensures I can easily pull the bow even though its maybe a heavy beast like those English warbows.
Scale is measured from the top of the „cradle“, not from the bottom of it.
In my case this double pulley system is mounted on the wall. But if you don't have place on the wall you can buy a wooden rectangular pole and tie it to something so it doesn't move while you pull.
See the links below for ideas and dimensions that other bowyers have done.

http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index...opic=663.0

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-m...nal-arche/

http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.c...5;t=010285

You should give maximum effort and make the tillering tree the best and most rigid you can. When I started making bows I had at least three mediocre tillering trees that were made badly and gave me a lot of problems. Then I finally decided year and a half ago to make a state of the art super rigid tillering tree and this is the result you see on pictures.

Now, on to the tillering. Idea of tillering is simple. Remove the wood where the bow doesn't bend and leave the wood intact in places where it bends good. When the bow bends good at your drawing length of 28 inches, it is finished. Simple, right? Yeah, in theory.
What you will discover when you first start to tiller is that you will have difficulties in judging where the bow really bends good or bad. But don't despair, everybody goes through that stage. Maybe you will have to break a few bows, maybe none will break but you will learn in any case. I myself have broken three bows on the tillering stage before I made a first successful bow.

Unfortunately because of lack of space and inability for me to tiller at the same time and take the photos, I will put a link of video that in my opinion best describes tillering. Sorry, I would put the pictures myself of my bow but I can't.





So the bow now hopefully bends very good at 28 inches of draw length and your bow string is put on the bow. Here is result of my tillering.



Here I must mention that there are different draw lengths out there and different people prefer different draw lengths. This datasheet is aimed at bow that has draw lenght of 28. For an average height male, 28 inches of draw is pulling the string to the corner of the mouth. I have seen examples of people using even 24 inches. Later, when you got experience you can do whatever draw length you want. Famous Native American Ishi had a small bow that had a short draw length but he was master of it. Short bows (below 62“ tip to tip) can't have 28“ draw length without having recurves.


3.3. Final shaping

This is the last stage of wood removal. Here we will shape tips and handle and do the sanding. I take off bow string and I put the bow belly up and on the fades of handle I draw half of the ellipsis. I connect the middle of each fade with a straight line that goes through the center of the bow. So idea is that I will remove wood on the handle so it forms a semi circular or semi elliptical cross section, which is very comfortable for my hand. You can try different shapes. Google „bow handle shapes“ to get idea.

Post: #7

I clamp the bow secure in the vise and I take rough rasp and start rasping the shape. As a result I got fast wood removal but very rough surface.





Now I take the fine tooth rasp and draw it on the previously established shape. Here I got much smoother handle.





Handle shape is complete so I am going to work on the tips. I draw pointy endings on each tip and clamp the bow near the tip in vise.





I start rasping until I get desired shape with the rough rasp and then I take the fine tooth rasp. Of course you can leave tips blocky but I am fond of these pointy tips because they have reduced weight compared to thick and blocky ones. Here we have basic physics. Blockier tips have greater mass and when you shoot the bow they can produce less energy, i.e. they move „slower“ than the elegant, pointy tips. Some people prefer pencil like tips, but these kind are not suitable for my bow because I have grooves on each side.



Now onto sanding. We have a rough surfaces on the bow like this.



Clamp the bow or put it in a vise and take the sandpapers from the 100 grit up to 400 grit and sand carefully each surface. As a result bow will be smooth like a silk. There is no need for going above 400 as this is not metal; you will just get smoother finish but with 280 already, wood is very fine on surface. Don't forget to sand the sharp edges of the string grooves, because sharp edges can damage bow string.

Post: #8

3.4. Measuring the draw weight and installing the nocking point

Now put the bow string back on bow using the bow stringer, stepping through method or any kind of method you want as long as you don't damage the bow.
Take it back to the tillering tree and put the hook of the scale on string where arrow will pass. Now carefully draw the bow until it hits 28“ mark. See what is the draw weight scale measured.

Remove the bow string and take india ink or sharpie.



I write the draw weight like this „draw weight number # @ 28“. You can write it differently.



Nocking point is place where the arrow locks on the string. Its important to have it so the arrow nock does not slide up and down the string when you shoot. See the following video on how to make nocking point.






3.5. Applying dye and/or protection

The bow is now finished and ready for shooting. Shoot couple of arrows to test it.

But if you want for your bow to be fully protected against atmospheric conditions such as rain and snow, it needs protection. This is especially important for bow hunters.
Various dye manufacturers have dyes that have a lacquer like finish and this will do fine. You can also buy clear plastic like varnish and spray it onto wood. There is also a option of fully natural protection and that is beeswax either alone or in combination with animal fat. In North America, very good natural finish is mixture of bear fat and beeswax. I used sometimes pork fat and beeswax, or just beeswax.
Each is melted with hot water or on very low dry heat and mixed together. Than it is rubbed with a cloth on bow. After that you take the bow near heat source such as fire to make the wood soak the mixture.

I used just beeswax. I rubbed small block (about 3 cm) of beeswax on bow. Then I used hair dryer and cloth to rub the the melted wax into the wood.
After wood has soaked the mixture, put the bow to cool down. Now you can put back on the bow string and you are ready for shooting.


3.6. Conclusion

Hope you have enjoyed this build a long. It was a pleasure to share this work with you. Here are couple of pictures of my bow. Now, its your turn to make a shooter.

Post: #9

Sorry for multiple posts, but forum didn't allow more than 10 pictures at once. I didn't knew that before so I had to chop whole datasheet into posts.

Post: #10

As awesomely detailed this post is, it seems impractical for the majority of us.

From a more experienced perspective though, what do you make of the following vid?

Post: #11

Is it feasible to use dead ash trees? Maybe ones that have not been dead for a long period and were not bored too deep? Its hard to find living ash trees in large areas anymore. I have several dozen dead ash I need to remove at a relatives house. If not here are several dozen living oak/walnut that I also need to remove. Can any part of tree be used or is the wood lower to ground considered better?

Post: #12

Question of PVC bows has came out many times on archery forums and here is the general agreement. While they are super simple, fast to make and you get as many poundage as you want, they are lacking one thing. Good distribution of energy and speed of casting an arrow.
When the limbs bend energy is stored and then released when you let the arrow go. PVC pipes are too massive and you don't really remove material from them, but you just shape them differently. Because of that their tips are too heavy and this is the same thing I am talking about somewhere up in the datasheet when I show how I shape the tips.
But, if these PVC bows were made with the intention of removing some material, speed would be better but the poundage will drop as poundage in the PVC bows comes from thickness of the pipe and the outer diameter.

I agree that this datasheet is a bit impractical for some. But if someone wants to make a bow, he could invest in minimal amount of tools and even make bows in the apartment, if he does not have access to the garage or workshop or some sorts.

Post: #13

(07-30-2017 11:08 AM)Number one bummer Wrote:  Is it feasible to use dead ash trees? Maybe ones that have not been dead for a long period and were not bored too deep? Its hard to find living ash trees in large areas anymore. I have several dozen dead ash I need to remove at a relatives house. If not here are several dozen living oak/walnut that I also need to remove. Can any part of tree be used or is the wood lower to ground considered better?

There are some trees that can be used dead, but they must always be dead standing. Ash is not one of these trees. Black locust and osage orange for example are.

What kind of oak and walnut species is it? If its black walnut, you hit the jackpot. White american oak and red oak are also good (see beginning of datasheet). I don't have experiences with them of course as they don't grow here but from what I read and saw examples on internet, these make good bows.
Also how these tree are growing, describe me their shape?

Post: #14

I have a lot of black walnut and white oaks. I removed all the osage oranges because the monkey balls they drop were too annoying. Most of the trees are growing fairly straight because of how close they are growing to each other(reason I am removing some). I'm guessing I can find a black walnut 7-10 cm easy enough. Is it deal breaking to cut trees now as opposed to autumn?

Post: #15

Well it looks then you have all sorted out. Because they are growing straight you can use it on any side. 7 - 10 cm diameter is good for maybe two staves, but if you can't split it perfectly, make just one bow out of it.

Maybe you should rather use for the first time white oak, I think it may be more easier to work with? But if walnut is more prevalent use it instead. Its not a deal breaker like I said, its just that first ring under the bark feels a little spongier than for the autumn rings. It will not affect the performance. But what you should pay attention to are juices. Immediately after (if) splitting, paint the ends with wood glue or paint to prevent checking. Don't remove the bark. Then put it somewhere in the shade but above ground. In autumn you will start to make this bow after the juices slowly evaporated.

That is why people like to cut in autumn, because there are no juices and wood will not check as easily as in summer. If for example you would leave your freshly cut trees out in the summer sun, they would check instantly and it will be impossible to make a bow.

Post: #16

I wanted also to clarify that my bow came out twice weaker than intended. Up above I said that you should leave with dimensions listed initial thickness of about 15 mm. I did that, but my wood had so many knots and various impurities that I had to tiller a lot more than I usually do. As a result limb thickness dropped rapidly and bow lost draw weight.

If you are using a wood that is described as being "soft", for example hazel, feel free to make initial thickness more than 15 mm. Than when you get good bend on tiller tree and you see that bow is too strong, you will just need to evenly remove wood from both limbs until you hit desired weight.

Post: #17

Interesting, though very time intensive. You can make it out of bike wheels:

Post: #18

Quote:beginners should buy bow string instead of making it themselves, Dacron B50 is good material for bows under 40 - 50# in draw weight, but for bows over 50# I recommend using Astroflight or FastFlight material,

I would only recommend FastFlight for people who are doing competitive distance shooting. Granted low mass weight of string means higher energy transfer to the arrow, but you need to pad the string quite a lot at the nocking point and ends. Dacron is great for everything.

As for tools, I like your full setup, but all you really need is a hatchet, rasp, and pocket knife. I also include a kitchen knife and have a shaving horse. If you don't have a shaving horse I recommend building one.

For whitewood bows, the earlywood/latewood distinction is basically irrelevant. You can cut wood whenever you want. Nobody chases rings on anything that isn't osage orange or yew. Some people even leave quite a lot of sapwood on either.

Lemonwood is some kind of weird tropical hardwood that was popular in the 50s for reasons unknown. I have never bothered using it and know nobody who has really.

Elderberry, buckthorn, most fruit woods, etc; are worthless for making bows. Sure you can make something fun out of a plum branch but for your standard north american style longbow you might as well stick to red oak, elm, ash .. hackberry makes a decent bow. Hornbeam makes good bows, but it fucking sucks to work with. I hesitate to use hickory simply because it likes to stay quite wet, you basically have to heat treat every stave to avoid having something with 2" of set.

Pressure wood staves make some very righteous interior laminates.

Hahaha, you don't need to leave lumber lying around for 6 months. I would use something that's bigger than two inches diameter too unless you plan on renaming the thread "how to make a sapling bow". A highly crowned back isn't necessarily bad but it's not ideal if you're trying to make something more like 70-80# draw weight. I can make a decent finished bow from sapling to shooting stuff inside of two weeks.

You can peel the bark off immediately after cutting it down. It won't hurt anything. Maybe a little paint on the ends to reduce checking.

You have a very nice tool setup and an actual tillering rig. I never bothered using anything but floor tillering and a large mirror or window.

The right limb isn't hinging near the handle but it is bending a bit too much. A nice flat elliptical tiller is best.

Source - I've been doing this for twelve or thirteen years. I make them mostly in the 50- 70# range.

(07-30-2017 10:54 AM)Tengen Wrote:  As awesomely detailed this post is, it seems impractical for the majority of us.

From a more experienced perspective though, what do you make of the following vid?

Those are worthless. You want practicality, buy a stanley surform and a hand plane and look up "red oak board bow".

(07-30-2017 11:08 AM)Number one bummer Wrote:  Is it feasible to use dead ash trees? Maybe ones that have not been dead for a long period and were not bored too deep? Its hard to find living ash trees in large areas anymore. I have several dozen dead ash I need to remove at a relatives house. If not here are several dozen living oak/walnut that I also need to remove. Can any part of tree be used or is the wood lower to ground considered better?

Peel off the bark and check, but my guess is no. Find some nice green saplings and use those.

Post: #19

(07-31-2017 02:38 AM)Hannibal Wrote:  I would only recommend FastFlight for people who are doing competitive distance shooting. Granted low mass weight of string means higher energy transfer to the arrow, but you need to pad the string quite a lot at the nocking point and ends. Dacron is great for everything.

That is what I frequently see, but in my opinion if you see a fast flight string that has a good padding around the loops, why not use it? What is interesting that I use FF in already made length with loops and Dacron is sold on a bit weaker side. FF does not creep so I like it.

Quote:As for tools, I like your full setup, but all you really need is a hatchet, rasp, and pocket knife. I also include a kitchen knife and have a shaving horse. If you don't have a shaving horse I recommend building one.

Of course, if you want to go fully minimal you can go like that. That is especially true for those in the apartments. I have a lot of tools and good place for making so I use everything at my disposal.

Quote:For whitewood bows, the earlywood/latewood distinction is basically irrelevant. You can cut wood whenever you want. Nobody chases rings on anything that isn't osage orange or yew. Some people even leave quite a lot of sapwood on either.

I know, growth rings chapter is put there to explain the concept. We don't have osage here so I chased ring on a black locust. Didn't make it in the end, but BL is one of these trees where you have to, except if it doesn't have pristine whitewood rings.

Quote:Elderberry, buckthorn, most fruit woods, etc; are worthless for making bows. Sure you can make something fun out of a plum branch but for your standard north american style longbow you might as well stick to red oak, elm, ash .. hackberry makes a decent bow. Hornbeam makes good bows, but it fucking sucks to work with. I hesitate to use hickory simply because it likes to stay quite wet, you basically have to heat treat every stave to avoid having something with 2" of set.

My second bow was made of elderberry. I like the wood and grooves that it has after you remove the pith. There are some quite large elderberries here and some are so thick that you can use them normally. Interesting you say this about hickory, I see only recommendations on various forums. Not that I care, as this doesn't grow here.

Quote:Hahaha, you don't need to leave lumber lying around for 6 months. I would use something that's bigger than two inches diameter too unless you plan on renaming the thread "how to make a sapling bow". A highly crowned back isn't necessarily bad but it's not ideal if you're trying to make something more like 70-80# draw weight. I can make a decent finished bow from sapling to shooting stuff inside of two weeks.

That is the stuff of many discussions. Various bowyers have various advice for seasoning. In my example, it all comes down to place where you store and the climate. I frequently make the rough shape immediately after cutting, then it dries around 3 weeks, then its ready for tiller. Approach in this datasheet is a bit different because hawthorn was already pretty dry when I started to make a bow of it. Also, I think fast seasoning is not really for the newbies. You might be true regarding this bow, this is probably more on the "sapling side". Hawthorn grows like that here, never saw anything thicker than 3".

Quote:You have a very nice tool setup and an actual tillering rig. I never bothered using anything but floor tillering and a large mirror or window.

Not to sound cheesy, but this setup changed my life. I had only nuisance with tiller sticks and I don't have a place with huge mirror where I can do your approach. But I like it.

Quote:The right limb isn't hinging near the handle but it is bending a bit too much. A nice flat elliptical tiller is best.

Tiller is not perfect that is for sure, I am not much as experienced to get it right every time.

Post: #20

And I thought this guy's username was just about a TV series...

Post: #21

This is pretty sweet. Watching the woodworking progress was satisfying.

Post: #22

Maybe someone thinks "Archer, all this sounds good but I still don't have access to any of the tree species you listed!". I would say to them to not despair, as solution is easy and very cheap.

This is a short post, but a bit overdue, I keep forgetting to write it.

So if you don't have access to property where you could cut tree or you don't know someone who could give you one, you can attempt to make "board bow". This is an ultimate beginner bowyer project and many bowyers started with a board (including me).

One should go to these stores where they sell processed lumbers and look for ash, red oak, maple or hickory boards (for american bowyers). Boards are cut from trunks in couple of ways:






1. Plank selection

Boards already come dried and seasoned so you can start to make bow as soon as you get home from the shop.

You should look for the board that has its grain as parallel as it can. Look for example at the quarter sawn and rift sawn boards. They are a pretty good choice. Also, the tighter the grain, the better.
What this means is that you would come to shop and carefully sort out plank on the side and at the end select best from these you sorted out. At the end, you may come home with just 2 boards. Sometimes more. Really depends. Don't rush yourself with buying if you are not satisfied with grain.


2. Proceeding further

Go to the point in datasheet where I put the drawing of bow layout. Select side with best looking grain to be back of the bow. Trace the layout on the board and follow the rest of the datasheet.


Conclusion

This is a much easier thing to do for a first timer and maybe I even recommend doing that instead of starting with a tree. But it depends on you. Maybe you want to get your hands on the harder process as you like challenge and that is fine.
In any case you will get a fine shooter. It may look a bit "perfect" at the end, opposed to the one from the tree which has knots and imperfections. Some people despise board bows and at some time they were greatly underestimated for no reason. People started to appreciate the more when big faces among the bowyers started doing them.

Here are some examples I saw on internet:

Post: #23

Okay, thanks for this very useful datasheet man! Can't wait to make my first bow

Post: #24

Hope it helps you!

Post: #25

Sterling Archer,

Do you hunt with your bows? I am a bowhunter with compounds. I have interest in learning about this ancient art of making bows and arrows.

Just this last wekend I was in Finland bowhunting ROe Deer on an ancient viking island . Made a Kill at 30 Meters on a nice buck. Very satisfying . There is something to be said of the deep satisfaction of the hunt with bow and arrow when everything comes togethor.