Building Self Bows

[Buckskin]

Does anyone on here build bows from scratch here?  I'm about done with my flintlock fowler and need a cheaper hobby so gonna start building bows.   I've been doing a lot of research and there is lots of great info out there on the web.
 
Just to cut my teeth I'm making a bow from a red oak board, wish I would have looked harder and found one from hickory though, tougher wood.  I also found a nice straight hickory and split out a bunch of nice staves for the next projects. 

[Dee]

Might wanna find some red cedar for arrows if there's any around your area.

[Casull]

Maybe try hickory with a bamboo backing.  Supposed to be very strong.

[Mule 11]

Yew was commonly used. I remember reading a story about how only the kings army could make bows out of one type of wood and commoners had to make theirs out of an inferior wood. Same species, one yellow and one white. Yellow for the kings men. I think?

[Graybeard]

As a boy I made my bows of what was readily available and that was privet. It makes into an excellent bow.

When I was 12 I took all my money, got on the bus to town and bought my first ever store bought bow. It was a recurve of solid fiberglass at 35 pounds pull. I still have it. I used the rest of my money on arrows and had to walk around 3 miles home with my new bow and arrows.

My privet bow would fling arrows just as far and just as fast as the store bought bow.

I did nothing fancy with my self made bows in those days. Mostly I put a place on each end to hold the string and used it as it came from the tree. I've often thought of trying to take a piece of privet and actually carve out a self bow but just never have gotten around to it. Hickory would not doubt be better but it wasn't available to me as a boy.

[Buckskin]

I made bows as a kid also, but they were marginal at best...

From what I understand orange osage and yew are the cats meow, hickory is not far behind and if made right no need to back it.   Only drawback of hickory is it draws moisture a lot more than osage and yew so need to watch that.  Not a big deal in Wisconsin other than summer months and lots of hickory around here so think that will be my go-to.

I'm tillering the board bow now, I have 45 lbs at 22" draw so aways to go.  Not really trying for any particular poundage, just hoping for a shootable bow that doesn't break before a few arrows are flung.  I have 2 other staves debarked.  Never again am I going to cut a hickory in the winter for staves!  Bark comes off real hard in winter on hickory, I guess in summer it almost peels like a banana...

[Dee]

Osage Orange, aka Bois DeArc, aka Horse Apple, is native to where I grew up. Hard to work, hell on a chain saw, and will outlast about any wood around.
It has a greenish tinted to it when worked, and it was use for a couple hundred years to make fence posts.

[Buckskin]

That's what I've heard about osage... There are guys who literally have pulled out fenceposts that have been in the ground for decades and made quality bows out of them.

[Dee]

There are thousands of houses in North Central, and East Texas sitting on Bois DeArc supports.
My grandfather and dad used'em for fence posts, and even in the wet climate they'd last 50 years or more.

[Lloyd Smale]

up here the indians made there bows out of oak and cedar. Im sure they used about anything that was locally available. We made them as kids too but i sure wasnt as good at it as bill because mine for the most part were lame. I remember my first store bought bow. Got it for christmas. It was a 35lb pull fiberglass bow and it was lightening fast compared to what i made. I dont think there was such a thing as compounds then. The high dollar bows were the bear wood recurves. The kids from wealthier familys had those. I still remember my dads buddy and nieghbor who was the first bow hunter i knew. He used the same cheap fiberglass 35lb bow i did. He actually killed a few deer with it too. He ended up with a bear recurve that i think was 45lbs.  I remember him letting us shoot it in the back yard. IT seemed god awful fast. Had to chuckle later when in my 20s i started bow hunting. Had a compound bow and my buddy and i were practicing shooting in his back yard into a compressed saw dust bail. He took out his old 45 lb bear recurve that he started with. He shot the target 5 times and every time the arrow bounced off the bail. Keep in mind though that those bails were hard.  But our 65lb compounds made it seem like a toy. Later on i went to a shop that made custom recurves. Was going to have one made till i saw the prices he got. they were more expensive then the best compounds. So if you can do a professional job theres money to be made in it. Anymore im a meat hunter. I use a raven crossbow. It will shoot a group at a 100yards good enough for deer hunting and still have the speed at that range to kill. But honestly i havent killed a deer further then 30 yards with it.

[Ranger99]

There are thousands of houses in North Central, and East Texas sitting on Bois DeArc supports.
My grandfather and dad used'em for fence posts, and even in the wet climate they'd last 50 years or more.

Buddy's house sits on "bo-dark" piers that the
house was originally built on around 1900 or so
The only time I've ever been under there to help
with some project years ago, those posts
looked fairly new, like maybe 10 years old or so

[Dee]

I know houses that are 100 years old sittin on Bois DeArc piers. No sign of rot what so ever.

[Buckskin]

Yeah, I have a high-performance carbon Hoyt bow that's easy to shoot, fast and accurate as heck.  But I find myself sliding more and more away from technology these days.

Worked on tillering the board bow yesterday, poundage has come down quite a bit from trying to equal out the limb, which is fine since this is just a practice run to get a feel for it. Left limb is still too stronger and more will have to come off of it.  Hope to fling a few arrows with it today.

[Lloyd Smale]

im not a bow tuning expert by any stretch but remember when we tuned my first compound that the guy who onwed the bow shop said one side should have screw turned down a bit more then the other. Dont remember which was which but the were set differently. Before you get to carried away with getting them perfect maybe shoot it and see if it even needs it.

[Buckskin]

I think you would have a hard time finding a bow shop these days that would recommend that. 

I worked on it a bit yesterday and flung about a dozen arrows before she blew up.  I knew it would happen as I the board I used had too much grain runout.  This bow was just to get my feet wet anyway, I learned a ton and it was a heck of a lot of fun building it.  Next one will be out of a stave from a log, I have 4 really straight staves from a hickory that I'm drying.  Apparently to speed up the drying you can cut rough out the shape of the bow to reduce the amount of wood, just can't bend before dry.

[Ranger99]

JMHO- building wooden recurve bows
is like knife making or any other handcrafts.
There's clunkers and mistakes that everyone
never sees. I've only heard one custom
knife maker attest that he had one every
now and then that he'd screwed up or
that there was a flaw in the material, etc.
and he had to start over from scratch.
The majority of people that fabricate
goods would never admit that in a
gazillion years

[Dee]

I've got a 45# Kodiak recurve hanging in the garage. Never cared for the compounds.
My first bow was a 30# fiberglass recurve made by Colt of all companies. My oldest learned to shoot with that one.

[Buckskin]

Been working on my second board bow, this one is on a nice straight piece of hickory, and I think is going to turn out to be a shootable bow.  Right now, I have it tillered to 27" and 50lbs, shooting for 28 and 50, so real close.  Awaiting some critique from primitivearcher.com to see what the guru's think.   Although I'm thinking I will likely trim that weight down on this one because I haven't shot anything but a Hoyt in over 20 years and that 50# longbow feels a lot more than my 70# Hoyt!

[Mule 11]

My boy has an interest in this. How do you make the string or size it? Oh. Very cool.

[Buckskin]

Do a search for how to make a flemish twist bowstring. Lots of how-to vids.  Then search for directions of how to make a jig for it, just a piece of wood and nails.  Not too difficult, I got a quality string on first go around.  You can adjust the length by putting more twists in it.  Also have him check out primitivearcher.com, tons of info on there and the guys are very helpful.  It's a lot of fun doing it.  I shot that bow this afternoon and it turned out really good.  48# at 28" and I can shoot it comfortably, very smooth and much quieter than I expected.  I could very easily hunt with this bow and it cost me a whopping $12.
Now just need to work on accuracy, haven't shot instinctive in a long time...

[Buckskin]

Got another bow done, this one was made from a hickory that I cut in January and split into staves and have been drying since. Turned out pretty good.  51# at 28" draw. Has more character than the one I made from a board. Unfortunately I tweaked my shoulder making it and shooting my other one.  I decided to shave off a bit more on the board bow, it draws at about 40# now so when the shoulder feels better I can ramp up to higher draw weight later.

[BUGEYE]

Buckskin, good luck on your project.
I've watched quite a few videos on bow making and it's way beyond my feeble skills.
If I were to make a bow today it would be PVC pipe fiberglass rod inserts.  Much easier.

The only bow I've ever owned was a Browning Cobra which was a work of art.  That was back in the early 70s.

Pretty work BTW.

[Mule 11]

Got another bow done, this one was made from a hickory that I cut in January and split into staves and have been drying since. Turned out pretty good.  51# at 28" draw. Has more character than the one I made from a board. Unfortunately I tweaked my shoulder making it and shooting my other one.  I decided to shave off a bit more on the board bow, it draws at about 40# now so when the shoulder feels better I can ramp up to higher draw weight later.

Coon tail string silencer. Nice touch...

[Graybeard]

I remember my first store bought bow. Got it for christmas. It was a 35lb pull fiberglass bow and it was lightening fast compared to what i made.

I'm now 77 and still have that 35 pound fiberglass bow I got on my 12th birthday. That makes it now 65 years old. I think I remember it was made by Ben Pearson.

I still have a couple of other laminated wood recurve bows as well. Kinda wish I still had one of my old home made bows but don't. I do still look at privet around my land to find a piece suitable to try again. I noticed some willow the other day that looked suitable but don't recall how my willow bows from my youth worked. I bet if I looked in my back woods I could find a hickory that would work.

[Buckskin]

Got another bow done, this one was made from a hickory that I cut in January and split into staves and have been drying since. Turned out pretty good.  51# at 28" draw. Has more character than the one I made from a board. Unfortunately I tweaked my shoulder making it and shooting my other one.  I decided to shave off a bit more on the board bow, it draws at about 40# now so when the shoulder feels better I can ramp up to higher draw weight later.

Coon tail string silencer. Nice touch...

It's actually muskrat, but it does work well!

[Buckskin]

I remember my first store bought bow. Got it for christmas. It was a 35lb pull fiberglass bow and it was lightening fast compared to what i made.

I'm now 77 and still have that 35 pound fiberglass bow I got on my 12th birthday. That makes it now 65 years old. I think I remember it was made by Ben Pearson.

I still have a couple of other laminated wood recurve bows as well. Kinda wish I still had one of my old home made bows but don't. I do still look at privet around my land to find a piece suitable to try again. I noticed some willow the other day that looked suitable but don't recall how my willow bows from my youth worked. I bet if I looked in my back woods I could find a hickory that would work.

I've heard privet makes a nice bow, though hickory is probably best choice unless you can get your hands on yew or osage orange. 

[Buckskin]

I've been working on arrows now that I got a supply of turkey feathers. Two different styles of fletching - left is a two fletch arrow made from turkey tail feathers, I believe was used by the Cherokee and right is standard 3 fletch made from primary feathers from wing.  My practice tip is made from nail and 38 cal casing, not traditional but works great.  Everything is fastened with sinew and hide glue aside from practice tip.

[Buckskin]

Got another bow done.  Decided to try a recurve this time and turned out pretty good.

First attempt at tip overlays as well, deer antler.  I was shooting for 50# at 28" but tillering got away from me a little and was 46 when done, but after heat treating belly, I got back to a tick under 50#.

Stained with potassium permanganate and sealed with polymerized tung oil.

[BUGEYE]

Looks mighty fine there Buck.

I'm envious. 

[Buckskin]

Thanks Bugeye,
 
That was a fun one to make considering bending in the recurve. 

My next one is on the tiller tree behind me.  That one came from a hickory sapling, that will be another first for me. 

I'm really having a lot of fun making these and it's brought back the fun in shooting archery for me as well.  And it doesn't cost me a thing, how many hobbies can you say that about!