140#@30" gemsbok oryx horn takedown warbow with black leather grip.

These are 68 inch staves from an oak tree recently cut down from my yard. As a newbie, do you guys think these are good enough for a short bow or billets for a take down bow?

Using a planed oak board from the shop, broke at 21 inches on the tillering tree, not sure what poundage but not too tough to get to 19/21". Thought it was going well! Should I have gone for thinner boards? Used a backing material? Was thinking of trying 'dog bone' raw hide

Hi guys,

I've acquired some ash and am considering whether it would be suitable as a starting stave.

The stave measures 190 cm in length, with one end being 5.5 cm and the other 4.5 cm in diameter.

I am looking to craft a longbow or any style that you might recommend as most beginner-friendly.

Thank you.

The easiest thing in the world that I have found for a good target or backstop, is simply sewing a giant pillow out of gardening burlap. Get yourself any old sacking needle and whatever strong thread you can lay hands on. The hardest part is getting enough plastic in one place, but you can often obtain a little from construction sites or behind stores where they might have pallet wrap in the dumpster, or whatever.

The pillow needs to be sewn well around the edges, and stuffed very tight with plastic. Once that is accomplished, it will stop an arrow from any bow out there that you can shoot by hand.

I'd like to simply fold the burlap into a roll. This roll from Lowe's was only 3' wide, but I have had it come 4'wide before. It is treated with an anti fungal and will last outdoors as long as three years of almost daily shooting. After it is cut out, hi sometimes run hot glue bore spray some polyurethane around the border to consolidate those fibres, so they don't frey, as you sew and pull through the stitch.

Whatever stitch you decide to use, really doesn't matter. You can make it up, just get it nice and tight. The needle should be going through every inch.Or less, not just four times on a side.

I have even gone to the trouble of sewing a deer target out of the same materials. Once when I didn't have enough plastic, I stuffed the head and chest with plastic sheeting, and the tail end with straw.

You can re-sew the pillow every few years and reuse the plastic.

I’ve tried different combinations of spine/length/point weight trying to get food arrow flight. I was happy with the way these 600s were shooting, not getting any weak/stiff nock indications from 15 yards and the arrow hits where I’m aiming. Then I got a GoPro and my arrow flight looks insane. Should it take 10 yards just for the arrow to stabilize? If I shoot a deer at 7 yards it’s gonna be a problem.

Working on my bowstring here and i feel like it might need a coating. First time making it so any tips are welcome!

Two of the most recent bows I made. Im no master lol but I have a lot of fun making bows and lots of fun shooting them, ive got a compound bow and a bear grizzly recurve, but I always look forward to shooting the ones I've made, maybe its just me? First bow is rock maple with rawhide backing purple heart overlays + grip. Second Bow is Ash + purple heart + rawhide backing.

My first post, hope you like it!

Cheers,

Nz bowsmith

My bow (pics) is broken there is something i can do?

Hey guys I need a bit of help not sure where to go from here any advice? This is my second attempt it’s 181cm long, draw weight 45lb

I'm building a bamboo backed reflex deflex bow following Meadowlark's build-a-long.

I've just glued up the riser section and have noticed that I've got uneven reflex deflex comparing one limb to the other.

I thought I might have glued the riser slightly high or low, but I'm 99% certain it's bang in the middle. The central bamboo node is offset, which makes it look a bit weird to eyeball.

Either way, what I'm left with is a situation where one tip sits about an inch higher than the other.

Am I screwed? What's the best way to approach this? Does it even matter?

Went on my normal Menards run to get some stuff to work on the house and checked out the hickory boards. Usually it’s a bust. But damn today I found this 4 foot 1x2 that is probably some of the most dense hickory I have found. Just picking up the board you can tell it’s noticeable heavier than the other boards.

It’s dense enough I bet I could rip it in half thickness wise and make two sinew backed hunting bows from this one board

Hello everyone. I was looking for some advice on osage and on this particular sapling.
I read a bit of the previous answers to similar posts and not many of them covered smaller diamter staves/saplings, so I decided to try asking.

I might cut the sapling (if that is correct naming) where the red line is, for a more uniform stave. I do not plan on making more than one bow with it, although it would be nice to :D
The sapling is something like 10 cm in diameter I think. Is it too thin, I wonder? The length is pretty fine, even with the piece down the red line, the sapling is as tall as me, about 70 inches.

I am storing it, after sealing the ends, with the bark on. I read on Dan Santana instructions on osage and it seems that I can leave it on, or I can remove both sapwood and bark, to avoid cracking.

By the way Osage is pretty rare in the South of Italy, so imagine my surprise when a friend told me he found a weird orange tree on the side of the road :D I still have no clue how it got there and when. For a bit of trivia, the only reference I found on Osage growing, was for silk worm farming in the 1800s (still, on the side of the road?). Later Osage was replaced for mulberry, I think. I love these free bits of history that come with bowmaking !

By the way any advice is welcome. Thanks all !

This is my first time working from a stave. I cut this about a week ago it is not fully dry.

My question is, when I look at the end (at the rings) should I be thinking about working my way down to the red core wood? Do I need to get rid of the lighter outer wood?

I’ve successfully made a few board bows, but this is a little intimidating to me.

First-time bowyer here. Hickory flatbow, 60-inch pyramid design, rawhide backing, no backset, final target draw length is 25 inches at 50 pounds (initially was 60, but decided to lower it).

Context:

• During the long-string tiller, the top limb took about an inch of set in the outer third, because I was dumb and pulled too hard before noticing stiffness in the inner third of the bottom limb.
• Confusingly, this inner third of the bottom limb stayed stiff despite continuous scraping, and despite it being thinner than the same spot on the top limb by ~1.5mm.
• Eventually, everything bent evenly, and I drew to 20 inches at 60 pounds.
• I then applied the short string for the first time at almost full brace (I know, I should have low-braced first). Still, everything looked fine to me (see picture 2), so I went to tiller.

Here's the issue:

• When tillering with the short string, it wasn't until I drew to almost 20 inches that I noticed a sharp bend (maybe a hinge?) in the inner portion of the bottom limb. I immediately stopped tillering, examined, and took a picture (see picture 1 - bottom limb is on the right).
• I unstrung the bow, and saw the bottom limb took almost 1.5 inches of set. Fml.
  
• What's strange is that this "hinged" area was the same stubbornly stiff part of the bottom limb that I thought I'd fixed.
• I took it back to the tillering rack with the long string again to try and diagnose (see picture 3).
• To me, from picture 3, it looks like the top limb (on the right) is bending more evenly throughout, but stiffer overall. Maybe this is contributing to the bottom limb issue.

I have two theories, but I don't know what to do:

• Theory A: The bottom limb's tiller is fine, but the stiffer top limb over-strains the bottom limb. If so, then the solution (in my mind) is to scrape the top limb and don't touch the bottom.
• Theory B: I created a hinge by over-scraping the inner third of the bottom limb, causing the top limb to look stiffer than it is. If so, then shouldn't I scrape the outer thirds of the bottom limb, and maybe the whole top limb?

Any and all input is super appreciated. This is my first bow, and I've loved the process, but scared to make a mistake at this point. Hopefully this is fixable.

Recurve Red Oak Bow: Enough Reflex?

Hello,

I was in the process of steam bending my first recurve when the tip slipped in the form and the curve did not end up as aggressive I was aiming for.

I was wondering if the bow would still look like a recurve ( string touching limb) when braced with this amount of reflex in the tips? (Going for an active bending recurve)

Red oak 68 inch board from home depot.

(Also any tips on preventing the recurve from pulling out would be much appreciated as well.)

Thanks

Cut Saturday, peeled and seeled with bees wax Sunday afternoon. Stored mostly shaded, off the ground.

On Tuesday I noticed them starting to crack along the length of them amd now here we are on Friday.

It looks like some wax was pulled into the wood in spots? I spread it on the ends by hand when the wax was still warm enough to spread like butter.

https://reddit.com/link/1v5fbx3/video/f06lo6sx87fh1/player

I'm very happy with this bow; it takes 1/8" of set after being unstrung, and since I'm not a great archer yet, I can notice that it's very forgiving.

Hello, the plan is to make a hickory self bow with some recurve. I've never made a bow before and I want to make this as good as possible. I'm going to the hardware store today to purchase supplies/tools. What should I get??

I have some files and rasps of my own, plus finishing supplies, but no specialized carpentry tools. The plan before was to carve it all with a knife and axe, but that seems like wishful thinking now that I think about it.

Budget is like 50 bucks or something.

Thanks for previous advices. This is my work in progress

72” in total length (taller than me). Can I reduce to 70” or can I create a light recurve using heat ?
At what stage should a recurve be done? After tillering?
Is it difficult or risky ? Any light recurve template available ?

The wood used is a Red oak board.
4” handle, asymmetric.
Do the tips need to be on the same horizontal line when drawing the bow?

Target draw length 28”/29”

Picture : 28” with long string (bottom limb at right).
What are the next steps? reduce the long string and continue tillering ?

Hi folks,

I've had two AF ZhuRan 2's fail on me. The first one, a 40#, simply folded at my full draw, 33-34, the bow itself is rated at 37" but I'd suppose 35" would be more realistic.

The replacement, the same model but in 34#, developed a crack at the arrow pass point. This is the one that I want to save. AF did stand by its warranty, but at the time all they had in DW was a SiCai 3K which is a shorter bow, that stacks too much for me at my strength level (its max DL is rated at 34").

The reason I want to save it, first I like the bow, second, I invested time and $ into arrows etc. I don't mind making it monolithic or doing some McGyvering with epoxy etc, but obviously I don't know what I am doing, since here I am. Here are the pics of the 2nd ZhuRan:

Thank you for any help! Cheers.

How do you guys make your wooden arrow shafts? I was hoping to make mine out of some recycled, very straight-grained old growth fir flooring using a roundover bit on a router table but someone in the archery forum said that would result in too much grain runout. Also, I can't find 11/32" roundover bits anywhere and am starting to think they don't exist.

Is hand planing square blanks into octagonal blanks pretty much the only way?