Well, I've finished my second bow (ever), it's of red oak and 65" long.
At 28" it's about 50 lbs which I find ideal for target practice. After shooting it has 1 1/4 inches of set, which settles down to under 1/2 in pretty quickly.

Here it is hanging on my wall... Yes it was only there for the picture!


It's 1.5 in at it's widest fading to the nocks which are ~1/4 in. They are not notches on the sides, but each is actually carved right into the back of the bow. I like the looks of it a lot more than the traditional type, and I can tell people that it's more aerodynamic  . Here that is:


The handle is another section of hardwood which is glued in place with Elmer's Proffessional Wood Glue. I clamped it with four clamps and a couple of vice grips, I really do believe that the wood will break anywhere but that joint; it shows zero signs of failing (so far anyway).

The whole bow was sanded smooth, I used 400 grit sandpaper to finish, but I found that the 220, once it was a bit worn out, actually works better. I spent a LOT of time with this, but it was well worth it. The whole surface is smoother than I thought was possible, until you do it, you can't really appreciate it. The sandpaper however gets a lot of dust everywhere, so I made a few tack cloths which sucked up all of the dust very well.

I then pyrographed an eagle just above the upper fade and a 'Hiya' almost halfway down the lower limb, which I found on Kingfisher Woodworks website. Allledgedly, it means "Fire Arrow", but I just think it looks cool  .  Unfortunately, in the pic, the eagle appears sort of silly since you can't see the depth of the wood , it's enough to get the idea though. The arrow appears to align with the eagle's talons while shooting, which is a cool effect


I wish the pictures did the bow more justice  . I've been having a hard time with the camera... it keeps trying to autoadjust, which destorys the nice appearence of the wood.

And finally, here it is at 27". That just happens to be where the screw was on the tillering tree.


The picture is a bit distorted, and it dosn't help that the string wasn't centered on to the screw, but you get the idea of the tiller.

Anyone looking at this and thinking, "Too bad I can't make a bow" (like I was, at another's just a short while ago). You are wrong! As I said, this is my second bow. Just read up, get out there and do it! It's a fun process.


If for some reason you'd like a specific photo of something or higher resolution versions, just let me know.

Well, that's all that I have time for now... I'm forgetting something but it'll come later.
Comments, Constructive Criticism, Pure Criticism? All are appreciated

Very nice longbow, Cando! "Too bad I can't make a bow," lol. I need to practice before making a bow. I usually get carried away with the drawknife . Have you measured the distance it can fire yet? It'd be interesting to see how it would compare to a sling.

Good for a second bow. Don't cut into the backs of the nocks though. Thats bad. It may break there eventually.


I would suggest on your next bow that you make it about 3" longer (for a redoak board), and get it bending just a little more near the tips and midlimb. Your left limb is ok, but your right limb is bending too much near the handle.  

... I don't know, I generally use red  oak, but I think this "read oak" variety is ok if it can stand up to that design. 

I'm wondering, could we (the bowyers/archers) here set up a standard for bow power? Find some sort of standard target... say a certain type of cardboard box filled with sand for example. Then we could measure penetration. I think that would be pretty interesting.

No. Not really a standard. You just take the bow you have, measure the poundage on a spring scale, then shoot a 10 grains per pound arrow (if 50 pounds then 500 grains), then shoot it for distance or through a chronograph.  If it shoots 166 yards (and is a 50 pounder) then its a good bow. I think the record for a 50# bow drawing 28" with a 500 grain arrow is about 200 yards.

CanDo:
The "fire" means literally just that - fire, as in, a fire.  The character should really consist of three parts - a central two-stroke part and two one stroke parts (the different parts of a character are called "radicals") on each side of the central part.  It is supposed to look like a fire.  The term for "shoot", as in, to shoot an arrow, is she, and is quite complicated.  It is pronounced "shuh", with a schwah at the end, not pronounced "shee."
The second part, "ya", in the first tone, meaning "arrow", is supposed to show the nock and feathers of an arrow in a stylised manner.  Not all characters are pictures like this, (in fact, most aren't solely pictorial) but that is how these two are formed.  I'd surmise that it means a "fire arrow", an incendiary missile.  I'm not sure that is the term used in Chinese history to describe such weapons, but it could be.  Fire arrows were definitely used in China, before and after gunpowder.
 By the way, my Chinese is not excellent.  I can just about have a conversation, but I can read some books and things like that.  I'm taking Chinese at university this year.
 I wouldn't worry about how far it shoots.  If you like it, it's a good bow.  You're not intending to go to war with it, are you?

I learnt Chinese from friends, which I believe is the best way to start.  My Chinese friends all came from different regions of China, and had different accents.  Chinese pronunciation is difficult to learn well if you don't have an instructor or friend to help you.  It is tonal, which means that meaning depends heavily on tone.  There are four tones in mandarin Chinese, which is spoken by about 800,000,000 people in the Peoples Republic as a first language, as well as by people who speak a different Chinese regionalect as a first language, for example, in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Xiamen, where they speak different regionalects/dialects.  Pronunciation is the most difficult barrier to overcome when learning Chinese.  The grammar is fairly simple in many ways, and the writing system, although it takes a while to learn, is not actually that difficult.  There are just lots and lots of characters - about 49,500, apparently, although you will probably only need a maximum of about 5,000-6,000.  If you want to try and learn from home, then certainly do.  It's a great language to learn.  It's not any more "spiritual" or "mystical" than any other language - it's very pragmatic.  It just happens to look nice when written correctly.
  Anyway, I'm glad to hear that the bow is not going to be used offensively.  Waste of arrows, in any case.

Good idea.

Quote:



I think he tried. Kind of funny though, but I have also made some funny spelling errors, so no poking fun.