I realised I never posted up here my first attempt at making a bow. I saw this Instructable article:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-takedown-bow-from-skis/

and, considering I live in Finland which is chock full of second hand cross country skis and free wood, I decided to make my own ski bow. I see this very much as a first (still unfinished) attempt. I really liked how the riser came out and I got it to be very comfortable in the hand but I kind of messed up drilling the holes so the limbs are off centre which basically means the riser is unusable. Luckily this weekend I'm off to the Summer cottage finally (expect lots of posts of stuff I've made and tried out) so I'll be able to get some more wood to cut down and shape. I still haven't put the indents for the string on the ski limbs yet and I have no arrows which are both problems to overcome but my biggest problem is actually that I'm not sure what to use for the string. I could try and make one myself but I don't know much about that and then if I was to simply buy one I'm not exactly sure how to work out what size I need or type or really... anything :D

Any help and tips on the making of this would be greatly appreciated!

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this may interest you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1JS_kXXeVQ

Thanks! I've seen a few of that guys videos and they're good. I didn't think to see if he had done a string tutorial :D

Any chance we could get a video of you shooting it? It looks great by the way.

Well it will take me some time to get it in working condition and then I need some arrows but I'll try :D As I write this we're on our way out to the  woods so at the very least I'll get some slinging filmed if I can convince someone to hold the camera.

The camera? No problem. It's convincing people to hold your target that gets difficult. I'm running out of people here.

:D Actually the one problem I'm expecting is my girlfriend's parent's new dog getting in the way of my target. Their previous dog loved to have a nice quiet sit directly in the line of fire.

Made some good progress already. The new riser is far beefier than the original but it still needs a lot of sanding so will slim down in time. Done all I can out here I think as the drill and sand paper are back home so I'm going to have plenty to do over the next week or more. Note maybe some slinging, although it's almost minus degrees outside.

Apologies for giant photos. Only have my phone so will edit them later once back in civilisation.

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When you attach the limbs to the riser, do you plan to glue them, too?

I'm just going to be using the bolts. I want it to be a take-down version to ease transport. With my first attempt at a riser, I did test it a little to see if they would hold and I think they will do fine. I'm not going to be using it very heavily really; I'll only be able to really use it when at the cottage, so it should last quite a long time.

Oh yeah and today I spent about an hour sanding the new riser and it's looking a lot less... square. Still need to do some more and use some finer grades and then a million other things but hopefully sometime this year it'll be ready :D

I would like to see the finished project.

Otter, any idea what the poundage will be? Also, what type of wood is the handle made from?

No idea about poundage really. Once it's finished I'll try and measure it. I'm not sure about the wood as it was a cut off from when the Summer cottage was being renovated. I think it might be pine. I know that isn't the best wood and certainly isn't ideal but beggars can't be choosers. Going back to the poundaage, I'm really not expecting it to be very high at all so I think pine will be good enough. I'm not expecting a war bow out of this and really this whole thing is just me getting better at wood work and seeing if I can do it. If I get nothing else out of this, sanding it has been very pleasant. The whole of our flat now smells like the forest :D

Hey if it works it works right?  :) The smell of the wood is one of my favorite things about bow making.Osage smells great as well, to me at least.

This is a guess but I'm betting the bow will be very powerful. 

It has laminated beech or birch or possibly ash at the core with two layers of fiberglass.  And it's probably around 6mm thick?

I have a bow like that and it draws about 80 pounds. 

Then again, that's just a guess and I could be so far off it's not even funny.

These were cheap skis so I'm not entirely sure of the construction. The cross section seems to show some folded middle section. I can post up a picture in a bit. They do have a fair bit of flex. I'm attaching them at a much greater angle than my first attempt so they won't be quite as bent back so I imagine won't be as powerful on this new riser than they would have been on the old one but I'm not the strongest person ado that's probably a good thing :D I'm still so annoyed I messed up the drilling the first time. This time I'm going to really take my time with out and make sure everything is as aligned as possible. If only I had a drill press...

You have power tools?   :o

I generally make my bows with a hatchet, a draw knife and a rasp and an old pair of scissors that I took apart to use as scrapers.   ;D

Well the drill is the only power tool I'm using (and the only one I have...). So far I've been using the hatchet I posted in the Survival Round Robin thread, an old (very blunt) Swiss Army knife, a (not as blunt) Leatherman multitool, a saw that was rusted to hell from potentially 20 or so years in a wood shed in the forest and sand paper. I actually still don't have any files which is a problem I've been meaning to fix for a while.

Bill Skinner wrote on Apr 19^th, 2017 at 7:02pm:

You have power tools?   :o I generally make my bows with a hatchet, a draw knife and a rasp and an old pair of scissors that I took apart to use as scrapers.   ;D

Huh? I always imagined you sitting under a tree with flint flakes...

I got the holes drilled and threw on a piece of string just to check everything is in line and looking like it's going to function and it's perfect! I even managed to (completely accidentally) balance it perfectly. I still want to take some material off and pretty it up a bit more so it might not be as perfectly balanced in the end but for now at least it's pretty darn good :D

The "To Do" List:
Slim down the riser
Enlarge the arrow rest a tad
Make some indents for the nuts
Sand it some more (a lot really)
Oil the riser
Clean up the nocks (need to finally get some files)
Make the bow string
Get some arrows
Shoot the damn thing

Let's hope I can get this done fairly quickly. I really want to get out and use it!

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Have you drawn it at all? Any idea where you're at draw weight wise?

Nice looking bow! Skis;  who knew :noidea:

I drew it back very carefully, not wanting to push it too far on its first outing, and I got it back to the level of my mouth or so so I think it should be pretty usable. I've really got almost no experience with bows so don't have much of a guess I'm afraid.

Hey Morphy, I actually have used flakes to make a bow.  Really.  You can ask Mas, he's seen me work on one.   8-)


Note that I said ONE.   ;D


Actually, chopping is chopping and scraping is scraping.  The biggest problem with using stone tools is getting one the correct shape.  I might knock of 6-10 flakes before I got one the correct size and thickness.  And as the closest source of knappable stone is close to 50 miles away (90km), and it involves sitting neck deep in a creek while feeling for stone under sand.  Then loading up a bucket and hauling them to my truck.  And I would go through a lot of rock to get the correct tools.

Thanks for setting that straight. You almost completely destroyed my mental image of you. You know, the grizzled marine/philospher that works staves with flint and plants 200 year old corn in his spare time.

I have to admit Ive never used flint flakes. I love my assortment of hand tools too much. I have a rasp I bought from Dean Torges that is wonderful for bowmaking.  That and my cabinet scrapers, drawknives, and spokeshaves and terrorism be damned, all is right with the world.

Talking of rasps, I just got a pretty cheap but perfectly functional set of a flat, round and half round. Man, has it sped things up. The riser is now almost (almost!) finished as far as working the wood goes. A tiny bit more sanding and then sorting out the nut indents then oiling. I need to start working on the string :D

In my quest for a bow string, I found this video which seems pretty good. No jig, no tools and fairly easy: just what I need :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UrWcpyiG6c

Sorry for the stream of comments but I realised I never showed off the finger tab I made. I actually made this before I had even started working on this bow. What can I say? I was quite excited to get going with this project :D

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Wow your first attempt at making a bow sure does put me to shame. I think I used bailing twine for my first bow string. Let's see bailing twine ,serrated kitchen knife, green crepe myrtle limb. Ya you got me beat by a mile.  ;D   

Can't wait to get a video of you shooting it.

Nice looking tab.  And that is an outstanding video on how to make a single loop string.

Now find one where he shows how to serve the string.  That's wrap thread around the string in the area where you nock the arrow.  And while you don't need as many strands as he does as far as strength of the string goes,  I usually use 14 strands in my strings in my much lighter bows simply because a slightly thicker string doesn't dig in to my fingers as much while I'm shooting. 

He actually links to a serving video at the end of that one and its just as good. I have my materials on their way now and it's all looking a lot less intimidating :D

All the sanding is now done! Probably... I'm sure I'll find some bits which need even more cleaning up but it's now basically finished. All I need to do now is oil it, make the string and then test it out. This whole process has gone much quicker than I thought it would I have to say so the wait for the string materials is going to be excruciating.

How's the arrow situation? You planning on making those as well or buying some?

I think I'm going to have to buy them. At some point I'll try and make my own but for now I don't really have the right materials or the time. Also I'm far too impatient and want to go shoot this thing as soon as possible :D The oiling is now done and you can see here the lengths I went to to get it right. It's come out really nicely and has some beautiful patterns. I'll get some better photos up at some point. One thing I wanted to ask actually is what's everyone's opinions on the arrow rest? Should I just keep it bare wood or would a bit of leather be a good idea?

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So long as there is enough room for the arrow to shoot cleanly with the added plate and rest I would. The wood will take wear there if not.  I've never glued over an oil finish so double check this but if it was me I would make sure it's completely dry, sand the area a bit and use contact cement or shoe goo. If you have a heater fan the oil will dry a lot quicker. Anyways that's the procedure I would follow. Should be fine.

I think whether I'm going to or not is going to come down to how well I can cut the leather to fit :D I have plenty of time ti seems until the string materials arrive so it beats twiddling my thumbs.

I found another use for leather that's archery related! Turns out thumb rings were, and still are, sometimes made of leather rather than wood or bone or antler or some other material so of course I had to have a go. I made a quick paper template, just to be sure of the dimensions, then cut out the leather, punched two holes in the "arms" and sewed them together. It literally took less than 10 minutes to make and, as far as I can tell with the very quick pull back on my bow with the stand-in string, it seems to work fine and I might even prefer how it feels to the finger tab. Of course I need to try them both out for real before I make any decisions but the mechanics of it seem to make sense for me and I think I might get a quicker, smoother release. Need to see. I think it's obvious at this point that I'm desperate for the string material to arrive. I'm going to try and find some arrows tomorrow but I'm not sure how good an idea it is. It's going to be torture...

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Kick wrote on Apr 26^th, 2017 at 3:47pm:

I think it's obvious at this point that I'm desperate for the string material to arrive.

This is me waiting for my first sinew backed bow to dry. Lol. Once you start staring at the bow willing the finish to dry by some non existent mental power you will know it's over.
;D

Now added some leather to the arrow rest with some glue and I can now say the riser itself is finished! I'm so happy with how it's turned out.

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I've used soft leather thumb rings, they didn't do so hot.  They did let me see how out of shape my left arm was as far a drawing the bow, though.

If you are right handed and hold the bow with your left hand and draw with your right while using a finger release, when you switch to a thumb ring, the arrow stays on the left side of the bow but you now hold the bow with the right hand and draw with the left.

And follow through is a lot more critical with a thumb draw than it is with a finger draw.

Finally the b50 arrived!

It took 2 attempts but I finally got a half-decent, sort of ok string. I'm hoping the serving string will be arriving soon so I can finish it off properly. Then all I need are arrows and somewhere to shoot!

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