So there was some questions on the short bow thread about bow making principles. It kind of gave me a nudge to get a simple bow making tutorial made that Ive wanted to make for a long time now. Its no where near the level of quality I hope to make in the future but it has some helpful (i hope) info on it for newer bow makers.

This is going to be a series of videos. The first part goes up to the stripping of the bark and following a ring. Its quickly made but the next parts Ill be able to spend more time on the intricacies of layout and tillering which is where the heart of bow making is at.

https://youtu.be/6x7FN6BVK80

Survival Lily made a survival bow in a few hours.

https://youtu.be/Mx7QaRV_t7E

She’s a fun one to watch. I really like her stuff.  :)

Awaiting part 2

Just try and stop me.  8-)

So I looked up holly as a bow wood and  most people say it works quite well. So hopefully the wood underneath the bark looks good. Looking forward to this.

https://i.imgur.com/veinnud.jpg

So this is unexpected... This is a hickory stave and the smaller Holly (?) stave I cut in part one. The hickory is supposedly considerably denser. Yet when hefting this holly stave I couldve sworn it felt way heavier than other woods with similar specific gravities that Holly supposedly has.

Here you can see the hickory stave. Its quite a bit longer. And pretty close to the same thickness. With the extra length the volume should at least be similar but realistically theres more hickory there I would assume.

Check out the weight on both.

https://i.imgur.com/Y19hb3N.jpg

Holly

https://i.imgur.com/vVm2fJW.jpg

Hickory


The Holly might look much thicker but this is a actually not the case when you take into account the thickness of circumferential inner and outer bark that adds volume without the same mass as a dense hardwood.  The holly is heavier. Both woods are seasoned to ambient humidity. The holly sapling was indeed dead when I cut it. The wood felt really hard and not cool at all just as seasoned wood feels. I performed a thumb nail test on it and could not make a dent for the life of me. This is a seriously dense wood. I never would have expected that. Holly from what ive seen shouldnt be this dense but Im not complaining. This gives me hope. Now just got to hope the considerable amount of knots and the dead wood dont lead to catastrophic failure.

I have faith in you Morphy

Appreciate that lol... but... if Im reading this situation correctly that stave has a density on par with Osage. Just crazy... no idea how that will translate to tension strength but only one way to find out.

Super informative video. Can't wait for the next part.
Personally I like the design of Primitive Technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLoukoBs8TE
You can cut a bow with this method in little over an hour minus fire hardening.

All my bows so far have been of European beech. Can't find much info on it and the little there is says it's not very good.

Slyngorm wrote on Mar 12^th, 2021 at 11:13am:

Super informative video. Can't wait for the next part. Personally I like the design of Primitive Technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLoukoBs8TE You can cut a bow with this method in little over an hour minus fire hardening. All my bows so far have been of European beech. Can't find much info on it and the little there is says it's not very good.

Sorry the next video is going so slow. I wont forget and it will explain a ton of stuff for you.

But as for Primitive Technology. Yes its a cool design Slyngorm. And they are fun to make.

So here’s a weird thing about survival bows like that one. They don’t really help you survive. That’s sort of the irony lol. Even with a really good, accurate longbow killing game is so hard lol. Even when not in a survival situation, but add on the hunger, thirst, disease and demoralization and it’s very hard.

You can ask Mersa all about that.  ;D

But he’s making those bows with just rocks. With your survival knife/ hatchet,  and smaller knife you can make a longer bow that will outshoot that one all day long with probably less effort. That’s what they call a “meat-making” bow. A simple, beautiful longbow with little reflex, super accurate and durable due to the longer limbs spreading out the stress over a larger area. If you are in a true survival situation and you decide to try and make a bow, you want a longer one like 68 inches nock to nock.

Still you will notice in that video that I cut a 60” inch stave or less. I don’t always follow my own advice lol.

Fire hardening.
Is there something as "too much"? As long as the bow doesn't burn up completely.

When tempering or fire hardening look for a golden brown or just before. I usually like to do it after floor tiller but before any real tillering. Make sure its done evenly. Black or too dark is bad, or can be. Safer to look for a golden brown. After tempering the belly you need to let the bow sit in ambient humidity for 3-5 days without any bending or stringing. The bow should not be stressed until after sitting for this time period. Do **not** heat the back of the bow.

If done correctly it doesnt just dry out the belly. If it was only that all benefits would cease once moisture content reached homogeneity after rehydrating. It changes the properties of the belly wood permanently and makes it stronger versus compression though weaker in tension.

How to hold an arrow on a bow with a very great draw weight?

Just forget it. Realized the problem was me not having carved nooks into my arrows.

Here is a picture of my latest bow progression. Wanted to make  180 cm bow from birch.

The first, black one, was cut to thin because it kept the dimensions of my smaller bows. Also made one before this that was even thinner. Unsurprisingly, not very powerful. 
Second one had potential but was accidently overtillered loosing much potential.
Third one, very happy with. Probably my first bow that has some chance of being used in a hunting scenario. Its poundage is over 20 kg (I think 25). Blew my mind how accurate bows are. Rolled out a measuring tape and always got within half a meter from it. Today shot just over 50 meters at 45 angle. However, it has progressively become weaker and weaker. At first the string was so tight that it just didn’t snap. Now I can almost string the bow without bending it.

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There are ways to minimize changing tiller. Newer bow makers especially have this problem where they get a bow that seems to shoot ok but then gets weaker and weaker.

A couple things to consider-

The bow should be tillered well. Any weak or overly strong points shifts energy storage away from where it was set initially. Also if you want a 40 pound bow at 28 inches, tiller the bow to 40 pounds at 27 inches. Then sand and finish as normal. The bow can lose a little poundage as it takes its final set and you end up at the poundage you wanted at your draw weight.

Bows are way easier to be accurate with. Especially a well tuned bow. There is little comparison to the sling.