Hellfire
Ex Member
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For a bow.
List. Coarse rasp, knife (good one), file, plane, sandpaper of various grade, camp hatchets are dandy for workin wood quick, some basic dimensions of a bow, linen-hemp-nettle fiber-silk-b50dacron-sinew for string. Also a decent stave of wood, straight grain, no knots, at least three inches wide, six feet tall, two inches thick. Boards also work- 2by1by6. Woods- red oak, white oak, ash, hickory, rock maple, hackberry, elm, walnut.. Mark out your dimensions, leave the handle beefy , hack with axe until reasonable close, then plane the edges. Make certain the cross-section is rectangular. About two inches wide until the last eight inches, where it tapers to 1/2". Make the handle 1 1/2 " wide, thick as is comfortable. When the handle narrows, it should also get deep, make sure the fades "overlap" the handle tapering, then it wont bend prematurely. Make it about 3/4" thick. Then cut nocks. Make sure to plane everything smooth. Test it weight, make sure everything bends smoothly. If something bends too much, dont bend it again, rasp wood off everywhere else. A few hairs of thickness is the difference between 50# and 70#. Be slow and steady. It isnt a rat race. Then put it on a scale (on tillering tree), test weight. NEVER BEND IT PAST YOUR EXPECTED DRAW WEIGHT!. It should bend about ?# at twenty eight inches when you are done. Then shoot the heck out of it. Have lots of fun.
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