Th is old man is good at bow making,  couldnt find that other vid that is also good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWVrNbEMqRg&feature=relmfu

I have actually done this before with my dad, and he had done it twice before that.  I may or may not be able to post pictures to help you, so if you want pictures, PM me your e-mail and I will send the photos that way.  To start, you want to cut out a piece of Osage about 3/4 of an inch thick, 2 inches wide, and as long as you want it, with no knot holes or cracks.  You will end up trimming a lot of wood off of this thing to make sure it is smooth without any splinters.  We used a planer first off to smooth it down, and the limbs of the bow ended up about 1/2 an inch thick.  Then, you want to trim the ends down into a kind of long diamond shape.  Next, find pieces of another kind of wood, and cut small arcs of wood from them. I can show you what I mean with pictures.  Glue these pieces of wood to the ends of the bow, smooth them out, and cut notches in them for the string to fit into.  The extra wood will act as something extra for the string to fit onto, and will strengthen the ends of the wood, as those are the smallest and so the weakest parts of the bow.  Next, cut a chunk of some other wood, and glue this where your handle will be.  You will want a thicker handle for comfort, and it will help strengthen the center of the bow.  Don't worry if you choose too big a piece of wood, as you can trim extra off, and you will have to anyway when you sand the bow down.  Cut a handle shape in the piece of wood, and cut an arrow rest in there, too, so your arrow won't be resting on your hand when you shoot it.  Make sure the handle feels comfortable, because changing it later can be a hassle.  Now, sand down the entire bow, handle, limbs, everything.  I advise hand sanding it at the end, because that way you can feel for lumps and splinters in the wood.  After this, make sure you have the bow exactly how you will want it, because after the last step, it will be tricky to change the bow at all.  The final step is putting a varnish or other kind of finish on your bow.  This will help protect it from rain and water damage, and you won't have to worry about scratching your bow as much.  I'm pretty sure we used a polyurethane finish, which will protect it from almost anything you can throw at it.  After that, it's a matter of getting a string (which I can't really help you with, you need a special jig) and your bow is complete.  Bear in mind that these are rough directions given almost a year after I finished my bow. Besides that, these are pretty accurate, although pictures will help.

Jabames wrote on Jan 11^th, 2012 at 1:43am:


Awesome video, thanks for sharing bro!

I can't find a decent piece of hardwood long enough and thick enough for a bow, so I was going to hit the hardware store, buy a couple of oak 1x6 boards, and glue them together. The finished bow would have a join running down the center, covered by the bow's backing (2-3 layers of cotton cloth and Tightbond glue).

Since I've never successfully made a real bow before (willow bows as a kid don't count), can anyone tell me if this is a good idea?

That 1X6 will make about a 100 pound draw weight bow.  Are you planning to shoot French knights in plate armor?  Depending on the density of the wood, your limbs will need to be around 1/2 inch thick.  You will need to glue part of the grip on to make it thicker and more comfortable to shoot.  There is a build along on Primitive Archer down in the how to section.  It was put up by a shop teacher, it is the same way he teaches his students to make a board bow.  It uses a lot of power tools, that may be a problem if you don't have all the tools he uses.

When you say that you don't like the look of asiatic bows, do you mean that you don't like recurve bows a la Mongolia, China, India, and Greece

or do you mean the asymmetrical bows a la Japan?

A rule of thumb for building a bow to determine the length of the bow is :  draw length X 2 + 6 = total stave length.  So, if your draw length is 28 inches, times 2 = 56 + 4 (for the grip) + 2 (for the nocks)  = 62 inches.  You can make a D style bow shorter if you have really good wood and if you back it with something like silk or sinew.   If you make a bow 48 inches long, if you use pin nocks and make it bend through the handle, it should handle about a 22 inch draw.  That is what the plains tribes in N America used after they got the horse, they also did heat bending and added some deflex to the grip area so the tips didn't get so close to 90 degrees when it was at full draw.

Arthur the great wrote on Jan 15^th, 2012 at 9:36am:


Poor Folk Bows is one of my favorite tutorials. I pored over that site on my 1st attempt.

Gotta admit, when I looked at the Archery Library, it was one of those, "Ooooooooohhhhhh!!" moments. Definitely a great find! Thanks Arthur!