I've been wanting to get back into archery for quite awhile, and finally ended up making my own bow. It's a red oak long bow, 69", and pulls 43 #'s @ 30" (they say your first bow always comes out light) my plan was for 45#. Now I'm planning to make a 72" 55# bow.

It shoots suprisingly well, and once I replace the vanes on my arrows with feathers, I should really be able to get some good accuracy.

Just wondering if anyone else out there makes their own.

Paul,

I never seriously considered making my own after I first shot a compound bow. The performance available with them made me give up the idea.

I would like to know how to make a bow and string using a knife and "natural" materials, but I'm afraid that will have to wait until I retire!

Paul what type of Bow did you make? Meaning is it laminated glued up or solid red oak? Was it made from a kit if so who did you get it from?

I tried to make one in shop class out of ash everything went well until I put on the string and pulled it back it just snapped into. The shop class got a good laugh at my expense that day. It seems funny I got an “A†in the class most of the others barely passed.

I had a long bow when I was a kid until the neighbor bowed it backwards and it snapped.

Don,

Actually shooting a friends compound a few years back is what rekindled my interest in archery. I'd shot bows at summer camp 20 years back. I was amazed that after having not fired a bow in 20 years, after a few practice shots I could keep my arrows in a nominal 4-6" group at 30 yds. So I kept thinking about getting a compound, but I figured I shouldn't waste my money a cheap one, and just haven't had a spare $600-1000 on hand to get a decent setup.

I dunno, the high tech bows just don't do it for me. I can shoot my 480 revolver as accurately as the best bow offhand, from a rest it is accurate and powerful enough for 100 yd shots, and it is more compact than a wheelie bow. Better performance in a smaller package. That and there are really aren't many benefits to archery hunting in Alaska, so no need to get a "high tech" low tech weapon.

Swede,

The bow was made from a piece of red oak picked up at Home depot. It wasnt' any old piece though, I'm sure I'd sorted through at least 50 pieces before finding one with straight grain. Old school teaching was kiln dried wood doesn't make good bows and you have to split a log and follow the grain. Fortunately some more modern thinking traditional archers have found that not to be the case.

I think I paid something like $15 for the board, and it was big enough for 3 bows, though I used some for other projects and ended up with two bows worth of wood. You can get all the info you need on this web page http://groups.msn.com/ferretsarcherywebpage/buildingbowsfromboards.msnw but I'd also highly recomend getting the Traditional Archers Bibles vol I & II.

I think board bows are a great way to start out, tillering is tillering, so you might as well screw up a $5 lumber yard board vs a $50-100 piece of osage. With proper dimensions, the board bows are capable of very good performance. A decent 50# board bow will launch a 500 gr arrow 150 fps, a really good one will do upwards of 170 fps. Certainly enough to kill any deer out to 20-25 yds.

All you really need toolwise is something to rip a nominal 1X board into say a 1 3/4" with, and then a rasp to work it down while tillering, and some sandpaper to finish it off.

I bought a commercial string, though I got some B-50 dacron to make my own. A tillering string would do the trick as well and is adjustable.

I kinda followed Paul's program, sorting through a stack of Oregon white oak at a hardwood shop before I found a piece with grain I liked. Got three staves out of a $15 board. Broke the first one tillering. The second made into a nice 62-inch bow that I backed with silk from an old shirt set in TiteBond II. Bow was about 52 pounds, and I shot it heavily for about a year before it broke last May. I have the third stave shaped, but haven't finished it. My bow pals here make a lot of bows from local ash, vine maple and yew, and they fashion their arrows from mock orange, red osier dogwood or hazel shoots, with knapped heads of obsidian.
It's great fun to get the self-bows shooting, but if you don't love the work as much as the shooting, you are probably better off with a commercial bow.

I have been building my own bows for about 11 years now. I mostly build them from osage (horseapple) wood, then some from hickory, ash, hackberry, and persimmon.
I also make my own arrows from rivercane and use flint points here in Oklahoma.
They are fairly simple to make after a few basic tools are aquired and a little reading.
I make mostly Cherokee style flatbows with a rigid handle. I hunt with all of my bows, shoot 3-D and stump shoot.
Me and some of my buddies put together a BowJam- bow building seminar. We have them in March in central Oklahoma and this spring we helped/taught guys and gals in building 16 first time bows in 3 days.
We have a gathering in Northern MO. every July that is all about building bows, trading goods and learning others styles and secrets. It is a four day bow building marathon. You mentioned building a bow and sting with natural materials.
It can be done but the strings are not that durable.
We have a contest called the "Hatchet Bow Contest". You have to cut down a tree or limb with a hatchet, rough it out and finish with a hatchet. You are allowed to use B-50 or other sting material, not fast flight and bees wax. It is a contest to make a bow you could feed you or your family with the least amount of tools and materials.
There is usually about 10-15 bows in this contest. They are judged on pull, design, cast of arrows.
This event usually draws about 300-350 people from all over the country and a few from Canada, a couple from Germany and Hawaii.

Mike

I have a kiln built for laminate bows and numerous sketches, piles of research, and some initial glue experiments... I just need to build some better presses. I've done bows from staves before and I'm just not happy with them, and I'm not particularly interested in most American Indian-style bows. I'm going to build an inuit style bow in laminate as the first real test, then progress into the other take-offs on the asiatic bow... right after hunting season.

Yes, I have made hickory board bow and a couple of osage selfbows. Tremendous gratification in shooting a critter with everything you made in your shop.

Next on the list is a bamboo backed osage bow. When I can get some free time after hunting season.

when I was a kid me and my friend who lived on a farm would make bows out of fallen tree branches and twine, they didnt work very well but it was still fun to do.

Mike, That sounds like a worthwile event. I will try to make it in 2007. (2006 is spoken for. )

Don

Mike
arent you the guy they call the hinge?
JD

JD, I'm crushed you would say that.
The "Hinge" is Don Shannon and he resides in Coulee Dam, Washington. He used to live in Oklahoma when he was working for the University of Oklahoma. He just showed up on my door step one evening as I was building a bow in the garage. He got the name from when he was was building bows, a couple of them came up with a hinge in the limb and had to be trashed. We had a T-Shirt made that said "Hinge Archery" and he wore it to a couple of bow building gathering in MO and Oklahoma and the name stuck.
He used to hang out with JD Jones of "Genesis Arhcery", Ada, OK before he moved to WA.
I still visit with him about once a week. Have you met him or heard of him in NY?

Mike
Norman, OK

Mike
I heard the Hinge tought everyone in Oklahoma how to build self bows!
My brother Darren was at mojam he said that the hinge was teaching you and JD the bowyers art.
I hear the man can eat even better than he can build bows.
Darren says hello. If you see JD tell him the bow he sold my son needed work we wrapped the handle with duct tape added a couple rebel flag stickers and it shoots great now!
take care
Dean

"Tonto" didn't you know there is nothing you can't fix with Duct tape and Baling wire.


I forgot to say on my earlier post that when my Lemon wood (that is what my father said it was) bow snapped it jamed several spilinters in my left hand sticking out about a 1/2" I still have the scar.
It took years to get them all out, but I still want another long bow.

jim hamm of boisdarcpress.com in texas has a dozen or so how to books and teaches a yearly seminar -- he supplies the wood.

Jim Hamm is a leading light in the world of primitive bows. His book "Bows and Arrows of the Native Americans" is an outstanding resource for building your own, as are the three volumes of the "Traditional Bowyers Bible."
Also note that bow maker Tim Baker posts over on the Archery forum at EZ Boards' Paleo Planet, a great site.

I made an osage bow a few years ago. I cut down the tree and split the trunk. I shot it today and was surprised how good I was shooting it. It pulls 60# and it stacks like mad. This is a bow you don't hold back, just reach an anchor and release. Made wood arrows and they shoot good.