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Posted: 2/5/2012 8:13:02 PM EDT
Today I started my first attempt at bowmaking. After reading through The Backyard Bowyer and Poorfolkbows.com, I went over to Lowe's and bought two 6 foot long oak 1x3s. Oak is a pretty good wood for making bows and it's cheap. Each board was $5 and change. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to leave it as a self bow or back it. Both the book and site I linked recommend using fiberglass sheetrock joint tape for backing bows, so I picked up a roll in case I do want or have to back it.
My plan is for this bow to be a flatbow. I.e., it'll have a rectangular cross section, vs. the "D" shaped cross section of a traditional English longbow. I'm also planning on this bow having a rigid, non-working handle, rather than having it bending through the handle. Today I tapered the ends using a Stanley Surform. Planing the ends using the Surform was really slow going, what you see below took a couple hours. I ordered a spokeshave tonight from Amazon which should make future work easier. Anway, here's the stave as it looks now:  So I don't mix up which side is the back and which is the belly, I marked the back, since we don't want to remove wood from it. We'll be thinning the wood from the belly to tiller the bow. This being a longbow, I gave it a medieval twist on that marking on the front of an M18 Claymore.   I'll post follow ups as I make more progress. |
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Posted: 11/28/2012 8:54:10 PM EDT
[#1]
Taggity.
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Posted: 11/29/2012 7:20:09 AM EDT
[#2]
It's been a few months did you ever go any further or did you die in the process?
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Posted: 11/29/2012 8:37:02 AM EDT
[Last Edit: mean_sartin]
[#3]
Originally Posted By Tested:
It's been a few months did you ever go any further or did you die in the process? I'm curious to see the progress |
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Posted: 11/29/2012 9:16:41 AM EDT
[#4]
Sorry for the lack of updates. I did actually finish the bow although it came out much lighter than I expected, due to my getting a bit carried away with my belt sander. That said, it shoots OK at short range with some 5/16" dowel arrows that I made.
I'll try to post some pics in the next day or two.
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TN, USA
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Posted: 11/29/2012 9:23:25 AM EDT
[#5]
Awesome.
"French." lol |
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Posted: 12/8/2012 3:22:11 PM EDT
[#6]
I finally got some pics of the finished bow. I got a little carried away removing wood, and wound up with a draw weight lighter than I'd wanted. It's probably about 20#. The string is 550 cord.
The bow hanging on a ground quiver from 3Rivers Archery. Two of the arrows are homemade from 5/16" dowels. The other 3 came as finished shafts from 3Rivers. I tapered the ends, installed points and nocks, and fletched them. I normally shoot the "real" arrows from my 40# horse bow.  Back view of the handle. I shoot lefty.  Side view of the handle showing the shelf.  The dowel arrows, fletched with duct tape. The points are the stamped steel trade points from 3Rivers. You insert the tang into a slit cut into the front of the shaft, glue and tie it in place. One came off when I pulled the arrow from the foam target.   |
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Posted: 12/11/2012 1:07:25 PM EDT
[#7]
Originally Posted By Dave_Markowitz:
I finally got some pics of the finished bow. I got a little carried away removing wood, and wound up with a draw weight lighter than I'd wanted. It's probably about 20#. The string is 550 cord. The bow hanging on a ground quiver from 3Rivers Archery. Two of the arrows are homemade from 5/16" dowels. The other 3 came as finished shafts from 3Rivers. I tapered the ends, installed points and nocks, and fletched them. I normally shoot the "real" arrows from my 40# horse bow. Back view of the handle. I shoot lefty. Side view of the handle showing the shelf. The dowel arrows, fletched with duct tape. The points are the stamped steel trade points from 3Rivers. You insert the tang into a slit cut into the front of the shaft, glue and tie it in place. One came off when I pulled the arrow from the foam target. Badass. I've seen that duct tape fletchings stuff on YouTube, but thought it was a load of crap. Nice to know it works. I was not looking forward to getting an fletching jig. 
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Posted: 12/11/2012 2:01:09 PM EDT
[#8]
Thanks. The duct tape fletching works, but feathers work much better. I use an Arizona E-Z Fletch tool.
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Posted: 2/13/2013 1:31:11 PM EDT
[#9]
Check out Primative Archery Forums. Lot's of great info there. I'm made about 30-40 self bows over the years, and they are great hunting weapons.
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WI, USA
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Posted: 5/23/2014 7:22:18 AM EDT
[#10]
Well done.
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