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.