Who here has built a bow?

D

Delphi

Active member
I was just in the thread about what we could be doing right now but aren't, and I was inspired to ask newschoolers for a little help. I'm looking to build a longbow this summer, but I'm not sure how to go about the process. Anyone who has worked with wood, literal wood, not figurative penis, help me out.
 
You need to blindfold yourself and walk into the woods.

Listen to mother earth and she will guide you to the perfect tree.

Be patient, mother earth always takes her time, but she always gets it right.

Once the spirits tell you its time, take the blindfold off and harvest the tree.

Look at the fallen tree, admire the rings, because each ring is a mark for each wisdom-gaining year the tree spent attached to mother earth.

After you have seen what the tree has gone through in it's life, you must wait until the moon is at its largest. On that night, plane the tree down, and let the grain tell you where it wants to be cut.

By sunrise you will be free to walk out of the woods, with the perfect bow.
 
i made a bow in 6th grade for a history presentation. during the presentation i pulled the spring back to demonstrate how it worked and the bow snapped in half and i almost ran out of the room crying but i held it together
 
I used to make bows out of bamboo, I would take three long pieces of the skinny stuff and wrap them in string a whole bunch of times. They could shoot ~75 feet which was pretty good for an 8 year old who just wanted to shoot at squirrels, haha.
 
i made an oak english longbow, using a 6 foot piece of oak from lowes. i also used a small piece of poplar for the handle. basically just shave both ends down and use a tiller tree or w/e its called to see how it bends. keep shaving until it doesnt have any hinges (meaning the whole bow bends evenly). my bow has a ~40 lb draw. use a belt sander too. for the handle i used the sander to make finger grooves and an arrow shelf. glue paper bag to the front side of your bow so it doesnt splinter when you shoot it. ill post pics up tomorrow or whenever i get the bow back from my homie (he used it for a project). the thing is nuts, it could easily kill a man
 
dude, how long did it take you, and is oak a good wood to use? I've been reading up on it and everyone seems to think Yew is the best type to use, either that or lemonwood. I think yew is expensive and hard to come by though. Also, did you make your own wooden arrows? And is this a really difficult process?
 
i made a bow once but then i cut my thumb open making arrows fucking sucked lesson leared to all dont let you kids use a pocket knive
 
took me like a whole day and then i glazed it and the next day i strung it. i used oak because its cheap and gets the job done and i cant find yew or lemonwood anywhere. and i made arrows from bamboo rods that you can find at lowes or something. theyre used for like in a garden you tie a plant to the bamboo rod to keep the plant growing straight. just shave down the fat parts of the bamboo and tie some feathers on there, and use whatever for arrowheads. i used rocks
 
thats sick, what kind of directions did you follow? I found a website selling pacific yew wood from British Columbia and the staves range from 50-200 bucks. I want to find a nice wood to make my first bow with, so I will probably look for some around me. Ideally, I don't want to spend too much. Have you gotten sick at shooting with it

 
If you can get some bamboo you can make a Tibetan longbow.

You carve the handle out of some hard wood, just to whatever specs you want for your grip. Then you pretty much split open the bamboo and cut two strips out of it a few inches wide. You attach the bamboo (with, I think a rabbet joint, might have to check that) so that the outside part of the wood is facing you when you are shooting it. If you have them on the right way it'll look like they are on backwards till you string it. Put little notches in the top, string it up, they're pretty powerful I was hitting 50ft targets fairly accurately.
 
i made one when i was 12 at my aunts ( had nothing better to do ) took an oak sapling and trimmed the branches off. used bailing twine (stuff for making hay bails(sp?) cause she lives on a farm) then i took a pocket knife and cut out 2 notches on each end then bent the sapling and put on the bailing twine. made the arrows out of the branches that were on the sapling and got trimmed off. then found a couple dowles that were in the house also. killed 3 chipmunks that day and was a really fun hunting experience for a 12 y.o.
 
My dad has built about 3 or 4 legit self-bows. He's pretty bad ass. I say he puts like 500+ hours into each one. The best wood to use is osage (sp?) or ironwood (hop horn bean). I can try to find some of my dads books he has and you can try to find them online if you want. Theres also this dude that my dad bought from that sells unfinished bows that are basically just a rough version of the bow, and you do everything else to finish it.
 
I've heard some good things about osage wood, but the best, and most expensive, wood seems to be yew. I can't wait to start building this baby.
 
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