Took a year of failures, finally made a working bow

I'm really happy with how it turned out. 35 lbs at 30 inches. Oak board from the hardware store. The backing is curtain material from the fabric store. It's incredibly strong, doesn't stretch. Also had to learn how to make flemmish twist bowstring because not a single outdoors store sells it here for some reason. If anyone wants to talk about bow making I'm always open for discussion!

That's a good looking board bow
Now I have to ask, were you trying to make a bow out of boards all this time?

a reply to: EyesOpenMouthShut

Thank you! My one year old son wasn't too impressed.

Yep. Went through probably 20 or so during the whole learning process. Got a couple mostly finished that broke. Quite a few just had crappy grain. A lot developed hinges during the tillering process. I had a lot to learn, mostly by trial and error.

a reply to: ZeroReady

Great job Zero! So, how did you get the Oak to be flexible (not a rhetorical questions) as in, did you treat the wood with anything to make it more elastic? How long did it take you to complete?

Thanks in advance and great job again!

Wow I am impressed... and jealous.. always wanted to be good at making things with my hands... but I seem to have the knack for breaking not building.

a reply to: sulaw

Thank you!

No treatments. Just the awesome properties of wood itself. Takes a lot of patience. Put the string on, bend it a little, take off string, shave off tiny bits of wood and there with a rasp. It's about taking millimeters off at a time in just the right places and bending it slowly and gradually over and over again.

This one took about a week, but probably could do it 3 days of non stop work, allowing barely enough time for all the glue to dry.

a reply to: ZeroReady

Lol, kudos for perseverance. I really hate to tell you though, that oak bow, as pretty as it is, she wont last too many years of use. That wood isn't very resilient to flex even with backing, especially a board bow.

I would recommend you get yourself a bit of hickory wood split from a tree with the bark still on it and dried a couple years. Those make great beginner bows and last considerably longer than oak boards.

a reply to: Irishhaf

I had no idea what I was doing when I started. I messed up a lot. Did everything the hard way. But I learned so much about woodworking just from making bows that I've also made some really awesome furniture this year. It's the most satisfying and frustrating hobby I've ever had.

a reply to: EyesOpenMouthShut

Yeah I figured as much. But I honestly have so much fun making them, now that I know what I'm doing, I'm not too worried about durability.

I was actually thinking of ordering an osage stave from this website I found. But the oak boards are excellent for getting techniques down.

a reply to: ZeroReady

Osage is HARD to work. It's gets twisty, warped, and full of little knot holes. I wouldn't recommend it unless you are completely confident in your skills

a reply to: EyesOpenMouthShut

Thanks for that. I wasn't set on osage, it just seemed like what all the nice longbows are made of as opposed to yew, which is pretty expensive.

I may go for hickory. There's a woodcraft store nearby that sells choice pieces of lumber, much better than Big Hardware. I'll see what they have in stock.

I definitely want to try something better than oak next though.

a reply to: ZeroReady

Very, very cool! Great job man, I'm impressed!

I'm VERY much into archery and am absolu
tly stoked for you.

I wanna shoot it!

a reply to: KawRider9

Thanks! Means a lot. Just moved, no friends, no one to show it to except you guys.

It shoots pretty well, but I think the arrow rest is making the arrows wiggle in flight. It's accurate enough at 30 paces, I can hit the target at least. But next time I wont carve an arrow rest like that.

a reply to: ZeroReady

Yew is ok for bows but that said it was traditionally used because that was the best wood available in that region and its fairly pretty wood too but IMO not at all worth the price.
Seriously though, you should try to find a piece of wood that hasn't been sawed and milled. You will be happy with the quality of the bow.

A hunting buddy of mine's son makes custom bows of all kinds, the guy is a real craftsman.

What about a long bow made from ash wood? I thought that the native Americans used ash for bow making, but around here, the ash trees are being wiped out by the emerald ash borer beetle, an invasive species to Michigan. I used to prefer ash when making a walking stick, but judging by all the infected trees around here, I will be leaving the young ash trees alone and sadly using the diseased trees as firewood.

Nice Bow man...35lb's more than enough to take down a white tail..

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck
Ash, Hickory, Locust, Osage Orange, Mulberry, Cherry, And Walnut have been used for bow making for a long time and there are only 2 on that list that i have yet to use because they're a bit more difficult to work than the others, Osage and locust. Osage is just plain hard and Locust needs a good backing and its not easy to find in my area but i did manage to locate and secret away a good locust log to dry for the very near future to work with.

Nice looking bow! I'm getting strong enough to shoot my kingfisher 40lb again and I love it. Archery is great stress relief too. I like using it for takedown bow and for bowfishing gar equally.

You should throw you a fishing reel on the front!

a reply to: Cancerwarrior

I only just found out that bow fishing is a thing after moving to TN. It looks awesome! I wanna try. I was looking at the rigs at the sporting goods store the other day.

a reply to: ZeroReady

Hit the youtubes for "Peoria carp hunters". I love bowfishing and those videos show what we do here.

Sorry, I don't know how to copy and paste from my phone.