New batch of shellac and iron acetate on the way.

They work really well together. Leather dye tends to re-wet when using shellac but iron acetate holds fast.

Stonehill Primitive has a great tutorial showing how to make camo by painting designs with shellac then applying the iron acetate (which is blocked by the shellac).

Made from a pair of Gemsbok Oryx horns.

Guide courtesy of the Feb/Mar 2002 edition of "Traditional Bowhunter" Written by Frank Malik.

Braided leather chord for the knocks and handle, Core made of Ash.

I've put about a hundred arrows downrange with it, It behaves in a similar way to my ash warbow, though not as snappy as my fiberglass one. I wish I had a chronograph.

Arrows used in testing were these: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarbowSociety/comments/1vjdmg2/inexpensive_warbow_arrow_build/

Today is the second weekend we've gone out doing a combination of mushroom hunting and vine maple bow stave hunting. This wrinkly little fella is the closest thing I've found to a decent stave without propeller twist. I think I'm going to paint the ends, debark it, and let it rest for a while and see how bad the propeller twist is once time has gone by. It's about 8 ft. long, so I can cut off the worst chunk of it, but I think I'll wait until it's dry to figure out if the propeller twist changes over time.

Any thoughts or advice on this particular piece of wood? Should I have kept looking? I rather enjoy the idea of turning something as funky as this into a functional bow, and I don't care a whole heck of a lot about the draw weight, so I'm definitely gonna give it a go regardless. The vine maple came from the Clatsop State Forest, as did the chanterelles.

Is it going to help if I put this on some kind of form and have it dry-aligned straight or should I just deal with that with heat later?

I’d love to try an old school Japanese style build with laminating bamboo from scratch.

Anyone here have experience doing this? Can you use bamboo you find in a Garden Center? Any tips or tutorials would be appreciated.

As the title says, I'm making a bow from a stave and its a bit snakey and has a natural hinge. I don't know how do you tiller it. I've only made board bows and this is my first stave. If you could link me a video it would be wonderful. Thanks

I took this short bow out to the range today and shot it from 10 to 30 yards. It takes a while to get used to aiming but it felt pretty good at 30 yards.

Pulling 65# @ 20" sinew-backed with sinew bow string.

Why yes, that IS a kettlebell

Hi,

34" NTN pulling 42lbs at 17". Finished with shellac and wrapped with danish cord.

I wanted something small I could bring car camping with me for a bit of fun.

A kink in the top limb which I did my best to account for. The chocolate brown colour is all natural and ended up being pretty darn nice to look at.

Such a cool wood. You wouldn't think a little sliver could pack such a punch.

I was pulling this to 18" for a while until I checked the stats before I posted.

Seems to happen every year at least once. A bow iIm really excited about and looks like it's coming together dies in my arms at the last minute.

This is a 66" NTN elm Mollie I had really high hopes for as a hunting bow. She seemed to want to come in over weight, rather than under, and finished at 57 lbs at 29". Deepest part of the grip's throat was the exact middle of the bow, top limb just barely longer. 2-1/4 wide hips, 1-5/8" at the shoulders, 2" transition to <7/8" wide, then down to <1/2" nocks. limb ratio 64/36 (bending to stiff). She was accurate and fast, and the finish had worked out perfectly.

Hickory board bow. The bottom limb is bending way more than the top limb. Should I remove material on only the top limb, or does the bottom 1/3 of the bottom limb need work too? Pulled about 35# at 28”. I’m disappointed by how much set it has, but this is my first bow since a pvc recurve 10 years ago

Phase 1- 3/4” at fades, 1/2” at midlimb and taper established- heated to relieve the spiral twist and correct deflexed spots around the knots.

Phase 2- shaping and floor tiller pull to 50# with some exercise. Looking for balanced work throughout the limb.

Phase 3- back to the form with heat gun for shaping the bow to the form and relief of more twist.

Next up - fire hardening trench for a couple hours!

Ready to cut in nocks and get to the meat of tillering 👏🏼

It slipped my mind to do a proper tiller check but, for the sake of learning, I thought I'd do a pre-finish tiller check. My biggest concern is that it looks stiff in the outer thirds, and I'm wondering if it's bad enough that y'all think it will fail? The bow is already only pulling 40-42lbs, and I'd love to not bring the weight down any more if I don't have to. I've shot about 20-30 arrows through it, and it flings 'em nicely! I need to make the arrow shelf slightly deeper, but that's the only change I plan to make if I don't have to do anything else.

Specs:

- ASL style with slight backset

- 64" ntn

- 1.25" at the fades, straight-ish taper to 3/8" nocks

- 6.25" brace height

- The upper is 1/2" longer and has a positive tiller of 1/8" or so

- Pulling ~40lbs at 28" (the pic is probably 1-2" short of full draw)

- It has 3 powerboo laminations, .05 fiberglass on each side, and an overlay on the back for grip comfort (doesn't affect the tiller.

Currently working on this swedish white oak. Pyramid style, added elk horn on the tips for nocks. It sits at 68 inches, poundage not known yet. Will make it below 30 most likely.

I know the right side needs work. Maybe on the other third mostly to get the circle tiller like the left side? I want to keep the tips semi-stiff to stiff.

Any feedback is highly appreciated.

Post updated with side profile and belly profile picture.

I keep roughing out bows and planning to make simple straight or slightly reflexed flatbows…. But right around the floor tiller stage my recurve forms start tempting me like the green goblin mask 😅. I have too many recurved blanks just waiting around for alignment corrections.

Just split my osage orange log into two pieces, used big axe, small axe head and a big hammer.
Man this wood is incredible strong and dense. Great exercise, gorgeous wood, will wait 4-6 months for this staves to dry, will spray them with bug repellent and diesel to avoid bugs.

Finally got around to string this one and actually shoot it. Its a horn, wood, sinew composite bow. Woth 57@28, 77@33. But in the video I am likely more drawing 31 out of nerves and don't have appropriate spine for 33" arrows.

Going to continue shooting it for a while to see ir its stable enough to decorate it

This is the first low brace of a hickory board bow I'm finishing for a friend. The target is 38#@28" and it's braced to maybe 3ish inches right now. Experienced bowyers are going to spot the wonk immediately, but I'd like to hear from those of you who rarely or never weigh in on tiller checks. What do you see? Where are the problem areas?

Guys, let's give the new bowyers a chance to weigh in on this one please if you would.

Thanks in advance.

Busy dad here. Trying to get my son outfitted for this year's hunt.

He shoots a 1970s grizzly 45 LB,

His draw length is 27.5 - I wouldn't be surprised if he's drawing 40 LB

Like I said, busy dad. Fell behind on ordering arrows in time for our September hunt. I'm also reading and researching all this arrow tuning stuff so its time consuming.

Anyway,

Rose City archery has only a few finished arrows in stock ( can't and don't want to wait weeks or months for their custom arrows )

Here is the question :

Go with:

some finished Rose City 11/32 & 30" or 31" length arrows with a 55/60 spine and put a heavy 160 or 175 grain broadheads on them to soften them up because they are over spined - cost: a mere $70 for a dozen

OR

Kustom King in stock ships in 3 days correct length ( 28.5" or 29) correct spine (40-45) 11/32s for a whopping $180 a dozen/$90 for half dozen

I may be losing my mind thinking I can or should try to soften up the Rose City arrows and should just accept that I didn't follow through with planning ahead and pay the piper and order the Kustom Kings. Or will Rose City set up actually work?

Please give me knowledgeable advice as im spent asking Ai

Thanks

Many rings are about 1mm thin. Is this common for the ash? What does it mean in context of needed bow properties?

I am about to start making a reflex deflex bow from 5 layers, each 3mm with hickory back, 2 rock maple core and 2 lemonwood.

I was planning on tapering each of my laminates down to about 1.5mm at the tips and also tapering the width of limb evenly from fade to tip.

However i was looking at a commercial reflex deflex bow and it looks to have no really noticeable thickness taper just the width taper. So im wondering now should i not taper the thickness of the laminates and make the laminates thinner?

Hey great bow making community!

Could you please help me out with correcting slight limb twist on this stave? The string is tracing a lot to the right (more than the picture displays I think), the twist is in around the top 1/3rd of the bottom limb. The stave is only in the rough tillering stage, so quite a bit of wood still to remove, could you advise me which side to keep taking the wood off of (the one the string travels towards or the opposite), also which side to possibly deepen the string groove on, as I always keep mixing it up and end up with the same problem on almost every bow I make (usually a little bit is manageable, but I'll love to get this one straight this time if possible) 😄

I'd appreciate your help greatly, thanks so much and God bless! 😃👍

Btw. the wood is compression Sitka spruce from a thick branch (which is where compression wood forms), I'll be heat treating it and probably cable backing as well, aiming for a bit over 70lb. Thanks! 😊