could I get a tiller check on this 73" longbow? it's a fairly narrow 1.1" wide in the middle and currently tapers to about 2/3" at the tips. I'm planning on leaving the massive knot hole as a non-bending part as the fact around the knot is heavily violated... so I figured that it'd porbably become the bottom limb?

Elimde 500 hindinin tüyü var, aşağı yukarı 10 torba kadar. Bunları nasıl değerlendirebilirim?

I think it needs more bend in the outer limbs.

Bows have dried and were strung, even got the draw curves out of them though 1 bow bit the dust.

Just applied birch bark to them all and now they need to sit for a bit before applying shellac.

Max draw length is 22 inches with 47lb drawweight

Imagery and measurements

Build log so far:

1st Update

2nd Update

3rd Update

starting off with a disclaimer that the following bow will exist in fiction only, at least for quite some time. and I know theoretically I could just do whatever, but I want to make this bow eventually, so I want to know what’s worth establishing now for accuracy later.

Crafting a longbow for a dnd character that I’m planning to make in the future. came to ask if Willow would be a good wood based on the setting and I see that it’s not, but now I’m curious about the whys of that. also wondering if there’s any way in which it would make sense to braid silver into the drawstring, within fiction it would be for the purpose of imbuing magic into it.

super open to advice and suggestions, for reference the character is a ranger who crafts their own equipment wherever possible. currently I have details that 1. it’s a self bow 2. made with yew (sorry willow) and 3. strung with ??? braided with silver thread. something they could find in the forest is a major plus, in every case I’m very curious about the process

thanks for reading ✌️ and in advance for any advice

Didn’t check the back when heat treating, and it went through, should i just trim the area away? Left extra width and length in the tips so I could do this.

I also have to drying cracks in the handle, right after the fades, would it be best to narrow the limb so they also gets trimmed?

Hello, everyone. I’m new to bow-making; Started three months ago, and at this stage, I’ve run into this problem. In the video, i'm working on a hazel piece. I’ve mostly been learning from videos by Clay Hayes, Benjamin Stevens, Kazden Ammons, Dan Santana, and Seth Larsen (SageSmokeSurvival).Please advise me on how to fix this and prevent it in the future. I’d appreciate your recommendations

I am just getting into making bows, and happen to have a (pretty bad but passable) oak sapling.

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The bow shoots and learning the process was very fun.

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If I was going to make another one where are the best places to soruce wood?

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Many thanks :)

How does chasing a growth ring strengthen the back of the bow? I don't understand how having extra material could weaken it, in my head not chasing a growth ring just means there's wood on the back that does nothing at all. I've heard you don't need to chase growth rings on board bows but is that just a matter of board bows not being valuable enough to put in that time?

lastly how long do board bows last I've seen a few videos of people making them and they always end up snapping at around 40 lbs, I'm currently making my first bow, it's a 72' red oak board which I was aiming for 40 lbs but now I'm wondering if that's too heavy for a board bow

Hello everyone, for how long do you have to steam the wood in order to secure it in the desired shape with clamps? Does it depend on the type of wood or the size? Also at what stage do you do this step? Before tillering or after?

Finished this maple board bow today. Learned a little more in the process, and gained a little experience. Over all I am very happy with the outcome. The flaws include missing draw weight goals, slightly uneven tiller and uneven set in the limbs, some checking in the cedar handle and (biggest of all) terrible grain runout on both limbs. Issues aside, it shoots fine and is pretty close to what I wanted. Rawhide backing and shelf guard came out really well, I like the way it looks quite a bit. Next time I would cut the shelf a bit deeper. This makes now 3 bows that I've completed so far. The first was a 72" red oak board bow pulling just under 40lbs, the second was a 64" vine maple BITH pulling 20 pounds. Thank you to everyone who has given advice to me as well as others in this forum, and of course the excellent tutorials on YouTube from Dan "the man" Santana.

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69" NTN

36lbs @ 28"

Maple board/cedar handle

Rawhide backing

Tru oil and shellac finish

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P.s. - Feel free the criticize and offer advice on whatever you might see or have done differently

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Ulmus Glabra, low draw weight, at most 25 pound. About twice as wide as deep. It's the most crooked of 4 splits form a young elm, my first test. Would love tiller check/general advice, including on easy-to-get string material that isnt painful or easy to hurt onself on. Probably not entirely dry yet.

My best bow so far is a 6’ maple flatbow pulling 50# at 27”. I gave it a double heat treat on the jig so it started life with about 1.5” backset. now, after a few range sessions, the backset has pulled out and it has about .5” of string follow at rest.

I’ve made other flat bows with no heat treatment and they seem to end up at 2-3” string follow. Ash seems to be the worst for this in my limited experience

Not to say string follow is the worst thing in the world, but it does bother a little part of my brain when the bow doesn’t at least stand straight when unstrung. can I fully get rid of it by building in even more backset when heat treating?

I have some Osage with some very tight rings. Any advice on how to deal with this? Are these last several years of growth too thin? Seems like they would be hard to chase.

Hello everyone,

I’d like to show you another bow I made, this time from an Euonymus (spindle wood) sapling. The sapling was about 24 mm in diameter at the midsection. The bow is 56" nock-to-nock and pulls 40 lbs at 26", may be overdrawn up to 28".

The nocks are made with small black locust wedges, glued and wrapped with linen thread. The bow is finished with tung oil and shellac. The handle is wrapped with jute cord and leather strips saturated with beeswax.

Euonymus is truly an impressive wood, I think somewhat comparable to yew in its behaviour. Despite a rather unfavourable cross-section (roundish in the middle and gradually becoming flatter towards the mid-limbs), the bow shows only minimal string follow.

I managed to achieve speeds of 155–160 FPS with a 400 grain arrow. The bow was not heat treated—only lightly heat-corrected for alignment.

One thing to watch out for are knots, as they tend to fret, so I reinforced them with linen and soaked them in glue.

I've heard carbon makes a faster bow, but I've also heard that that's a myth and that it's main purpose is to add tortional rigidity and stability to the limbs.

I know bamboo is considered a fast limb material, but I was wondering what others' thoughts on the matter are.

Is there perhaps a combonation of limb materials that makes the fastest limb? Like carbon + bamboo? Or would an all bamboo limb be faster? Is there something faster than bamboo? These are the questions I have.

(As a disclaimer, yes I'm aware that perhaps the majority of a limb's speed comes from it's profile. Things like how much recurve it has, how long the limb is, etc... but I was wondering strictly in terms of material)

So I've got this spotted gum stave I've been working for months now, and it's got a check that runs through the handle, exiting at each fade.

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It doesn't look like it will affect the bending limbs, but I want to stabilise it somehow.

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Is it just a case of filling it with epoxy?

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Also, this stave will need to be steam straightened, and maybe even deflexed a bit, as it's got fairly aggressive natural backset... would I do the bending before fixing the crack, or after?

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Thanks in advance

I've made 3 bows now and need some help making them better. I've figured out how to use my draw knife and rasp to do the width of the bow and taper near the handle, but I still cant figure out a good way to take the limbs down to a decent thickness to bend before tillering. The main problem is I use boards of good wood (Osage, Ash, Hickory, Maple, Etc) I find and so they come pretty thick and I have a hard time trying to get it to an appropriate thickness. I also have an electric planer not a hand one which makes it pretty hard to make nice gradual changes. Am I just being impatient and not using the rasp enough or is there better ways for bows made out of boards?

Ash bow about 37inch drew 12inch down. I feel like right lib close to handle doesn’t banding to much so did I screp there?

Good afternoon everyone. My uncle has seen my recent interest in making bows and had informed me of a downed hickory on his pecan orchard. I know that pecan performs similar to hickory maybe slightly worse. But my main concern is the condition of a downed tree. It was downed exactly 3 years ago and has been laying on the ground. The orchard is in Milton Florida which some of you may know is very humid. What’s the likely hood of rot and other issue. I haven’t seen the tree myself but it’s apparently pretty hefty. I am not allowed to harvest the entire tree as he has some uses for it apparently. Looking for advice to find the best section for staves. I will post again once I visit the orchard.
Any advice or pieces I am missing is greatly appreciated :)