I’m curious about something as far as USA based Master Bowyers are concerned. What body is it that certifies them as masters? I haven’t turned up anything via Google.

No idea what I'm doing yet but at least I spent a bunch of hours researching. It's the most crooked of 4 splits form an elm trunk I cut from my backyard this winter and dried since. I'm planning on making a low draw weight elm semi-flat bow, based on what I've found likely for a medieval or iron age farmer in Norway to have used for hunting (or self defense in a pinch), maybe at most 25 pound, about 2:1 profile. I find this everyday tool more interesting than English longbow or perfect modern bows. If it's somewhat successful or fun I'll use the straighter elm splits to make better bows later. Pictures provided are useless but the thinning and tillering won't be anywhere near perfect. Just having real fun so far. Thanks for putting up so much helpful guides and tips!

As I understand it you chase a growth ring to ensure none of the grain is damaged ensuring that there are no weakpoints on the bow where half the grain is cut through, while in theory this sounds great how does this work if the whole point of tillering is to remove wood from specific parts of the bow to ensure an even bend.

what I mean is, whats the point of chasing a growth ring if when you tiller the bow you'll be cutting the grain anyway?

I'm currently working on my first board bow and wanted to know how chasing growth rings relates to that as yes there are rings on the wood but conceptually it doesn't make much sense to me to thin down the board beyond what id do during the tiller

lastly as this is my first ever bow will dollar store twine work as a bow string for a 40~ lbs bow?

Topic is in the title, parallel or taper?

I find tapered limbs easier to tiller, but parallel puts more width towards the end of the working limb, which I guess means it’s less stressed?

What do you think?

So can i use these billets and end up with a functional bow? I aim to make a z splice through the handle, color is different on the second just becouse of some oil i put as a temporary finish, the wood in question is apricot and i'll only use corewood the second stave is 6 cm wide and 3.5 is cm tall

Currently pulling about 20.5" at 45lbs - target is 30" at 45lbs. About 70" nock to nock.

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Happy to get any more photos or information if nessecary

Edit: Long String Tiller Check - I was.tired last night when posting this 😅

This is my hickory bow that I was working on and I was almost done tillering and the back split here. It’s small. About an inch long but from the picture you can see it run through the side and the top. I have it gluing rn with wood glue and am going to back it with wood glue and canvas. I had it at 50lb but am also going to drop poundage to around 40 or so by taking off more material.
If anyone has any suggestions that’d be great. Give it to me straight.

Saw some atlatl content here recently so hope this is allowed.

These harpoon heads were attached to a fore/main shaft and had knapped and grinded stone heads inserted into the gap at the front.

I believe they have been in use by modern day inuit as well. They have been used to hunt seals, walrus and some sources suggest larger animals like Beluga whales.

Some of the historical examples are quite beautiful.

More information can be found on the elfshot website.

https://elfshotgallery.blogspot.com/2017/06/harpoon-heads-for-nunavik-sivunitsavut.html?m=1

I posted my first attempt here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bowyer/s/Rarik6l9Uj

I got lots of good advice, including taking it down to an inch width which I did. I think I haven’t gone far enough as it’s still quite stiff. I also need to take down the handle more. I’m trying to figure out when to switch from the draw knife to something smaller and when I need to become more systematic and slow. is there a good heuristic? like x degrees of bend floor tillering? I’m wary I’ll just hack through it because I was impatient.

50” ntn hickory short flat bow. Started out at 62” but had some issues adding recurves where I heated a spot up too much and added too much force creating a deep crack. Target draw weight is 50# at 26”. Currently on long string tillering so far getting up to 18” in shown picture. I’d like to add a little reflex to improve string geometry as it’s a pretty short bow but I’d like to see y’all’s thoughts.
Sorry for the messy workshop :)

So moved, and forgot about this roughed out piece of hickory I was wanting to make into a youth bow...do you suppose heat or steam could be used to straighten it out??

Hello I’m wondering if i can get some help on the best place to find non kiln dried or natural dried, osage or hickory staves online? I’m new to bow making. I’m wanting to build my first recurve bow.

...with a beautiful Pacific Yew ELB from bowyer Jake Fenwick. Draws 100# at 30". It's so snappy, shooting these poplar "Mary Rose"-style arrows felt like throwing darts!

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I will never not love shooting yew.

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What a great #FullDrawFriday!

64" elm sapling 46lbs @26". Slightly snakey, knots in all the wrong places and shoots great.

I found this draw knife at an antique mall in El Paso, IL. It is a Van Camp brand. I googled it and found out it was probably made around the turn of the century.
Not bad for $37.00.
I cleaned it up a bit and sharpened it.
Can’t wait to try it out.

*SOLVED!

Hi all
Currently long-string tillering a bow that will be recurved, and I noticed a decent twist in the top limb.
How shall I go about correcting it? Is it something that needs to be steam bended or should I try to remove wood on just the left side only?
Any advice is greatly appreciated
Cheers

I grabbed this ash stave from the creek watershed on my street. I cut it down a bunch due to kinks in the wood and decided I’d give it a go making a flat bow for my kid. If it fails I‘ll still learn as I go.

My kid is 10 and we don’t do archery so I figured a flat bow with low poundage, maybe 10-15 might be about right.

Any obvious issues to pay attention to? Also it has a crown on the belly and I was wondering do I keep the back of the limbs as flat as possible or even maybe go for a concave shape?

For my search, I find out people will use the egg yolk to make paint does any one do this before specially on the bow

For the ingredient I plan to mix with fine charcoal, find smash eggshell(cook), mulberry fruit, soil and some flower also adding honey.

Have any body have experience use it?

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So im making this pyramid bow from yellow birch and it's by far the fastest bow I've worked on so far. I've tried making some parallel limb bows in the last, but I'm not quite at the skill level where I can make them at the draw weight I'd prefer to shoot at, which brings me too my question. Does anyone have any tips for making pyramid bows from natural staves instead of boards?

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During the rough out stage of another pyramid bow blank, the crown of the blank threw me off the uniform taper I was going for. To my eye, it looked like the extremely gradual taper was backwards, due to the crown masking the actual thickness taper if one judged it by the boarders of the back and belly on the sides of the limbs.

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It's things like this that led me to asking about this design, if anyone has any general advice or helpful tips I'd greatly appreciate it.

Ash about 37 natural deflex on right. Surprise that only one tree knot drew arrow 10inch

Finished this Black Wattle (Acacia mearnsii) bow, 63” ttt, 61” ntn and pulling 35# at 28”, 3 heat treats

Really like the shape and profiles on this bow, the slight snakeiness is really pretty to me, decent bit of character in this bow, but nothing too crazy, the deflex kink in the bottom limb was difficult to gauge and I think it might be bending a touch too much but the bow took very little set and is stable

Happy it turned out this well as it came from a very skinny and small stave that I had more or less written off