How to make a REAL homemade bow

I admit now that this instructable was pretty trashy, so i'm gonna make a good english longbow instructable in a couple days.

Step 1 Materials

The materials list is as follows:


1.A long, straight stick about your height. Not bigger than about an inch and a half in diameter and preferably with as few knots as possible. Best woods would be hickory, elm, osage, yew, or certain types of ash.

2.String/cord. Preferably nylon cord or other strong, manmade materials that won't stretch out or get destroyed in wet conditions, but twine works too. I used kite string for it's strength and availability.

The only tool you absolutely need is a knife, but a hand plane is much better and safer.

Comments

[That Inventor Dude]

A bows poundage is directly proportionate to the length of the bow.

[Banthablaster]

in the book "The Traditional bowyer's Bible" it says that making a bow twice as wide makes it twice as strong, and twice as thick eight times as strong. length has a complicated formula, but each 1 % increrase in lenth makes it 5% safer from exploding

[Kryptonite]

Sorry, but that appears to be incorrect. A thicker bow would create a stronger poundage in the bow, right?

[That Inventor Dude]

by poundage i mean the strength required to pull back the string which is related to how powerful it is.

[Kryptonite]

Yes, but a short bow could have a stronger poundage than a long bow.

[That Inventor Dude]

poundage is related to many things like materials length thickness (as you said) string type and string tension but one of the most obvious way is to make it longer. i was thinking more to the fact that my recurve bow only seems to increase in length when i upgrade the poundage. i was however over simplifying

[That Inventor Dude]

(removed by author or community request)

[Kryptonite]

Then the bow's poundage is not dire... you know, I'll just leave it there.

[ClockworkDragonfly]

It's more a function of the taper from the riser (handle) to the tips. This taper can be introduced to the thickness (such as with the European longbow), to the width (as with North American flatbows like those used by the plains Indians), or to both (many Asiatic bows tapered both ways). While increasing the length, width, or thickness allows for a different taper, poundage is not directly proportional to any of the three and anyone thinking it is has an overly simplistic idea of what a bow is & how it works.

[Kryptonite]

I see, thanks!

[That Inventor Dude]

try the Quicks website thinking about it

[kterr]

how many pounds is the drawback, on this?

[1000000VOLTS]

it looks to be about 10lbs to me lol

[nwagner]

could be which, isn't bad for a homemade bow...

[aweis]

my bow was about there, but i was not satisfied with it at all. so i am making a new one, this time with an instructable.

[11richie21]

for my hand grip i used a strip of sliced bike tube which is a good material for making sling shots too, I tied it really tight around the bow and its flexibility makes a great comfortable grip =)

[MOBucky]

This is really a question: what keeps the wood from drying out if you don't seal it? Any ideas what people did about this before hardware stores? I thought maybe animal fat.

[phoenix12]

Lindseed oil works pretty well.

[11richie21]

i made a bow and took your advice and my bow is still pretty flexible and hasn't dried out

[1000000VOLTS]

ive used bacon fat that works quite well /when you take it out in the rain it you get little dropplets of water on the bow doesnt penertrate the wood.

[homebowyerboy]

if you don't seal it it does dry out but it holds its shape and strength nicely. I know that native americans (excluding plains indians who used horn bows) generally used a mixture of animal fats and brains. Inuit generally used seal or whale oil and Europeans used to oil their bows with any animal based oil quite regularly.

[homebowyerboy]

and whatever you do, DON'T TRY VARNISHING IT!!! It's like heat treating steel, it makes it harder but for brittle

[MasterBowyer]

(removed by author or community request)

[homebowyerboy]

varnish doesn't like to bend, it will just crack all over anyway even if it doesn't wreck your bow, and cracked varnish is useless varnish, so why bother?

[1000000VOLTS]

this is a long bow.made from yew tillerd correctly sorry mate what you got there is a stick with some string on ,not wishing to be rude

[greymatter21]

no offence but this isnt a REAL bow and arrow.

[1000000VOLTS]

i agree with you its terrible,100 yard more like 100 feet lol,at least he tried

[1000000VOLTS]

im sorry but what kind of bow is that lol

[hossweightlifter]

u try it yet i made a bow 100 yards 1st shot that prolly go 2 yds maybe it sucks

[cezzie]

so, i didnt read through ALL of the comments, just some of them. So, a few questions. What is sealing a bow? and how important is it to seal a homemade bow? I'm in the process of researching on how to make my own bow. If anyone has any good tips I'd be happy to hear em :)

[Tylertjt]

hey you said you would post how to make arrows I just wanna know when ok? my arrows with home made bow was catnine tail stems and a nail for the tip and two card board box cononers i should post it i made my bow from a willow tree and im makeing a cross bow soon

[sharlston]

my way to bend sticks is to boil them in water then bend them and wait for them to dry

[nomadic bowman]

cool i like it i am working on a sick bow maybe i will post it later

[milamber]

a beter handle by the way is to buy leather shoe lases or leather thonging even tenis racket grip tape is ok

[hg341]

hey a made a commet about 2 years ago saying i was going to make a bow on your 'ible well i did

i have a knot in my handle the notchs for the string are a bit off^{in order the pic's are 1st top notch the 2nd handle the 3ed bottom notch last is the whole thing}
btw it is about 4 feet long so short bow?

[hg341]

oh sry for the duble post
but i get about 2o ibs of pull^{the string is strechy(i dont feel like i should pull harder cuz it thin and might snap on me)}

[carroty]

I'd rather buy a whole new bow. I found one at a local store going for abot 100 - 150 dollars, can't remember exact price

[xZCodmaNZx]

you dry fire bad!!! ;-(

[homebowyerboy]

Dry firing is pulling back and letting go, which this is not, and "dry firing good" would be a bad thing, as dry firing can make a bow stress out and explode!

[Invader Grim]

I was wondering is you could tell me how too renew a wooden bow, my uncle has one that hasnt been used or oiled in 30 years, its actually a really nice bow and i dont want it to go to waste... please help. P.S. if you dont know how, please direct me too someone you know that does know how, or not. Thanks