How to make a REAL homemade bow

Step 5 Upgrades!!!

There are many things you can do to your new bow. You can stain and waterseal it, you can cord wrap it, sinew-back it, the list goes on and on. I do recomend cord wrapping as it does increase power for a very small amount of work. I once tried sinew backing but it didn't work out for me. Just don't leave your bow strung too long and it'll be fine. Hoping for an arrow tutorial later this month, but have some more research to do. For now, just use store-bought arrows, they work fine. And remember, shoot little fluffy bunnys and evil squirrels, not little brothers.

Comments

[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?

[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

[ghost guy444]

Oh and the board only costs 6 dollars so it is cheap, and much better than what that kid used.

[Andy1312]

boards are, in general, horrible for bows, as the lumber mills don't bother to cut with the grain of the board. If the grain isn't perfectly straight and without knots, then it WILL break, it's just a matter of how long. To have a good bow you need to get a stick about 4-5 inches in diameter and split into quarters, then use the outer part as the part of the bow that faces the target, known as the belly of the bow.

[5George5]

exactly right. except the outer part (that faces the target) is the back and the inner part (that faces the shooter) is the belly. halves work just as well as quarters with some woods.

[Andy1312]

Sorry about that I always screw that up, but you get the idea. You could make a board bow if you really wanted if you backed it with a backing strip or some fiberglass/sinew.

[lennyb]

yes backing it will help. i made one out of a red oak board and backed it with doggie chew rawhide. it worked with a draw weight of 48 pounds but it broke after 200 shots or so. now i shoot a very old fibreglass backed recurve. next bow project gonna be a bamboo longbow.

[geeklord]

so then what do you seal it with?

[MOBucky]

I'm glad you threw in the comment about varnish. Thanks for your help and great ideas.