Making an Ash Recurve Bow

**Please note that this is an ongoing project. I'm publishing it so you can all watch as it develops. Feel free to comment with any suggestions, criticisms or advice you may have. I'd love to hear it.**

     In this instructable, I will be showing you how to make an ash recurve bow from tree to deadly weapon.
I know that there are a lot of other bow instructables on here, but many of them are bad (sorry but its true) or downright dangerous (I've seen some nasty results from shattering PVC). I'm going to show you how to make a good bow for hunting, target shooting or whatever.

Shown is another ash bow I made to give you an idea of what the finished piece will look like.

Step 1: Tools and materials

You can make a bow with just a knife, but a few basic tools will make it much easier.

Tools:
Drawknife
Regular belt knife
Ruler or tape measure
Half-round rasp and half-round doublecut file or 4-way shoe rasp
Scraper of some sort
Hatchet or axe
Saw

Materials:
Some assorted sandpaper
A bowstave
2 m of cord with with at least 100 Kg breaking strain (3 mm braided nylon cord will work well.)
Pencil or other marking tool (sharpie not recommended)
Finish (wax, oil, et cereta)
Dye (optional)

* Note that power tools are not recommended because it is too easy to ruin a good stave.

Comments

[Imcrazydude]

What happened here

[Imcrazydude]

Nice bow I'm going to try and make my own

[nclark557]

Hey just wanted to let you know, this isn't a recurve bow this is what would be classified as a long/short bow. a recurve has 2 bends so that it actually bends back on itself in kind of a zig zag

[bluestone52]

Yes it is. At least it's supposed to be whenever I get around to finishing it. Progress on this has pretty much stopped since school took over my life.

[tureluur]

eeuh,
Find a tree. Yes.
And cut it.
I guess this has to be done without getting arrested.
I'm on it.
Will let you know how progress is going.

[tureluur]

I found a source of wood (In this part of the world all trees got chopped in the 17th century to make ships to conquer the world, they never grew back)
Anyway it is possible to buy firewood, even in 2 meter already split staves.
Bring a chisel or planer to check the grain, otherwise it's impossible to see which kind of wood you have.

[Marcaine Art]

Nice start. I like seeing these types of builds.