bow and arrow

This instructable will teach you how to make a bow and arrow. Out of a few household thing's.

Step 1 What you will need

You will need a straight stick that is about 2inches thick. a string and a knife

Comments

[l0wmaster]

hello, firstly a bit of constructive criticism: your posture is all wrong, your bow hand should not be bent at the wrist like that one is 'cause it will tilt the bow when you loose and send your arrow off not where you want it, also your shoulder on you bow arm is too high, it should be brought down to it is level with you arm so that you hand, arm, shoulders and elbow of your drawing arm are in a strait line, it will feel weird at first but it helps your accuracy and makes you use the right muscles to draw the bow. you should not be drawing using your arm muscles, you should be using your back muscles mainly. also your elbow on your drawing arm is too high it should be brought down a touch, not lots, just a bit. and one last thing, you are bending backwards at the hips, not good! right onto the bow, it looks allright actually, but you need fletching on the arrows, you can buy them on the internet for about £3 and that will give you about 12 feathers, 4 arrows worth. if you do do this maksure that one feather is perpendicular to the nock at the end of the arrow and then when you nock the arrow onto the string have this fletching facing towards you. good luck and have fun.

[bubba j]

ya i noticed that too but isn't that a low wrist grip that is meant for longbows to make it more comfy and acurret cuz i shoot bows more than propuply every one on this site i have learned from olimpic archers and know more than eany one i know ive made a recuve bow with just a knife, fire(for heat treating), string, and a peice of osage orange so bring it foo

[RMConstruction]

possibly, but this doesn't really count as a longbow i don't think... not much of a recurve either....

[bubba j]

well i gess but if its a stick and string it can't be a compound

[bubba j]

but you got the sholders right

[l0wmaster]

i may be, i havn't had much expirience shooting longbow, but for a recurve that is definatly wrong, i also know a thing or two, being the county champ in my area.

[bubba j]

well good job how do you do scoring

[l0wmaster]

what do you mean? how do you score? or what scores do i get? or what?

[bubba j]

if you miss the target it's a miss if you hit the ouside white it's: 1 inside white 2, outside black 3 inside black 4, outside blue 5 inside blue 6, outside outside red 7 inside red 8, outside gold 9 inside 10 aka bullseye try looking at a target

[pearldrummer]

its not suppose to be a recurve

[tjsdaname]

yeah thanks for the help. i am using a left handed PSE nova with a whisker biscuit arrow rest, TruGlo Brite-Site, whitetail carbon arrows, Tru-Fire Team Realtree release. 50 - 60 pound pull, 75% let off i can get a 5inch group at 25yards

[bubba j]

good job

[Jaycub]

If possible you should try making a flat-bow out of a freshly cut branch 2-3 inches in diamiter from a WESTERN RED CEDAR tree(this wood type has exceptional bow-makiing qualities in my experience). The section you cut should be 5-6 feet long. Scrape off all the bark with a knife, then scrape along the inside and outside of the natural curve with a block plane. Leave a handle in the center and make the limbs thinner the farther out you go. I have made bows in this way that can equal my $$ Laminate recurve bow $$ that was made professionaly.

[Banthablaster]

Any kind of wood at all can make a good bow. i made my first successful one

from Jacaranda. it had a tubular cross section and was a "D" bow. I flattened the

back of the bow so that the tension forces were evenly distributed on that most

critical section of the bow .it was short, but suprisingly powerful. i was foolish

however, and wanted to pull it past 25 inches. it exploded. Ha Ha

[ihaveguitarskills!]

I disagree. Alot of woods are too weak or brittle,or the cellulose isnt compact. I do agree however with your yew statement.

[Banthablaster]

that's true some woods , like pine and redwood and willow, are really weak or too brittle or not dense enough. the answer is to make wide flatbows out of these, super wide, like three inches

[chopstx]

Wow! 6 inches of SOLID STYROFOAM!!!!!

[Landon Sullivan]

You don't realize how tough that much Styrofoam is until you try shooting it yourself. It exerts a LOT of friction relative to it's size.

[chopstx]

I guess, it just seemed funny at the time.

[esmith37]

Also, Styrofoam is amazingly hard to kill. I've seen hunks of styrofoam still kiccking with 20 or more holes in them.

[jpereira11]

lol

[Banthablaster]

Bows need to be tapered so that it bends more toward the tips and less in the

handle.

You can see in the above picture that the stick is

bending mostly in the handgrip. so only 10% of the whole stick is working and is

liable to snap into halves.also it is good but not neccessary to flatten the back of

the bow (which faces away from the shooter) so that the stretching tension is

evenly spread out.

though not required, a covering of sinew, rawhide, fibers, or better wood can be

glued onto the back of the bow with hide glue (best) bone glue (good) or

carpenters glue (good)

[bleeper]

the best wood in the us is split slippery elm or or winged elm . yew is good and so is cedar, but you could get sick from yew wood ..almost all people are allergic to it ..

[Banthablaster]

that is not true. in the book "The Traditional Bowyers Bible" neither voulme 1 nor volume two said anything about yew being allergenic. there are five famous and successful bowyers in that book who praise the qualities of Yew.

[spylock]

I use yew tips to make everything from salves to tea,I wasnt aware there was a harmful type type of yew,but in my opinion ash makes the best bows anyway.

[unicowbacon]

i shot a arrow from mine and it stuck into a tree

[masterrfd]

a traditional bow is made out of willow

[nerd12]

or yew
the english made their longbows from yew so that the hard outside bark is on the outer curve of the bow with the soft and springy inner bark on the inside of the bot
bows are a lot more than just bent wood with string

[That Inventor Dude]

Depends on where your from and what kind of bow
English Longbow is Yew
Mongolian Short bow is reinforced with antelope sinews or something
Mongolian Hornbow... Well, Horn
etc etc

[Traxis55]

I made one like this and it doesn't work i think i need feathers

[RMConstruction]

fletchings... believe me, i go to an archery club

[handyman22]

lol.. i have neva gone to a bow club... and i know u need fletchings xD i tried 2 of these.. but unfortunatly australia doesn't grow any good types of bow wood.. e.g hickory.. so i use bamboo :) free cause it grows everywhere and it can reach up to 30 ft or more if i made a short bow.

[That Inventor Dude]

Oak, Willow, and Ash are good woods, the best is Yew, oak is good for arrows if you can find a straight enough bit,

[masterrfd]

find a creek and get some willow

[codester96]

oak wood, or willow tree are usually the best for me lol

[turkeys r cool]

in australia a good type of wood to use is mulberry wood, ive made about 4 of them and they all worked pretty well

[esmith37]

Fiberglass is the best kind of wood to use, but it doesn't grow wild in very many places...

[Frankie174]

totaly

[Bugman9]

I am in archery club to, but I just for got how it was pronounced. Thanks!

[Deathcapt]

Duct tape, just fold it in half so there's no stick stuff, they work fine. Just make sure they're straight and at the correct spacing.