Cheap Bow

Intro: Cheap Bow

I started this at uni because i have too much time on my hands and im not focused enough on my work but whatever, its made and i havent failed. yet.
Also id like to note ive never done any actual archery so my opinion on archery inst advisable but my wood work skill is competent
Anyway onto the bow

I started of with a block of what i believe is pine, the uni doesnt have a great selection of woods to choose from. I made this once and the wooden part broke so i remade it with some minor changes but ill get to those later.
forgive me but i forgot to take pictures of my working throughout otherwise id have more instructables about my other weapons, like my kick ass 6 foot axe.

STEP 1: Started the Wooden Part

I began with a block of wood and drew on the design for the side of the bow with a board pen i found. There are quite significant problems with this method; One is that the pen was large and imprecise making cutting the fine edges difficult, the second was that because i didnt put much thought into making it so much as diving straight in without a plan the bow isnt even.

Next i turned the bow on its side and cut that part in the same manor. Then i just sanded the edges on a bobbing sander.

STEP 2: The Metal Limbs

This is one of the sections where i forgot to take pictures. I guess having metal limbs that are fairly removable makes it a takedown bow, but i didnt know what that was till yesterday so its all coincidence. In any case the metal was something i found lying around the workshop, a bit of cutting of the points to make it better and drilling holes through the ends. The bend i made by simply putting one end in a vice and manually bending it to a certain point. i made the limbs the same just by looking at the lying against each other. I attached the limbs with the wooden riser with two bolts at either end.

For the bow string hooks i made wooden triangles as anchor points and screwed the hook into them through the metal limbs. I attached the bow string making sure that it was well strung with lots of tension.

STEP 3: The Adaptions

The problems from the first version were that the metal was not sprung so the wood took all the strain of bending and snapped at the weakest point. Once pulled on it would bend one way but not bend back into shape so id pull on the bow string till it could fire but once there it wouldnt fire and all tension was lost.

I fixed this by attaching medical tubing on to the front of the metal limbs. These act to pull the metal back into shape once you pull on the bow string and allow for it to fire. Unfortunately the bow isnt very stylish, awkwardly heavy because of the limbs but is powerful enough to make a hole in my door with a flat arrow head, they made me remove the metal arrow tip for "safety reasons"

Next i hope to make a recurve bow from one piece of wood, hopefully i can get some ipe, osage, or red oak.
thanks for reading and comment if you have some suggestions

Comments

[Jack Moran]

what metal did you use? If you used some types then if you left it strung it would stay bent.

[sxcgreekboi]

if you are making one your self i would advise that you use pvc piping, just heat it up and flatten it,, then shape it. The tension and power rely on the flexibilite of the limbs. (you could use snow skis if you wanted, they work well). the string needs to be a non streachable cord or rope, eg para-cord

[Rambo556]

if you use paracord, you should boil it first. i made a pvc bow for my brother and didn't and i have to tighten the string every 3-4 days.

[Aeromaxe]

i don't know what it was I just found it in the workshop
( they don't have the best records)
but the metal just bent further when the bow was pulled at all without the surgical tubing
now it can still bend too far but that's only if its pulled to the limit

[lushi042]

I would recommend that you make the limbs out of some sort of wood or pvc and make them longer.t Then you can use rope for the cord and all the power will come from the limbs not the elastic tubing

[charris34]

try some pvc for the limbs. if you want to get inspired check out the backyard bowyer on youtube.

[don_yousif]

Cool bow man!!!

[bartworker]

Dirty but effective, thàt's survival! ;)