Introduction: Recurve Bow

I dont do archery at all, which make this very instructables very ironic but I have no idea what type of bow this I, as far as ive ascertained its a recurve but past that it is all a mystery to me.

But It seems to work well enough so lets get with to it.

Step 1: The Limbs

I cheated a little bit with the limbs i used. I bought them from merlin archery, they are 22 inches each, or at least thats what the slightly damaged sign is telling me, the limb part of the bow is not really an issue you can change it with any other length of limb so long as you get a string to match.

Step 2: The Handle

For the handle I carved a piece of pine I found in the workshop, turns out thats a really poor idea and it crack easily, but its all they had so i had to roll with it.
I shaped it to the look of a pistol handle because I thought that would be pretty ergonomic and it kind of is but its slightly uncomfortable. I screwed up a little bit attaching the handle to the hinge minorly and managed to have the screws pop out the side a bit. But its ok because in a process of poor planning I sanded them down too.

As to why there is a hinge attached to the handle, we will get to that later.

Step 3: The Spring

I used a die spring from an old scooter for this, you can use a better one if you so wish, but its very stiff and tough. I had to use a screw driver to pry apart the flattened edge enough to put the U bolt through. Once that was done clamped the edge around the bolt so it would fly loose... as it had done previously.

Step 4: Connections

Ok, glad to see youre still following, its probably very confusing at this point but ill try to clear that up.
The spring is connected to an L shaped piece of metal on either side, I used a U bolt for this but had to drill a hole in the metal to accommodate the second fork of the bolt. I used 2 nuts to affix it, one on either side.
The L plate is the bolted through the bow limb to the hinge, in the picture i used a random bolt I fount at home but that caused it to slip so I went out and got better ones. The hinge is cut weirdly because the edges were sticking out and I wanted to know if I could cut it on the Beverly shear and if it was a bad idea, it went fine so im going to go with not a bad idea.

The hinge is then screwed to the handle (poorly might i add) to complete the design.


Couple things could have gone better: ive just noticed that one of the limb is twisted slightly because its screwed to the handle wrong, Next is that the bow limb only has one hole in it and i wasnt willing to drill another so it only has on point of connection so the bow limb is liable to spin around when youre trying to attach the string, The hinge I got want really what i wanted but turns out they dont sell gate hinges with more that one hole in the center so im stuck with it.

An explanation may be in order at this point. Theoretically the hinge is supposed to allow the bow to bend while the spring is there to provide the force. I say theoretically because this is just me thinking how it works and i dont know if this is a real type of bow or not. Anyway it was supposed to be for a bow that didnt have bendable limbs to account for it because i cant make them myself, yet. I went with the recurve limbs anyway

Because there was no center hole in the hinge that would allow for me to have a handle capable of holding to it had to go it one of the others and so the handle is hanging out to one side, but this is mildly convient as it lets me notch arrows more center and is better.

Step 5: The Finished Bow

Not really a step
I apologise for misleading you

But it works, even though i had to order the bow string 3 times because I couldnt figure out how much I needed, getting the string on is a pain aswell, I could just be using the wrong technique I guess.

Thanks for sticking around till the end
any advice would be greatly appreciated.