Okay… I’m going to start this despite my messy shop and lack of a decent camera. Don’t expect this to be done for a while but I’ll try.

This is going to be the first of a series of bow in the “beginner” category, meaning I will assume you have little to no experience in woodworking and archery, and no tools or shop. Sound good? Okay, this bow is going to be a bastardized version of the English Longbow… the famous one. Popular among historical reenactors, LARPers, and traditionalists. They’re about as tall or taller than the archer shooting them and traditionally made of yew. Design wise it’s going to be narrow and thick compared to flatbows like I’m used to. This is fairly stressful for a whitewood (oak, hickory, maple, elm) and the first time I’ll be making a bow like this. Hopefully it holds up.

Gathering Your Tools

I’m going to assume you’re as poor as I was when I first read into this. I was lucky enough to have some auto tools and a workbench when I started but I see no reason why you would need anything really, there are many bowyers working out of apartments. I started my tool collectionby hitting up flea markets and buying them one at a time. Cheap, disposable tools can be found at Harbour Freight but read the reviews and use common sense. Here are my most used and almost necessary tools:

And sorry about the potato quality…. So these are what I use on almost every board bow I make, you can get by with using even less at the cost of energy and time. First, you’re definitely going to need a measuring tape and preferably a carpenter’s square on the top of the picture. Next tool that most people will buy at some time in their life is a hand saw, mine is a vintage Disston I got from a flea market. The teeth are crosscut which means it cuts perpendicular to the grain (Rip teeth cut parallel to the grain) and they needed to be sharpened. You can buy a new one if you so desire. Safety glasses and pencil are pretty obvious. On the middle left are 3 quick release clamps, they’re necessary if you don’t have a vice and workbench… well you could just sit on the bow but that’s frustrating. Buy them from Harbour Freight when they go on sale (Quick release are cheaper than C-clamps but hold better than their ratchet clamps). Remember, you can never have too many clamps.

The next series of tools are all for wood removal when you’re ‘carving’ the bow. As such, each can be substituted for the other but each does its job differently. On the right, there are two bench planes. Both were bought at a flea market and refinished for 15 dollars, they shave wood fast and clean but aren’t suited to tillering. I hear good things about the harbour freight one but I’m doubtful. At the bottom is a Surform file with a yellow handle. My first bows were almost entirely made with it but it was hard work and left a nasty finish. I would skip it if doing everything over and instead spend the money for a Shinto Rasp. The last tools are files/rasps, they’re super useful for shaping handles and tips and sharpening your tools. Again, Harbour Freight has a whole set on sale for 10 dollars right now. I mean, it’s not going to be great quality but by the time they go dull you’ll have mastered them and know how to treat good ones.

Last is a ‘scraper’. I don’t even own cabinet scrapers so I use a sharp straight bladed knife. The one pictured is a filet knife with a broken tip, it’s very effective at removing wood.

The Wood

My main source of wood for board bows is OP Hardwoods. It has a good variety of species and a lot of stock to look through personally. Hardwood dealers, cabinet shops, and sawmills are the best place to find bow wood and are more common than you think. Lowes, Home Depot, or Menards should be your second choice if you can’t find wood they have a decent selection of whitewoods. Never buy wood online unless it’s from a trusted bow making supplier like Three Rivers Archery.

For this build, I’ll be using a maple 1″x3″x7′ board from Home Depot. If you don’t have a way to rip boards buy a 1″x2″. I should be able to get two narrow bows out of a single board but now is a good time to mention that a 1×3 isn’t 1 inch by 3 inches. It actually comes out to 3/4″ thick and 2 1/2″ wide… for reasons too complicated to get into right now. If you can’t find hard maple you have a couple options: Hickory should be easy to find in the US and holds up to this design okay. Red oak might work if you have decent quality wood but I wouldn’t go high draw weight. Ash was used for longbows in England so it would be a good choice if you have it. Avoid Birch, Beech, Alder, Basswood, and Poplar.

Picking quality wood is the single most important step in making a good bow, and one where most beginners mess up. The following pictures were found at http://www.hobbithouseinc.com

The first thing you need to look for when you’re standing in front of the bin of red oak boards is the face grain. Those dark lines on the face of the boards are growth rings and for bows they should run straight from one end to the other. The grain should also run parallel to the edge if you turned the board on its side. All of the above red oak boards have terrible grain for bows as the grain swirls and runs out. The middle board could be used with some sort of backing aside from the knot and where the grain dips on the lower left side. Ideal wood would be the following:

See? the grain is parallel from end to end. The only problem I see with this wood is that it has a high RPI, or Rings Per Inch. You can tell because so many rings are close together and thin, which means the tree grew slow and the wood will be weak.

See those little holes in the end of the wood? That’s called early wood and forms in the spring when the tree starts leafing out, the growth rings on the face of boards are made of early wood. Latewood is the solid stuff between the growth rings and forms in the summer when leaves are producing energy. Having a bow with more latewood is ideal so usually that means picking wood with lower RPI like on the right.

Dimensions

These are the rough dimensions we’ll be working to. I apologize to the metric users, most of our old bow literature is based in Imperial and that’s how wood is sold. The rough bow blank should be .75″ thick by 1.25″ wide and 74″ long. If you bought say, a 1″x2″x6′ board (.75″x1.5″x72″) you would need to thin the width by a quarter of an inch and leave the length at 72″, the length isn’t set in stone. We’ll start with the front profile– at 15″ from the end we will start tapering to 3/4″ tips. That’s 3/8″ from either side of the lateral center line… Next, the thickness taper will start at 6″ from the center on either side. I’m going to mix measurements here so watch out. Every 6″ after that I will mark a line 1.5 to 2 millimeters down. I like to measure thickness in tapers rather than measurements as they change depending on the piece of wood and the length. If I just say ‘start at full thickness and taper 2mm every 6 inches” it’s always going to be even. It’s just a guideline anyway.

Okay, thanks for listening, part two should be coming along some time soon. I’ll actually start the rough out, show how to use some tools, and we can start building bows.

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