bow styles for beginers

[Frosty the Bowman]

Hey I want to know what is your opinions as to the best, easiest style of bow to build for a beginer, and why.

Thanks guys, your better then any book or  library.

Kevin

[Osagetree]

This was easy and almost fool proof.
You can substitute the Urac with Titebond wood glue.
I still shoot this bow regularly!

 http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=000069

[jsweka]

If you want to get into glass laminated bows, a straight limbed Hill style bow is easiest to build.  In all the ones I've made, I've only had one where I really needed to do any tillering.  Glue them up, reduce the limb with, put a string on them and the limbs bend the same and the string tracks down the center.

Now a glass laminated bow does take more equipment to build than an all wood bow, but is easier when is comes to tillering.

I have built a few reflex/deflex glass laminated bows and those all did take a little tillering to get the limbs bending equally and evenly.

The toughest one I build was a takedown recurve.  That thing gave me fits from getting the alingment holes lined up right to getting rid of twist in the limbs.  I now understand why professionals charge so much more for a takedown recurve.

In the end, I still prefer shooting my stright limbed Hill syle bows.

[George Tsoukalas]

What kind of bow? I assume you are making a self or backed bow. I think the easiest to make is a bend in the handle bow. They are jus easier to tiller. More on my site. Let us know if you need help.

[George Tsoukalas]

Frosty, I saw on another thread you want to make a board bow. Choose straight grained stock. Don't do a glued on piece. Makes for more problems.  Bend in the handle bows are easier to tiller. Leave the handle width. 1.5 in will get you 50-55#. 1 3/8 in board will get you 45-50#. I like red oak. If you need help let us know.
If the board was milled at an angle, no way you can chase a ring. You could only do so on a  plain sawn piece anyway. As Steve said, choose a straight grained piece and  it won't matter. More on my site. Jawge
 http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/index.html
jawge

[George Tsoukalas]

The weights I gave are estimates. Beginners usually come in under weight if they are lucky.    Jawge

[So-Mo Archer]

Kevin, listen to Jawge, he is very wise to this addiction of bowyering. There is a wealth of info on his site, and a lot of great stuff in the how-to forum here. My design was based off one from Sam Harper's site, poorfolkbows.com. A pyramid bow is also an easier design to start with, since there is a lot less aggravation in the tweaking stages. Hope that helps a little.