Hi All. I'm new to archery and to building. After reading all the build alongs and having a little too much vacation time left at the end of the year, I figured why not.
My goal was to build a simple bow that shoot. I wasn't too worried about the finish or looks for this first try. I figured there was a good chance it would break anyway
I used red oak and followed along with Poor Folks Bows build a long.
I started with a 1"x3"x8foot red oak board from Lowe's. Only have hand tools. One thing I can tell you, building bows with hand tools is a good way to learn to appreciate electricity and power tools!
It came out to 70 inches nock to nock, 41 pounds at 26 inches. The limbs have taken ~2" of set. I got the tillering mostly even. It's a little whip ended though. The pic makes it look like the limbs are very different, but they are pretty close. I backed it with fiberglass tape for dry walling. Ugly as sin, but I wanted a backing for safety. That should keep the bow from exploding should it fail.
I shot it last night at the range, It's fun to shoot. I did get some strange looks. Most of the folks at the range are shooting full on Olympic style recurves, or tricked out target compounds. And there I stood with a board from Lowe's.
I didn't chrono it. But its a hair slower than my 30# Sage. It was cool to feel the difference in the bows. The Sage is SO much easier to shoot. I did manage to get a couple of 10s and even an "x" (on a Vegas target) with my ghetto board bow though.
It's a bit of a bear to shoot. Lots of hand shock and stacks pretty hard from ~23 to 26 inches. Fun none the less. I finished it with Tru-oil. there's more I could do on it, but I'm thinking this is a good first experiment.
Here are some pictures. I never set a nock point, that's why the tail end of the arrows in the pic are all over the place.
And, I've already started on my second bow.
Kia Kaha
Topic: First bow...red oak long bow (Read 536 times)
