The "So You Wanna Build a Bow?" Build-Along

[4est trekker]

Round 9: Finishing the Handle Part I

NOTE: See the updates later in this thread for an easier floppy leather rest that you may find easier to build and shoot off of.  It is nothing more than a relatively pliable piece of leather that is attached under the handle wrap and lays down flat across the top of the hand to support the arrow.  It does not require a wedge to maintain arrow clearance.

We’re going to put a floppy-style rest on this bow, although you could just shoot off-hand and skip the whole thing altogether.  I first cut a piece of leather as such and trim/burnish the edges.  I also take it to the drum sander and taper the pointed (bottom) side down to a feather edge.

   

You can search for hours on how to best locate your arrow rest.  I just always go with what feels right to me.  It’s your call.  When I find “the spot,” I tape it to the handle with masking tape.

   

I take a strip of leather and superglue one edge down and then wrap it spirally up the handle, overlapping each wrap slightly.  

   

I finish it off by tapering the tag end and gluing it down flush.  I rub some mink oil into the handle, which gives it some moisture resistance and also adds a nice patina.  Here’s the result  (This pictures show the arrow pass, which we haven't added yet.  That's round 10)

   

[4est trekker]

Round 10: Finishing the Handle Part II

Now we need to make the leather arrow plate.  I slice a piece of the same leather used for the floppy shelf with a razor blade.  I want it thin so it doesn’t push the arrow any further away from center than necessary.  Then I shape it as shown below and apply it with either carpet tape or superglue.

 

 

Here’s the result:

 

In order to prevent the floppy rest from binding the arrow and to provide my hand with a placement indicator, I cut a small wedge like this….

 

and insert it between the pass and shelf like this…

 

Now, shoot the bow in and fine-tune your nocking point.  Once satisfied, weigh the bow and indicate the weight@drawlength.  I do it as such:

 

By the way, here’s the first three arrows I shot with this bow at 12 yards…I was pleased!

 

As a side note, here’s another handle style.  It's wrapped with hemp cordage (from Wal-Mart) over a leather-covered wooden shelf.  The pass is split leather.   I apply a watered down Titebond III solution to the cordage with my fingers which waterproofs it and interlocks the fibers.

 

[4est trekker]

Round 11: Final Pictures and Thoughts

Here’s a couple of pictures of the finished product.  I don’t have any at full draw, but if you watched the video earlier in the thread it hasn’t changed.  It came in right at 50#@26” after shooting it in.  

 

 

Here’s a couple of pictures with it next to my turkey hunting bow.  That bow is dyed with homegrown raspberry and blueberry juices mixed with ink and cut with denatured alcohol.  

 

 

Just a couple of final words.  I hope that at least someone has gained the confidence and enough information to get their first bow built.  It’s a cheap and easy project that you can do in a weekend.  This particular bow is overbuilt by most standards, and comes in slightly heavier in physical weight than is most efficient (I’m referring to the Mass Principle as discussed in Volume 4 of the Traditional Bowyer’s Bible).  However, the wide limbs allow more wood to do the tension work, thus adding a margin of safety that the bow will not raise a splinter and fracture. The longer length allows it to be pulled to 28”, and perhaps a bit more.   You could always narrow the limbs some and compensate by making it a touch thicker to keep the weight up.  This would reduce mass, but the further you go in this direction the more the moisture content, tiller, grain, early/late growth ratio, etc. will need to be spot on.  (That turkey bow above is 44#@26”, measures 64” ntn, and weighs 18 ounces.  It sure is nice to carry, as you hardly know it’s there.  It also shoots slightly above average in speed for its weight @ drawlength.)

At the end of the day, a bow is a bendy stick with a string.  Is this the prettiest bow?  Nope.  The fastest bow?  Nope.  But I haven’t met a turkey yet that stopped me mid-draw and begged me to shoot him with a prettier bow.  “Dead as a doornail” is dead enough for me, and if I can do it for $12 and three or four hours of work, I’m in!  

Good luck, ya’ll, and if you build one please post some pictures.  Thanks for following!  God Bless.

[razorback]

4Est, thanks for the great build along, these take a lot of work normally and you have gone beyond many that have been done.
I have a nice piece of Oak I picked up the other day and will start one very soon, just have to clean up the shop. Have you done any with more bulbous handles or do you stick to this handle design. I may make up several mock handle out of scrap to find one that I like, I may even find the design you use to be comfortable. I am planning on using a contrast wood, probably Walnut for the riser glue-on and I think the cut off you add to the front of the bow will look good like this. I will post pictures.
Again, thanks for the work.

[coulter]

great job curt! thank you for putting the time and effort into such great build along.i'm sure a lot more people will be building bows because of it.    noel

[Mar]

Awesome, thanks! I am building one as we speak but I think, after reading more about choosing a board, I may have pick a board with too tight of grain.

We'll see, at least it's a learning experience before I try my hand at building a yew bow.

[Ricker]

Curt, You did an awesome job.  Thank you for all the hard work doing the posting.
Good luck hunting

[Eric Krewson]

Excellent build-along, one of the best I have seen.

[Shaun]

Great project to get started building wood bows. It takes a lot of effort to put together a build-along of this quality. Well done sir! This one should be archived.

[4est trekker]

Thanks, everybody.  I appreciate the kind responses, and really enjoyed doing this build-along.  I would be REALLY interested in seeing the pictures of any bow ya'll make as a result of reading this thread.  I would be DOUBLY interested in seeing what you harvest with that bow!  Looking forward to seeing some pictures!

[WestTexan]

Dude you make bow building look easy..LOL killer build-along. I've built 5 or 6 board bows and the last being hickory with some snake skin backing.. I'm hooked.

[Stiks-n-Strings]

How would changing the handle design affect the this bow (more along the lines of a longbow grip)
 How narrow and thick would the limbs need to be to get this bow down around 25 or 30 pounds for a young beginning archer?

[Wulomac]

Great buildalong!!!  A really cool bow.  I do a lot of music boxes with red oak.  Theraputic!!

[4est trekker]

Stikn-n-Strings:

How old is the youngster, and what is their draw length?  Here's some specs that will give you a 25-30# red oak pyramid bow that a kid can grow into:

63" NTN (64" overall)
2 3/8" wide at the fades narrowing to 1/2" at the tips
3/8" limb thickness

As the kid's drawlength increases, so will the bow's poundage.  However, if the bow comes in too light, pike the bow by taking 1" off each tip (assuming you haven't done the glue-on recurved tips.)  This will usually yield a 5# increase in draw weight.  If the bow comes in too heavy, you can take a few measured scrapes at a time on the belly of each limb until you hit your target weight.

Good luck, and show some pictures!

[razorback]

Would it be possible to run the board through a table saw to get the limb thickness and to then glue on the riser section. Seems this would speed up this part and make it more precise. Problem I can see is that can the riser then take the pressure or would the glue line fail.

[4est trekker]

I've done this on a couple of board bows and the problem on both of them is as you describe.  The fades begin precisely at the glue line.  This places undo force squarely on the razor thin edge of the glue-on riser block, which causes it to lift.  When this lifts, the glue joint is compromised and soon leads to further separation.  When the glue joint is situation higher in the fade-out radius it doesn't receive such direct force.

If anyone has had luck doing as razorback has described, let me know (perhaps Jawge or Art B?- you guys are certainly more knowledgeable about board bow than I).  Perhaps it will work with a few modifications.  And you're right, razorback....it would definately speed the operation up, providing you're not doing the glue-on recurved tips.  Thanks for the question!

[Stiks-n-Strings]

Hey 4est, Thanks for all the info.
 I'm gonna round up some lumber her in a few weeks and I will definetly post some pics.
  Wish I didn't have so much going on right now so I could started.

[razorback]

4Est, That is what I thought the problem would be. I think I will still do the cut with the table saw, stop it short of the fade area and clean it up with the band saw. I think it would still work even with the recurve tips. If I add them after the cut and then cut the profile later. I would leave a small amount of wood for clean u of saw marks and so make the transition cleanly. I will look at it carefully before cutting anything.

[4est trekker]

You'll be cutting it to its side profile (thickness) before cutting it to its front profile (width), right? Like you said, you can always add the recurved tips on later.  I do that sometimes on a bow that's taken a little more string follow than I would like.

 I tried the method you're describing once, but my table saw isn't large enough to do a quality (and safe) job, mostly because of the size of the cutting table.  However, I did use my 1960's Crafstman radial arm saw (a beast!) to build a bow once.  I turned the saw 90 degrees, added an extension to the infeed side of the cutting table, and screwed a sacrificial fence to the table.  I set the blade up 1/32" over the finished thickness of the limbs off the table.  Then I ran the board through, belly side up, all the way through fades, letting the radius of the saw blade cut the profile of the fades.  Each pass I moved the saw in and 1/8" and repeated the cut, much like you do when cutting a tenon on a table saw.   This actually worked very well, but I'm always leery of getting close to an exposed 10" blade      so I haven't done it since.  Maybe I'll do that on my next bow and post some pictures.  

Good luck!

[dbscott]

This has been awesome... I am working on mine now... it just stinks that I have to work because all I want to do is go home and work on the bow.  I just hope my turns out as pretty as yours did!