I made my first longbow this year. I have made quite a few recurves but this is my first attempt at a longbow.
I made it from leftover scraps of bacote, osage red elm and Bamboo.
I re-ground some action bamboo packing strips from bingham projects shipments.
I ground some osage veneers from junk osage wood strips. I had to throw in a red elm lam to get the thickness about right.
I did buy a piece of carbon lamination "just to raise the price".
I made my own design of form and found out after glue up that it was a bit too long for my oven!
My youngest daughter was helping me lay up the bow and howled with laughter at my scrambling during the oven crisis.
I even forgot the pressure strips!! Anything that could go wrong.........did.
Nevertheless..............The bow was born.......Way too heavy...Denny Sturgis might have drawn it but not me.
Well I grinded and sanded and tillered and sanded some more.....I gave up on it for about a week.....Then went back at it. Finaly after several attempts to get the finnish applied the way I wanted it.............It was done. 70LBS @31".
I never had so much trouble with any bow!
The darn thing has grown on me and I'm taking it ELk hunting this year.
I call it "OLD YELLER" because it's a mutt of a bow born of love and hate. It looks funny but it gets the job done in great fashion.
Most of all.......It just kind of hangs around and as much as I try to resist..........I end up having to shoot the S.O.B.