Building a bow with a Khukuri!

T

T. C. Weston

Joined
Apr 10, 2011
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153
Ok, here it goes!

I thought about waiting until the project was done, until the bow was a finished success. But, I decided that it might actually be more fun, and you might learn more, by watching it come together (or apart!) in nearly real time. This is a 74" black locust stave, and let me tell you, it has some issues! We've got weather checking, knots, bugs, rot, and what else we will find out as we go. I will be using my fine HI CAK for this project as my main tool. If you have questions as we go, post them up.

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What I've done here is expose, and select a ring on the end of the stave that will be the back of the bow. Sap wood on black locust has very little resistance to tension, so we have to dive down into the heart wood. You want as thick a late wood ring as you can find. That will make the back durable.

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Here, I'm just cutting through the rings until I reach the one I selected for the back.

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Ok, I have to apologize for the quality of this picture; it was starting to get dark. I'm pointing at the end of the back ring with my karda, and outlined the edge of the edge of the early wood layer with a marker. Everything above that line will have to be removed, until the ring I've selected to be the back continues unbroken the entire length of the stave. That's it for tonight. I don't know if this stave will ultimately yield a working bow, but we will find out!

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Wow, a lot of work just to get to the point of, All this gets removed to release the bow that Might be trapped in this branch. fascinating so far. On average about what average does it work out to staves that lead to a good bow to ones that don't work out? I am assuming with experience the average gets a bit better but??
 
Shavru, I am at about an 80% success rate. Experience will help you select better staves and deal with the more challenging ones, but you can do everything right and still end up with a disaster because of some hidden flaw. I decided to take some wood off the sides and belly tonight to get under some of the weather checking as well as make working the back more manageable.

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As I get into it, the stave looks pretty solid. It is buggy though, and I will have to deal with it.

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Now it's coming along! I've reduced the stave considerably and will start working the back tomorrow. So far, I think I have about 2 hours invested in project if you add it up.

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AWESOME TC!!! Thanks for posting the pictures. Please post more when you have the time. It looks to be coming along nicely. It crazy how you can turn a piece of wood into such and amazing tool. Building with a khuk only makes it that much better. I anxiously await further pics. AWESOME!!!
 
Been going through a similar process with my KLVUK on a piece of rock maple. Quite a bit of fun (and a challenge!) doing it all with a khukuri!
 
DarthTaco123 said:
Been going through a similar process with my KLVUK on a piece of rock maple. Quite a bit of fun (and a challenge!) doing it all with a khukuri!
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Good luck with yours! I love rock maple! My favorite is vine maple, but the great thing about any white wood is you don't have to deal with this working the back ring business, just get the bark off and away you go.

I'm glad you folks are enjoying the build so far! It might seem surprising that I'm doing this kind of work with a khukuri for the first time, but the truth is, the khukuri is making this work easy! I've used axes, hatchets, tomahawks, big knives, draw knives, etc. This tool is so well balanced, so practical, it is truly a pleasure to use. So far, this is some of the easiest bow building I've ever done.
 
Indeed, it does make an excellent draw knife! Having exposed the end of the ring that will make the back of the bow, I'm removing all the wood above that layer.

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After getting down to the late wood ring, I put the edge of the knife at a 90 degree angle and scrape off what's left of the early wood layer.

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This is what we are going for, and are going to try to keep this going the length of the stave.

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I've gone down the stave a bit more than two feet, and run into a problem. I've outlined the edge of the rings and drawn arrows indicating the direction we are going, and also outlined some dark areas indicating rot, and potential disaster. I will have to go down another ring, maybe two to get underneath it.

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Cool! Keep em coming Travis! Im definitely going to try this. Ive also been reading about how to make arrows from small diameter bamboo. They were using framing nails for the points with the heads ground off and some kind of fancy rig to glue and align the (forgot what they called them?) feathers. What do you use to make bow strings with? Sinew? Plant fiber?
 
Love the step by step photos... Keep em coming! You make it look easy but I know experts always make it look easy.
 
ndoghouse said:
Cool! Keep em coming Travis! Im definitely going to try this. Ive also been reading about how to make arrows from small diameter bamboo. They were using framing nails for the points with the heads ground off and some kind of fancy rig to glue and align the (forgot what they called them?) feathers. What do you use to make bow strings with? Sinew? Plant fiber?
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I usually make my strings out of B-50 Dacron. It's a common bow string material. I will show that process as well when we get to that point. I've always wanted to make a bow string out of natural fibers. I've made plant fiber cordage plenty of times, but nothing that would withstand the stress of a bow under tension.

Thanks again guys for the interest and positive feedback!
 
Already starting to looking like something beyond a branch LOL. 80% is no where near as bad as I was thinking. Though, you probably have built up an instinct for selecting a stave that has a higher probability of working out. As in the case of this one though until you get to the ring chosen you don't know for sure about rot and other issues. I am sure hoping going down a layer or 2 can get this one back on track to probable success. Not quite the experimenter and hands on maker kinda person like NDog has certainly shown himself to be. So no plans to try making my own. But as with the others here, I am truly enjoying seeing how you make use of our favorite sharp pointy piece of metal to make these great bows. Thank you for sharing this step by step demonstration of your talent.
 
In this case, as far as stave selection goes, this one was headed for the fire pit, but I thought I'd give it a chance. It's some of the last wood I have left from a windstorm that blew through here a few years ago. On this stuff, you really don't know what you have to work with until you cut it and see the rings. Hopefully, I'll have a chance to work on it some more tonight.
 
T.C. Weston is there a certain way to use a kukuri compared to a machete? I tried chopping with an 11.5 "bladed kukuri yesterday and never felt like I hit the sweet spot, so to say.
 
My khukuri most definitely has a sweet spot, and chops very easy. I'm a newbie to the khukuri world and have only been using mine for a couple weeks now so maybe someone here might be more help, but I find that a bit of a flick forward, letting the weight of the blade do the work makes the chopping a breeze.
 
This is too cool!

If those rot spots go too far down, do you have to scrap the whole thing? Seems like it's still a lot wider than the finished piece will be. Do you just work around them as best you can?
 
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