Any bow makers?

Lion's Roar

Lion's Roar

Joined
Apr 11, 2004
Messages
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I'm thinking about trying to make a bow. I have a longbow, but I would like to make one for my son. He's almost 4 years old. I haven't seen many bows for youngsters.

Any bow makers out there? Is it hard to do?
 
If you want the simplest bow in the world to build it is called " The Tim Baker Bow" . Either google it or go to "Paleoplanet" and join.

I suggest the latter as you will not only be able to scare up the design of this bow you will also have good advice from many advanced bowyers.

Barring success at that I can proabably scare up the design in the dark innards of the tortured recess I call my hard drive.

This is a good design meant for a board or lumber bow. You can pick up enough ash board for a couple of bows for less than ten dollars.

If you only have access to tree staves paleoplanet can again help you out.
 
I learned the bowyer's trade a few years ago out of a keen interest to put serviceable, realistic, and inexpensive wooden longbows into the hands of medieval reenactors. In the pic below, I'm shooting a 40 lb. draw target longbow, made from a red oak "stave" that cost me all of eight bucks at Lowe's Hardware (no joke). A lot of bowyers, and books about bowmaking, get pretty hi-tech and confusing, but the principles, tools, and skills involved are honestly fairly simple. In one two day bowmaking seminar that I taught, the folks in attendance, all first timers, cranked out thirteen very decent longbows, and far as I know are still shooting them. One very good and helpful source, that I highly recommend is Rudder Bows. Here's a link to their bowmaking stuff http://216.119.68.89/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=6&zenid=0afab8bfec7914aa011a500216ea6781
Jim Boswell is good people, and he's a bowyer's bowyer.
Wish I had time to walk you through making a kid's bow, I've made tons of 'em for the youth archery division. For staves I use carefully selected red oak boards from Lowe's, that measure 2" wide by 1/2" thick by 48" long, and sell for $3.32. I even developed a specially designed arrow rest that prevents the arrow from pulling away from the bow under draw, so I can break kids of that irritating habit (to me at least) of wrapping a finger over the top of the arrow to hold it to the bow.
Can you make your kid a bow? You bet you can. Low draw weight, non-recurve bows are very quick and easy to make. I strongly caution you though on the following point. A kid's bow is short and geared toward a short draw length. If you let any non-bowyer/educated archer adult handle it and try to shoot it, he or she will invariably overdraw the bow and damage it. If you custom make a bow for a little person, he or she is the only one to handle it and shoot it, savvy? Good luck and git 'r done, I guarantee you'll have a blast. :D

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Sarge
 
The Native Americans used it for their staves. It's pretty common so you should be able to get your hands on some.
 
Thanks, guys. I knew I would get some good advice here. I NEVER would have thought that I could go to Lowe's and use a store-purchased board for material.

I'm Indian, and I prefer the old method of prayers, fasting and going to the woods to find the right one. BUT, living in a suburb, it just doesn't work that well anymore. The only woods around are parks, and have hefty penalties for gathering materials on.

What do you guys use to make arrows?

Thank You!
 
I use boards. It would be best to start with dowels or bought shafts.

There is technique to selecting a board for a bow. Both end grain and a board where the grain doesn't feather out too badly is crucial unless you want to back the bow.

It is not hard. It is still an art. That is why I suggested going to the "planet".

Here is a few pics of my arrow making from bamboo and hand scraped/tapered ash shafts.

http://forum.ramanon.com/showthread.php?t=42345
 
Thanks, Kevin. I registered at Paleoplanet and did my first post.

You guys have made me feel quite a bit of relief. I talked to someone over the weekend that made bows, and had a flat price of $400. Not that it's not worth it, but it ain't that easy to pay when you have two daycare payments to manage at the same time!
 
There are kits of nearly finished bows for much less than that. I do not want to disuade you from making your own bow.

There are places including Dan Quillan (sp) where you can get a simple bow for under a hundred dollars. I do not think there is much beyond light sanding and finishing to do.

On the other hand a carefully chosen board will cost you under ten bucks.
You will get two bows out of it. Works of art they will not be. However,they will be yours.
 
I've got one of Dan Quillian's old bows as my personal bow, the Bamboo Longhunter a #68lb'er. I have had it over 10 years and it still shoots better than me most of the time.

I am most interested in making something for my son. My 6 year old daughter is expressing an interest in Cherokee heritage and culture. My son loves martial arts, Power Rangers, and anything along the little warrior path. I want to introduce him to archery at an early age. He's already been learning tracking for a while.

My daughter, in her prettiest pink dress, can usually look down at the ground at any given time and tell you what has passed through :-)
 
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