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Winter project - Yew Recurve bow

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snag:
Wow, this bow has it all! I like the way you did the nocks Gordon.  Is there any danger by exposing the end grain to it splitting?

Gordon:
Now I am going to shape the handle. I’ve helped quite a few people with making their bows and have noticed that shaping the handle seems to give a lot of new bowyers trouble. I think maybe it is intimidating to cut into your bow with a big rasp and thus beginners tend to over-think the process. It’s really not that hard if you follow the basic steps that I will outline here. For this bow I’m going to make a bulbous handle. This is the simplest and safest handle to make and for me, the most comfortable to shoot.

I begin by squaring off the sides and making the handle width 1 ¼”.  A micro-rasp works really well for this.



Next I reduce the depth of the handle of the handle area to about 1 3/8”. I use a Ferrier’s rasp for this because I really want to hog some wood off quickly.

Gordon:
Now I round off the handle area around the fades using first a Ferrier’s rasp to get the general shape followed by a #49 rasp.





I use a set of calipers to make sure that both ends of the handle taper evenly into the fades.

Gordon:
I like a mild swell in my handles. To do that I start by using the rounded side a #49 rasp to cut channels into each corner of the handle.  I use calipers to measure the wood thickness between the channels. When I am done the thickness will be slightly more than 1”.

Gordon:
Now I shape the handle swell using a rasp.





Next I radius the back and front of the handle with a rasp to begin the rounding process.

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