Hello everyone. Here are some picks of a bow I started about a year ago and finally finished. It's a copy of an Algonquin bow from the Encyclopedia of
Native american Bows Arrows and Quivers, Volume 1. I don't remember the page number, and I loaned out the book, so I can't look it up. It started as a
hickory board, and I took it down to a single growth ring. It's 66" nock to nock, 69" overall, and pulls 50# at 28" with a 6" brace height. I did all the
carving back in January and have been picking away at it ever since. When I first tillered it to finished dimensions, it took a little bit of set, so I heat
treated the belly with it strung backwards on my tillering stick, and a heavy coat of linseed oil to keep from scorchin it. Now it retains about 1/2"
reflex, mostly in the handle area. I attempted to accent the carved areas with a graphite pencil and ended up dirtying the new growth grain in those areas,
so I went over the entire bow with a mixture of powdered charcoal and linseed oil. The finish is several coats of boiled linseed oil, baked in with a heat
gun and sanded between coats. I've found the heat gun saves me alot of curing time between coats when woking with linseed oil. When completed, I topcoated
with beeswax and heated it before rubbing it in. The final step was making a sinew string for it. I had made a dacron sring for it, but I wanted to be as
authentic as possible for this one. I twisted it out of deer leg sinew, which I plan never to use again for string making. It was a royal pain in the bee-
hind to work with fibers that short.
The string is waterproofed with linseeed oil and wax also. I'm just glad it's finall finished, and I can get on with
some other projects. I need to get working on some arrows so I can stop shooting the store-bought ones, and I would like to finish a couple light hickory
bows for my boys for Christmas. I can't post all the pics here, so I'll post a follow up with a couple more. I hope you all are having a great day, and keep on crankin' out great bows. Julian
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