Hey everyone!
I've been reading and learning from this site for a long time now and finally decided to make a post. I've recently completed my first board bow from American red oak in the style of a Powhatan bow collected in 1665 from Virginia. This bows inspiration is illustrated in the "Encyclopedia of Native American Bows Arrows and Quivers volume 1", and is one of my favorite bows in the volume for its elegant simplicity and practicality. Being located in New Zealand my access to good bow wood is limited so I thought I'd try my hand at making a board bow from red oak, next time I aim to make some more bows from European oak boards (Quercus Robur). The board itself had some very slight propeller twist and may look a little uneven in the braced picture.
The bow itself is 68 1/2" long being 1 11/16" wide at the handle 1 1/2" wide at the midlimb tapering to 3/4" pin nocks. I added a "Peck" mark to the middle of the bow's handle for identification on where to grasp. The bow was floor tillered to 8 inches or so of bend before having the belly tempered with a heat gun (I've recently begun belly tempering with coals) to improve performance and compression resistance. This was my first time working with oak and I was pleasantly surprised by the results as red oak's reputation preceded it as being prone to belly chrysals. The bow is very comfortable to shoot with good early draw tension and a snappy release, the set was very minimal even after 200 shots being around 1/2" an inch.
The bows entire build was documented and is available on YouTube if anyone wanted to check it out ( please forgive the shameless self promotion):
https://youtu.be/ZiH7xWD0kH4 Thanks for reading and providing a place with such a vast amount of knowledge on this subject I sincerely appreciate it.
Cheers guys.
