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making a simple short recurve with hand tools only.

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a finnish native:
So here is my goal: to make a 45# bow with little recurves and a handle that bends just a tad. The bow will be 48" long and the draw lenght will target at 21".
The wood I'm using for this simple bow is what we in Finland call Tuomi. in latin it's prunus padus (not sure about the spelling) and in english it's called european bird cherry.
I was going to back it with sinew, but I decided to make it a self bow. This being because the wood is quite soft and I dont tant to waste sinew on this kind of wood that would probably fracture from the belly with a 24" draw being only 48" long.
I am hoping to make this bow my hunting bow for the winter to come.

here are some pics

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a finnish native:
pics from recurving the tips.
I made a mistake and roughed the tip width to the final size before bending the tips. Doing this the tips will not be in line, but I'll fix it with a heat gun.

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JackCrafty:
Cool 8)

tsa yo ga:
Can a  hickory short bow say 44'' long be made without sinew backing?  I think they are so cool looking but have never attempted one as i am a rank amateur.

a finnish native:
yes it can be made. depends on the draw lenght and wweight. I would recommend a 40-50 pounder with a draw of 20". I use a rule that I always devide the lenght of the bow by 2.3 and thus get the draw lenght to a self bow. with sinew I use devided by 2 and hornbows 1.5. I got these numbers from a finnish forum. someone did some testing and those were the ideal numbers for wood, sinew backed and hornbow. (not sure about the hornbow).

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