Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: NCKCRDN on November 27, 2013, 09:23:06 pm
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Hello, i am new here and was wondering which would be a good bow to start with ?I would like to do a English warbow /longbow ?
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what woods do you have growing in your area?
What is your archery experience?
An english longbow design might be a good place to start, but a warbow is too hard to pull back if you are a beginner. Choose a draw weight you can comfortably draw and hold for two seconds.
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Check this out.
Jawge
http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/index.html
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Very broad question. Kinda like... I'm a new driver, what kind of car should I get? It would be helpful if you decided what you want to do with the bow (hunting, taget shooting, flight shooting, etc.) and then go from there. Next, try and discover what wood you have access to and then do some research. Get your hands on and read the Trad Bowyer's Bibles, Vols 1-4. Will likely answer most of your questions.
An English warbow is NOT a good place to start! Advanced stuff.
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This is what got me started
http://poorfolkbows.com/oak.htm (http://poorfolkbows.com/oak.htm)
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My first bow was a red oak board bow. Here are some detailed instructions to help you.
http://poorfolkbows.com/oak.htm
Red oaks are fairly easy and cheap to make, and come out very good, if done properly. Once you've made one or two of the board bows, you can move on to a more primitive self bow. That's my plan.
Good Luck!
Jacob
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I think for the sake of learning and higher chances than most, I would do a flatbow out of osage or a white wood STAVE. Get an easy stave and I think you would have better success.
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These are my favorite posts. Love to see newbies diving off into the pond for the first time. All the advise above is good advise. I typically let the stave I'm working on dictate what style of bow I will build, but flat bow 66" or so made from the best stave you can get your hands. Clean and straight from a dependable species. That's where I would start. Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.
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A red oak board backed with rawhide or a couple layers of linen is pretty forgiving to start on. Its pretty easy to read red oak grain and find some good straight stock. A nice straight whitewood stave would also be excellent.
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Welcome to PA!! Board bow is a good idea to start with. Good luck, and make sure you share it with us. I would like to see that #1.
Tattoo Dave
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Everyone is suggesting board bows and I too think that is a good place to start. I started with board bows and actually had most of my best success with cheap red oak boards. The Poor Folk bows website by Sam Harper is a good place to start as there's some pretty good info on tillering there. However, I'd add that George ("Jawge" here on PA) Tsoukalas' website has a couple great write-ups detailing how to make a bow and wood selection. His tips on wood selection are better than what Sam Harper tells you on his build-along. What Jawge points out is that you also really need to pay attention to the way the grain runs along the short edge of the board too.
I think boards are probably one of the best ways to start because you can blow a bunch of them up cheaply, whereas staves can be REAL pricey. The only problem I have with board bows is that it can be a HUGE pain in the rear to search through an entire lumber stack and find NOTHING! I've done it. I've been to Home Depot, Lowe's, and Menards and searched and found nothing. Sometimes the bow gods are with you, and sometimes the selection just sucks. I've been to a good lumberyard in my area and found decent hickory boards and such but still, you gotta search a long time to find anything suitable. Staves will allow you to build a bow without having to be so fixated on finding a board with perfect grain and no violations.
If you want to build something that is in the style of an English Longbow (Warbow), you can certainly get that look by building a bend through the handle style of bow (aka "D bow") without necessarily going for warbow draw weight. There are a few woods that will let you build a crowned belly, but it's not the most efficient design. For a first bow you're probably better off building a regular flatbow versus one with a crowned belly.
http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/boards.html
http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/boardbowbuildalong.html
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Mine is backed with black silk, applied with Titebond. It isn't smooth, and it certainly isn't pretty. It stacks all I can pull just about the corner of my mouth, drawn two under. It throws a heavy arrow pretty good, although it is nothing in the speed department, but then, it has never had a good string on it either.
Oddly enough, the grain is almost perfectly straight in mine, in each end of the bow. On one end, it is straight like you would orient a self bow, and on the other, it is almost perfectly straight, with the grain ending in the back and belly. It twists through the handle area, but that is also a working part of the bow, since I did not use a riser. It is pretty much finished except for applying some form of string groove backing material. My hip went bone on bone, and for a while there, I was pretty much cut off from my outdoor activities, and never finished the project.
My mistakes were in underestimating the effort and tools required to smooth the silk down properly, and in leaving it too long. The string grooves were pretty much finished, and I cut two inches off each end, because it was not really usable in anything but flight type shooting at that length. If you plan on using one out of an elevated stand hunting, they need to be even shorter. In my case, I simply left it way too long. It is 72 plus after being cut down! It still isn't a practical woods bow.
It isn't even an impressive first bow, but I made it, and that suits me just fine.
If I do it again, I will start with an Osage board, and build pretty much the same bow again, a little shorter. Just because you are building a board bow, does not mean you can not build a nice bow, or that you can't use good bow wood in the process.