Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Flight Bows => Topic started by: RyanY on September 29, 2025, 10:38:27 pm
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I had the pleasure of talking with Arvin at the TN Classic this year about flight shooting. I've always wanted to get into it but was intimidated by the natural materials strings and arrows. He showed me which linen thread to buy and one of his broadhead arrows. It has inspired me to get started on some flight gear so I wanted to share my projects and progress.
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Started with an extra wide seat for my tiller tree and a scraper shave for the extra wide limbed bows.
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Heat treating a practice bow. Tried using some foil tape to reflect the heat away from the belly side. Just made a sticky mess. :o
Tied a piece of wire to the heat gun to keep the distance consistent. I think I'm going to get one with a bit more power after using a better one at the classic.
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Arvin has got to be the absolute best guy to talk to, he is a pretty smart fella, despite just being an old Texas cowboy type and his humble appearances lol. He has more records with his bows than maybe anyone, and he did it fast too. You also could have met a better guy in general.
Looking forward to seeing your progress, Ill do my best to help you along as well.
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Finished up a practice pyramid bow. It is hickory. I was hoping to heat in 5" of reflex in anticipation of keeping close to 3". I think the reflex could have been more aggressive because there was a lot of spring back with such a gradual curve. Only ended up keeping around 2" after a few heat treats. Also ended up light closer to 46#@28". I think if the humidity goes down it'll pick up a couple pounds. I'm also working on my shooting here and there and was short drawing it. Was getting low 170's FPS with a 450 grain arrow so not too fast. Also wanted to try a short handle and shaping the arrow pass. I need to shoot it for distance but am still working on finding somewhere to do that.
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Thanks Kevin. I've been texting him and it's been great. Honestly thinking about taking a trip down to his place to work on some bows. What do you say Arvin? :BB
Started some arrows. Use the heads Arvin recommended. Took a while to figure out. I bought some bulk bamboo shafts on Ebay and the majority of them are very light for broadhead use. I also struggled to figure out how to get the weight close to exact. Talked with Alan about adding some filler to the ends of the bamboo which Arvin also recommended. Also used tape to cut out the fletchings which helped. Still need a better way to hold them while cutting but it got them close.
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I am working on my issues with perfectionism and avoidance which has definitely come up with the thought of flight shooting. There were a few months between working on this stuff but I finally got a hand full of arrows done. The last few went much faster. If I can figure out how to get shafts close to weight then they would be fairly simple for the broadhead arrows. They ended up a bit light I think because of the humidity. 1-2 grains shy for a couple of them. Hopefully good enough to test.
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After getting a few arrows done I am allowing myself to work on more bows. ;D :BB I had cut some hickory in April last year. One of the logs was cut quite low to the base where the trunk flares out. I thought I'd use that section to add some deflex at the handle for a deflex recurve bow. This will be for broadhead is the goal. The rings are pretty thick. Same wood as the pyramid bow. MC with the meter is about 10-11% at the wide end and just under 10% at the short end. I have a dehumidifier running in my shop to keep humidity at 40% so hopefully they can get lower and it'll be easier to keep it dry in the winter.
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I got a new bandsaw a couple years ago and recently tuned it up. Never been better! I need a new blade but it cut good enough. Did a practice splice and the bow one turned out well. Got the alignment just about perfect. Cut it down a bit to let it dry out more.
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Last update for tonight. I also got a bunch of old osage billets from a guy in Ohio. He said someone had cut them off a military base down south and the rings are very consistent. Not many wide ones as he was going to use them for backed bows, possibly even with edge grain. I picked a good looking pair and chased a ring. This will be a deflex recurve flight bow hopefully. I drew out a shape I like for the form. Took inspiration from that Yeoman Flight Bow from the Vintage Projects article.
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Flight archery is definitely a niche sport, probably because it isn't exactly an easy sport to be competent in. I know I get a kick out of reading about people trying to send an arrow over the horizon far more than someone throwing a bullet long distance.
Keep it up and keep journaling on this thread!
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I'm lurking in the bushes watching... ::)
Del
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If anyone can get it right Ryan I got faith you can, although I ant in to flight I really enjoy watching and listening to you guys That are. I will be watching. Pappy
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Those billets are beautiful! Color me jealous! To give you a speed goal, you need 185 fps to seriously compete. Less speed may do the trick if you make a perfect arrow and get a perfect arrow release.
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Ryan you are on the right track. The bamboo is no different than the wood shafts . You need enough mass for spine and weight requirements. You can cut one inch off of a shaft and get close on how much length you can reduce to hit your length of draw and not exceed draw weight. You don’t want a lot of foc!!! It kills you on the backend but f the shot. As far sad coming and building and testing that could be a option. You just need to pm me or call me.
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Thanks for the feedback friends.
Arvin, I am wondering how much wiggle room I'd have with a wood shaft. I probably need to start making my own. Poplar would be very easy to get.
Did some work tonight. Got the form for the smaller flight bow cut out. Made a few adjustments to the line to simplify it a bit. Got the billets cut down to a more reasonable size. They're a bit wedge shaped and not super wide so I need to be careful to get as much width as possible. Shaved down a piece to do a density check at some point. It's definitely hard, aged osage but not necessarily the most dense stuff I've used. I think I'll be able to get 1.75" wide. I have a lot of wiggle room for the length but I was hoping to keep it short, close to 54-56" for primitive flight.
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Ryan that’s to narrow for that short a bow. It’s going to take more set than you want for flight. Just a opinion. Please prove me wrong. That width needs to be probably 66” minimum. That will help on the set problem.
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This will also have a shorter draw for 23” arrows is the plan. They’re the widest billets I have so I’ll have to see how tillering goes. Definitely a high stress design. 2” minimum would have been better.
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What are the dimensions of that limb? I can run it through my bow calculator program, calculate the surface area of the bending section, and tell you how much that bow can weigh and not take set.
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What are the dimensions of that limb? I can run it through my bow calculator program, calculate the surface area of the bending section, and tell you how much that bow can weigh and not take set.
I haven’t finalized it yet. I’ll probably keep it 1.75” to mid limb or a bit further and then taper into the recurve. It’ll end up being around 24” long if I go 56” ntn with an 8” handle and fades. I’m not sure how much reflex it’ll end up with but I’ll be adding some deflex at the splice. 50#@24.5-25” from the back of the bow is the goal.
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What are the dimensions of that limb? I can run it through my bow calculator program, calculate the surface area of the bending section, and tell you how much that bow can weigh and not take set.
I haven’t finalized it yet. I’ll probably keep it 1.75” to mid limb or a bit further and then taper into the recurve. It’ll end up being around 24” long if I go 56” ntn with an 8” handle and fades. I’m not sure how much reflex it’ll end up with but I’ll be adding some deflex at the splice. 50#@24.5-25” from the back of the bow is the goal.
Put 2.5 and end up with 1.5 to 1.75 reflex. Make that bow as wide as possible for as long as possible, start your taper as far out as you can.
When you decide the front profile of the bow, give me the width for every inch of length and Ill tell you what that bow can do without set.
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Ryan, I have no doubt you can make a contending bow. Arvin is a master bowyer and friend, but I disagree with him on your bow being too narrow. The bow I hold the 70# primitive record for both flight and broadhead is hickory. 58” tip to tip along the curve, and 1 7/8” at the widest point. It is 68# @ 28”. I’ve seen a lot of bowyers post bows here that could come close enough to a record to get them hooked on trying to get those elusive last few yards. I like seeing new ideas. Sleek thinks outside the box. He showed up this year with a monster of a bow, I thought was way too wide. I was proven wrong when he shot it about 375 yards. Would love to see more people on this site show up to test their creations.
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Thanks Chuck. We'll see how it turns out. My thinking is that the ratio of the bow length and draw length should be fine for a 50# flight bow. Also seems like the arrows are such a big factor. I just got more shafts to try out as the bamboo ones I got I think will be too heavy.
Well we got our first snow here in Michigan and I never found a place to shoot. My first time might be next year at the flats. I got to bending the osage billets today. First I tried steam but it didn't want to budge. Haven't had that yet with the steaming method I've been using. The water running off had a lot of pigment. I then tried dry heat and Kind of forced it getting a lot of cracking. I think it'll be fine but definitely not fun to see that. I think on the next limb I'll try and thin it out a bit more. Also worked on a hickory bow just bringing the dimensions down a bit more to floor tiller.
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Nice polka dots from trying to heat through the metal strip I was using to keep splinters down. ;D I can't recall his name but there's a gentleman who I've seen many times in TN and MO shoots who walks around barefoot and has a recurve with some very tight curves on it. I always think of that bow when putting in recurves. I don't think this was too aggressive but maybe for this wood. The osage is also quite old so I'm not sure if that makes much of a difference. Not enough experience with old osage.
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Finished heating the rest of the limb. Sprung back a decent amount but the shape is still pretty good. Bending the second recurve went much better! Changed where the steam was hitting the limb and it bent very easily. The shape is pretty even along both limbs. They each have a slight amount of twist that will need to be taken out. The wedge shape of the billets doesn't leave enough for the handle so I had to plane it down to glue on some material. The chatoyance of the quartersawn edge is gorgeous. We're expecting close to 10" here in Michigan. Working during the snow always reminds me of the MartyJam get together with the Michigan guys.
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More pics
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More pics
That bend profile on those limbs looks a lot like a BL bow I was working on several years ago. I had to abandon it because it was too unstable
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That’s definitely a concern of mine. I’ll be taking an inch or two off the tips of the recurve so they’re not so aggressive. Just left them long for the bending process. I’ll have to decide how much deflex to glue in choosing between overall reflex and stability.
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Interesting project, Ryan. Once you get the tips shaped and you still have visible cracks a thin overlay should give enough strength to hold their shape.
Have you thought about a bracing jig to get the bow with such radicle hooks braced. Basically it is a board with 3 pegs, handle at one peg and the hooks at the other two. You can probably find a drawing or photo on Google.
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Thanks Pat. I haven’t but that’s a great idea. I’ll definitely look into it.
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More pics
That bend profile on those limbs looks a lot like a BL bow I was working on several years ago. I had to abandon it because it was too unstable
I have a question Mark, maybe a couple of questions. What amount of reflex did you finally settle on as being optimum for your designs? By reflex, I mean how far behind the back of the bow were the tips.
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Just saw this Ryan. If you want to come my way next spring I can probably find a field we can shoot in.
I’d love to get to the flats sometime. If you head that way please contact me prior.
Bjrogg
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That would be great BJ. I’ll keep that in mind and let you know!
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That would be great BJ. I’ll keep that in mind and let you know!
I’d really like that too.
Bjrogg
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More pics
That bend profile on those limbs looks a lot like a BL bow I was working on several years ago. I had to abandon it because it was too unstable
I have a question Mark, maybe a couple of questions. What amount of reflex did you finally settle on as being optimum for your designs? By reflex, I mean how far behind the back of the bow were the tips.
The bow I was working on had a deflex handle profile like I normally make them and the tips were set back several inches. Unfortunately I don't have pictures, or if I did I can't find them
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Ryan: thoroughly enjoying your bow building and those splices on the hickory bow are outstanding imho.
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I love the hickory. You may get a first appearance record with that bow. 46# may be 50# in the Utah desert. I always have plans to make a few new bows every year for the shoot. Last few years I’ve been busy and time got away and I show up with one new one a year. I’m going with old school hybrid designs in my near future. Short and strained. Like Sleek, I’m also going for the 400 yard goal and 300 with broadhead over records right now. I’m just going with different designs than Kevin.
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Gifford, Thanks! My splices still need work, see below. Probably need a fresh bandsaw blade.
Chuck, that's good to know about the Hickory. It's very humid hear near the Lake Michigan Coast. Even in the winter I've been surprised at the numbers. I'd be interested in seeing your bows. My goal is to make it to the shoot and launch an arrow to start. ;D
The work is slow going but hoping to get into more of a rhythm with time in the garage. Got the osage bow spliced today. After I built up the handle I cut the handle closer to the desired length. Since I have a lot of thickness, I cut the angle into the blocks so hopefully the splice will not need any adjusting. You can see how I had to glue three extra pieces on to make up for the wedge shape and extra thickness.
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Got the splice drawn out and cut. I look at the off cuts to check the glue line. The fit was not very good. Tried adjusting it and got a bit closer. It lined up pretty well. Any side to side bent should be fixed pretty easily with dry heat.
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Had to do the epoxy in the house because it was way to cold in the shop. Should have let it come up to room temp. Probably added to much all at once which kept it from seeping into the splice. Heated it up to thin it out but it caused it to set to fast. Hopefully it'll be okay. We shall see. :o
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Nifty trick using the tape to create an above ground swimming pool for the epoxy.
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Ryan . I was just thinking. Maybe you and Arvin both want to come my way. I’m sure I can have a big field to shoot in.
Would love to watch arrows fly with you guys.
Bjrogg
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I’ll definitely take you up on that, BJ. Let’s try and find a weekend this summer. I’ll talk with Arvin if he’s at the Classic this year.
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Let’s make it happen. After wheat harvest and straw off would probably be a good time. Thats usually around beginning of Aug. might be a good time for Arvin to get away from that Texas heat about then.
Bjrogg
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Finally got out to the shop after that long cold snap. I got some shafts from Surewood that I'm hoping will be light enough for flight. They are 30-35# spine and about 310-320 grains at 32". I have to make myself a shooting board to taper them to get the weight down. Then got the tape and epoxy off the osage bow. The reflex looks extreme but I'll cut a couple inches off the tips. The hickory bow is wonky. The limbs have differing amounts of reflex and some bumps. I think I got the tiller to a decent spot for now. I'll need to get that inner reflex straightened out a bit but I'll save that for later.
I took a picture of how I clamped the splice. It worked very well having the built up handle material to clamp too. I may do that for all future splices even if I don't need the extra material.
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Still watching Ryan. (-P
Bjrogg
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Wow. Love that idea for the clamping. I’m gonna use that!
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Wow. Love that idea for the clamping. I’m gonna use that!
Gluing blocks onto pieces for clamping is pretty common in the furniture making/fancy woodworking world. It can greatly simplify clamping some tricky joints.
Mark
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Got to work on some arrows today. I have some doug fir shafts from Surewood that I am planning on using but I need to taper them to lose some mass and figured I'd practice on some big box poplar. I've never made arrows so I had to make myself a shooting board. Got the planes sharp and went to town. I used my belt grinder to smooth them but but they got pretty "Lumpy" if that makes sense? I only did a hand full of the shaft blanks so I'll probably try and hand sand the rest. Also made a sanding jig but not sure how useful it will be. My shop is in a detached garage and I'm learning I really need heat and a bathroom in there. (lol)
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Anyone have any tips for keeping the shaft nice and parallel? I'm going to try without the belt grinder. Any tips are greatly appreciated!
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I wish knoll would pop in here. He made nice shafts.
Bjrogg
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Anyone have any tips for keeping the shaft nice and parallel? I'm going to try without the belt grinder. Any tips are greatly appreciated!
Are you planning to taper the ends?
the longer the taper jig the less you would have to worry about the middle third, but that jig in the bottom pic is certianly an improvement ovet the narrow belt
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Yes. I’ll be barrel tapering them using the shooting board and plane. Might get too narrow for that jig but I could make another one.
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Yes. I’ll be barrel tapering them using the shooting board and plane. Might get too narrow for that jig but I could make another one.
somewhere on this site is pics of a taper jig made from 2 pieces of angle iron set alongst each other. not quite parrellel but in a wedge that constitutes the taper. sandpaper is fixed to the surface somehow. I think Pat B posted it
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I like the Osage jig. I’m isinvv hv an old piece of tung and groove plank of hardwood flooring I had left over. I’m measuring about an 1.25. Ack from center mark towards the nock for my thickest point on barrel. Then I slightly taper to the nock about .245” diam. towards the tip it’s more a gradual taper to about .180”. I may go less yet we shall see the plank of wood seems to keep good hold of it for me. I’m sure there must be a better way but for now this is working for me.
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I wish knoll would pop in here. He made nice shafts.
Bjrogg
Ryan, that would be Mike in our board bow admin group.
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Every time I’ve hung out with Mike, he’s making poplar shafts. I forgot his PA name.
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I like the Osage jig. I’m isinvv hv an old piece of tung and groove plank of hardwood flooring I had left over. I’m measuring about an 1.25. Ack from center mark towards the nock for my thickest point on barrel. Then I slightly taper to the nock about .245” diam. towards the tip it’s more a gradual taper to about .180”. I may go less yet we shall see the plank of wood seems to keep good hold of it for me. I’m sure there must be a better way but for now this is working for me.
Here's my tapering jig:-
https://bowyersdiary.blogspot.com/2017/04/reusing-stuff-and-improvements.html (https://bowyersdiary.blogspot.com/2017/04/reusing-stuff-and-improvements.html)
Del
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I like the Osage jig. I’m isinvv hv an old piece of tung and groove plank of hardwood flooring I had left over. I’m measuring about an 1.25. Ack from center mark towards the nock for my thickest point on barrel. Then I slightly taper to the nock about .245” diam. towards the tip it’s more a gradual taper to about .180”. I may go less yet we shall see the plank of wood seems to keep good hold of it for me. I’m sure there must be a better way but for now this is working for me.
Here's my tapering jig:-
https://bowyersdiary.blogspot.com/2017/04/reusing-stuff-and-improvements.html (https://bowyersdiary.blogspot.com/2017/04/reusing-stuff-and-improvements.html)
Del
pretty cool Del! you can tell a lot about a man by seeing the effort put into his jigs!