Primitive Archer

There was a member over on Paleoplanet who's handle was Rod and I believe lived in the UK. On there he hasn't been on since 2019 but the form is very quiet.

I did manage to fix the lumpiness of the arrows a bit. Made a v notch sanding block the same shape as the shooting board. Helped smooth where the plane started to take the shaving. Also some of these were pretty wonky and needed straightening.

Thanks, John. I reheat treated it today and the unbraced shape is really sweet.

Sleek, so if measuring from the back of the bow, I'm going for about a 25" draw to shoot 23" arrows since my shelf will be the full 2" deep. Hopefully that's accurate.

Had a marathon of working on these projects today. Started with putting in the recurves for that hickory bow. I needed breaks from working on the arrows because my fingers were getting sore doing all the planing. That gave me time to heat treat the osage bow and start straightening/heat treating the hickory bow.

Started with one arrow by getting the nock shaped and put a horn tip on. Really like this horn tip and it turned out great. Arrow weighs 162 grains and is 23.5" long. Put sinew on the nock and will figure out the vanes at a later time. Spent the rest of the day shaping the rest of my poplar shafts between the barrelling and the nocks. I got them down to about 215 grains before heating them in the oven. That brought them down about 15 grains. Probably could have toasted them for a bit longer. I wanted them lighter so I did more planing and got them down to about 175 grains before being trimmed to final length. Hopefully will have some variety with all of them being no more than 180 grains. It was really fun getting the hang of this process. Hopefully they will hold together for shooting.

I'd really like to get some trade points, maybe half a dozen of them, made of decent steel.  Damascus would look incredibly cool but I'm guessing it would cost a LOT.  I'd settle for regular, high carbon steel.  2.5" long, 1" wide, with straight edges, a 1 x 3/8" tang, and a left bevel. 

Something like this.  https://drive.google.com/file/d/15X0ufyQHClA7DAf--Z4cuHUaaRH8cAcz/view?usp=drive_link

I've been told they're pretty easy to make, but so far haven't found anybody that would actually do them, at least not for a reasonable price.  I plan to use these for hunting elk so I don't want to pay so much that I'll be afraid to take them up in the mountains and bang them around.  Any of you forgers interested?

Thomas

   Remember you can re-use the sinew . Western Red Cedar was not used for bows by the Indians

 Occasionally Yellow Cedar was used but mostly yew and juniper here in the southern half of BC