How did you get started making wood bows?

[Badger]

      In my case I had a wood bow as a kid. My brother broke it in anger when he screwed up a paint job on his motorcycle and I never got another one as a kid. When I was in my late 20's on a camping fishing trip I wasn't catching any fish but I was seeing tons of them swim right by me. While my pole was sitting in the water I grabbed a branch and flexed it to see if it would make a bow, I took out my pocket knife and carved it up a little bit so I could bend it more and used some heavy fishing line for a string. I am guessing it pulled about 25# or so. I found some straight sticks with no fletches and started shooting them at the fish. I didn't get any fish but it planted the seed for me and it was always in the back of my mind to build a proper bow. About 15 years and a divorce went by before I decided to try to make another one. From that moment on I was hooked even though I did nothing but break bows for about 2 years.

[PEARL DRUMS]

I'm a bowaholic and always have been. I couldn't afford 50 glass bows and didn't have the money or resources to build glass bows. So I started make wooden bows and the rest has all been uphill

I don't have a burning passion for pure primitive archery, just bows in general. That's why I use plastic nocks, factory steel heads and parallel turned shafts.

[Badger]

I'm a bowaholic and always have been. I couldn't afford 50 glass bows and didn't have the money or resources to build glass bows. So I started make wooden bows and the rest has all been uphill

I don't have a burning passion for pure primitive archery, just bows in general. That's why I use plastic nocks, factory steel heads and parallel turned shafts.

   Most people I know including myself are in your camp. I like wood bows but primitive isn't my main thing

[Eric Krewson]

I was walking down a dirt road at my hunting club and ran into a guy I didn't know who was carrying what looked like a tree branch with a string on it. I shot a Bighorn recurve at the time so his "bow" peaked my interest.

I asked him; "do you hunt with that", he said "yes". I asked him; "ever kill anything with it" again he said yes and said he killed a deer with it a week or so earlier.

He saw I was interested, introduced himself as Joe Bogle and invited me to his house to show me how he made bows.

After Joe showed me the basics I bought ever book and video on the subject, collected some wood and gave bow making a try.  My first was a sinew backed osage bow made from a board, I went from floor tillering to full draw in a matter of minutes, my bow exploded. My next was an osage working recurve that may still be shooting out there somewhere.

I didn't break many bows but made a bunch of poorly tillered ones until I got the tillering process down.

20 years after I met Joe we are still best friends and still crank out a bow every now and then.

[Del the cat]

I whittled stick bows out of random branches (I'd guess probably Hazel or Sweet Chestnut) as a kid aged about 10 and shot 'em out the back of the house. the arrows had nails bound to the tip so they'd stick in trees.
One day I tried to gain the attention of the prettiest girl in the village by shooting an arrow to stick in the telegraph pole in front of her as she walked down the street... Nah, didn't work. 
Kids don't have the patience to wait for wood to season.
Avidly read loads about bows, archery and Robin Hood
Made my first decent bow when I was about 20 or so.
Del

[stuckinthemud]

My Dad used to cut a hazel stem from the hedge and put a string on it each summer vacation for each of us when I and my siblings were small.  His Dad used to do the same for him, and I, in turn, did the same for my kids.  When my boy showed an interest in 'proper' archery I couldn't afford the equipment so I hit the internet, remembering those hedge-row bows, and found PA.  Haven't shot my glass bow since as I much prefer my hazel longbow; I would shoot commercial arrows though, if I could afford them, but, I lose a lot of arrows so I'll stick to my shoot arrows

[smoke]

In high school I read Saxton Pope's book, "Hunting with the Bow and Arrow."  He was very clear that a true sportsman made most of his tackle.  That wormed into my head and when the TBBs came out about 30 years later, I read them and finally gave it a try.  I only make one or two a year but really enjoy it.  As my wife says, "it keeps him out of trouble."

[Stick Bender]

I had been shooting Glass Traditional bows sense I was a kid in boy scouts and around 1996 saw a magazine in the drug store called Primitive Archer so I ordered a subscription and made a hickory bow still have it but between kids,family and other obligations I didn't make another bow for 20 plus years and then I bought a copy of the Bent Stick and its been a compulsion sense !

[joachimM]

As a kid I've always been fascinated by archery and constantly made weapons (catapults, blowpipes, spears, firecracker-powered rifles that shot marbles through large pumpkins ...), and also made a few branch bows that shot arrows maybe 30 m or so.

When my kids started to grow up, they asked me to make them a bow, so I started to look up how to make 'em decently. Found a french site that referred to this American guy who was capable of making bows without following growth rings on the back! That was my first introduction to Tim Baker.

I found an online pdf version of TBB1, got hooked, ordered the complete set of the traditional bowyer's bible.
Meanwhile, I was also curious about the PVC bows I read about, and started making some of these as well. Made a few dozen of these, but found out that wood bows were a lot more fun to make and much more gratifying as whole.

So basically, my kids are the reason I don't have time for them anymore 

[DC]

When I was in my pre-teens my parents bought me a Hickory bow and arrow set. From Simpson-Sears I would imagine. When that took permanent set from being left braced outside through a few days rain they bought me a fiberglass longbow that probably still around somewhere. 30 years later when we were out camping I would make a bow and arrow for the kids every time I found an eagle feather. Maybe 3 or 4 bows over the years. A few years ago we were out camping and I was relaxing after a steak dinner and needed a toothpick. I grabbed a dead standing twig from a bush I could reach and carved a toothpick. I started playing with the stick and it was really strong and bendy. I looked it up and it was Ocean Spray. When we got home I discovered that the area where I took my daily walk was loaded with large OS. I cut a few staves and stood them in the garage. A year later this obsession started. It took me almost an hour but I found my first recent bow. 
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,41218.0.html

[Yorec]

45 some odd years ago my father hunted with a Herters 50# recurve made of brazillian rosewood and fiberglass. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and I lusted. I was too small to draw it and would never be allowed to do so alone, so I scrimped and saved and worked until I could buy a little blue fiberglass bow that drew 30#. It wasn’t the same as dads tho, but the archery bug had dug in deep and I spent every spare hour with that little blue bow.

A few years later I was chosen to work at a scout camp in the wind river mountains but it was against the rules to bring my bow... but my job was teaching on the archery range! At the end of each day we accounted for all equipment and locked it away in a shed. I couldn’t shot! The second night there my knife and I started making bows out of willows. Lol, of course they weren’t any good, but I couldn’t stand to not be shooting during my downtime... I made a lot of bad bows over those next few summers.

After my scouting career I didn’t build many bows, but found it more convenient to buy them and fell down the compound archery rabbit hole. After a few more years and a couple of kids I couldn’t afford the latest and greatest gizmo and, predictably, fell inactive for decades.

A couple years ago my daughters expressed a desire to go hunting with dad, but are afraid to shoot a rifle. I recalled my youth and the times I had with my father in the field. I looked at the price of today’s “space bows” and knowing I’d have to get 4 sets of whatever we did, rejected that lunacy.

YouTube’s copious mound of good/terrible info alerted me to the reemergence of primative bows and I recalled my efforts as a boy scout with knife. I was excited to learn that my problems of that time were due to my wood choice, so started looking around my area for “real” bow woods. I cut a few logs of juniper, a local birch I learned to be called red or river birch, and some chokecherry staves. I also bought a red oak board at Home Depot to play with while I waited for the staves to dry. A copy of the first 3 TBBs also joined my efforts...

A year in and I’m feeling the old obsession taking hold again. I completed 2 bows from that oak board, one still survives as my wife’s bow. The second suddenly exploded during final tiller in. I made the girls some quickie PVC bows to play with while I work on their wooden ones. I’m working now on the eldest’s a juniper pyramid style with some serious helical twist I’m struggling with... And I completed my first “real” stave bow - of red birch. It’s a pyramid shoot off the hand style with a satisfying character dog leg in the bottom limb. 70” OAL, 55# @ 30”. The handle is covered with red birch bark and it’s backed with some poly-cotton bdu pants impregnated with fiberglass resin. Tip overlays of pronghorn antelope horn.  I recognize some tillering flaws, but I’m pretty stoked over my “first” stave bow of this era. 600 arrows and counting. I may post it later this winter when for you all to pick over, when I get some time - I love to learn.

Sorry for the long post, but you did ask for my story - Just another noob here! 😎😎😎

[ohma2]

I was shooting glass bows then Jay massey came out with his book,bowyers craft and being a wood carver it just seemed right to make all wood bows.it does turn into an obsession.

[Badger]

  Yorec, I enjoyed your post not too long at all.

[jeffp51]

I like these origin threads. they pop up every once in a while.

My story has two parts. When I was 9 or so, I really wanted a BB gun like my friends.  My parents got me a green fiberglass bow instead, with which I killed countless cardboard boxes (and one neighbor's shed) all one summer. When I was 11, my older brother and younger sister died in a car accident.  It was obviously a rough time for me and I felt very alone, like no one had ever been through what I was going through.  I was in a scout group at my church which had exactly one kid in it--me.  The leader that was assigned to the 11-year-old-scouts wasn't much of a scouter, but he liked to shoot bows and hunt. He gave me a bunch of old flint chips, a deer antler, and a rubber stopper, and showed me some rudimentary knapping techniques. I made a number of points and he helped me make a new string for my old bow, and I proceeded to shoot them into his target, until I missed with my best point and broke it.  I shot off and on again with that bow and then my dad's compound when I outgrew it, but gradually other interests (girls?)  took over, and archery was forgotten.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago, and my own son is working on an archery merit badge.  As I was also involved at the time with the youth in my church, I offered to help the scout master.  One of the requirements was to build a bow.  The scoutmaster bought a bunch of oak boards and watched I think a youtube video from Boarriorbows, and away we went.  My first thought was cool!  I wanna try one (wait, no--my actual first thought was "this will never work").  So I started looking on the web for how to's,  bought a hickory board, and started carving.  My first scraper was a paint scraper.  That bow worked pretty well for a while, but I needed arrows.  I looked into buying some, and went into shock about how much it cost, so I started looking again, and found the bamboo tutorial on this site.  Finding this group was the nail in the coffin, and I am afraid I am hooked.

But I still have the old green bow and the arrows--they were hidden at my dad's house.

[Yorec]

Oh my... Your little green bow looks just like my little blue one did!
Wish I knew where it went....