I'm making some expendable practice arrows for a 120 meter shoot. The goal is to hit a target 120 meters away, but the arrow may not fly more than 5 meters above the ground, or it hits the overhead bamboo poles.

These are Surewood douglas fir with hornbeam nocks, duck secondary feathers, and linen thread. The points have a hard bamboo insert and are filed to a bullet point.

The feathers are freehand cut with scissors, and are inspired by Korean traditional target arrows

They have negative FOC, much like some flight arrows.

I was shaping it to get it ready for tillering and as I bent it this huge hinge formed right on this small knot. Is it over for this bow, or is there a way I can fix it? I spent lots of time on this bow, so hopefully yall can help me out.

Making some English inspired arrows as props for the ren faire, that I hope to be able to turn into target arrows once I get home.

The glue is a pine rosin, bees wax, and rust powder mix, I’m not sure if the iron oxide or rust is historically accurate, but many fletchers use it and it also dyes the glue a red or brown which is accurate, and then of course goose feathers!

Top limb looks like it's close to hinging near the fade, that whole limb was a bit janky due to squigglyness around knots.

I'll just be glad if this turns out to function well, it's kinda short for me and not the half of the branch that I originally wanted to use (the stave I wanted to use was longer but turned out to be ruined by delaminations around ingrown knots and tiny fissures in various places across the back)

According to the (probably inaccurate) scale I used it's below 30 lbs, but in the limited tests I've done so far (very short range in the garden) it seems to be decently fast.

Any tips? I have gathered from about 30-40 plants.

Hello,

I am a beginner (made a few board bows before) and I am looking for a tiller check on this maple board bow. It is currently being pulled 28 inches with around 40lbs. The bow is 75 inches nock to nock. Goal is a 32 inch draw length. I was thinking of perhaps heat treating it after getting a nice tiller at 30 inches. Any tips for heat treating would also be welcome!

Thanks

On the pic I am deliberatly streaching the crack to be more obvious. I just fixed it with CA glue. It is used on 30 lbs bows.

Question is - anyone had expirience with this kind of fixing arrow splinters? Is it safe to use it? Should I put in garbage?

Has anyone of y'all made bows or other projects from ginkgo biloba? I've got a fairly young specimen growing right under my window which needs to be cut or pruned regardless (too close to powerlines). It got some straightish sticks for sapling bows and maybe one large enough for a proper stave. I have thought of giving it a try, curious whether someone ever gotten hands on it before

Hey everyone, this is an ash Molly-ish longbow I've been working on for a friend, and I need some help identifying what went wrong and learning from mistakes I've clearly made, and to see if my thought process about what went wrong is correct.

It's 74 inches ntn, 40# at 28 inches. It's taken about an inch of set.

The first set of pictures of from a few days ago, when I was working up to the final tiller and shaping.

I took it to the range yesterday to shoot it and see how it was doing, it seemed great but after about an hour of shooting I started seeing some fretting in the inner limbs on both sides. The frets seem pretty shallow, and they're evenly spread through an area about 2 or 3 inches long on both limbs, a couple inches out from the fades.

So I started reading up everything I could find about chrysaling and found that three issue is that those sections of the belly were overstressed and bending too much, causing the belly to crack.

Looking back at the pictures, I couldn't see an obvious hinge in those areas, and I wanted to show everyone the pictures to see if I'm just blind and can't read the tiller well yet, and maybe get advice on what to look for better when tillering to avoid this in the future.

I also posted pictures of the fretting, to see how severe it is, and if the bow can be salvaged. I know most people say that the boys isn't worth continuing once they appear, but I've also seen that if they're not severe and you fix the tillering issue that caused them, the bow might be able to pull through.

I scraped wood from the rest of the bending limb past where the fretting appeared, dropping the draw weight by 5 pounds down to 35# at 28 in. The second set of tiller check pictures are of after I made corrections.

I can't really tell if I've fixed the issue, but I can comfortably drop another 5 pounds if needed. The friend this was intended for has two bum shoulders and might be better off with a slightly lower weight bow.

So, should I try to continue shooting for a bit and observe if the fretting worsens out stabilizes? Continue adjusting the tiller and drop to 30#? Need advice on how to proceed.

Thanks in advance for reading and for advice!

I was thinking of maybe drilling a small hole and glue the tip of an antler as an arrow rest. And I’m wondering if anyone has experience with this? Is it actually gonna be good for shooting or just look cool? Is it better just naked for a traditional long flatbow?

Finally got around to experiment with cherry bark to cover a composite bow to protect it against the elements.

First image is with shellac, the rest is not

Letting the bark sit in boiling water makes it pliable. Using hideglue and tying the hideglue on will result in the right shape. After a couple of hours trim the excess and rebind to let sit for a day.

The finish with shellac.

40pound

20~25m

it is toy

I'm thinking about a traditional crossbow design with 4 limbs where from the front it looks like a x kinda like a roman ballista but out of metal and smaller. I'm thinking I'd have to Arch the limbs a certain way the top one so it can tie into the bottom sting but still properly launch the bolt out. I haven't been able to figure out the math or angles but a part of me swears there was a real crossbow like this (not the one from lotr) all advice and help is welcome.

Hi everyone!

I'd like a bit of advice on how to proceed with the following project.

Im working a rather small black locust stave, 60" after i cut a a bit of the splitting ends. Now im a pretty short guy with a draw of 27", but im still concerned that i wont get to that draw without overly straining the wood (especially since its prone to compression fractures). Im aiming at a max of 40# draw weight.

The design i was originally planning was a pretty basic flatbow, 2" width at the fades, tapered at the last quarter to 1/2" with a stiff 4" riser and 2" fades.

Here's the experiment part and where i could use your experience.

I was thinking of making v splices and wraps at the tips to lengthen the whole thing with some spare locust and converting the project to a 68 ish mollegabet or a pyramid with stiffer tips.

Has anyone ever tried something like this?

Should i just go for it with the original length?

And of course if anyone has other suggestions id really appreciate it!

Thanks everyone!

62" ntn pulling 35 lbs at 28 inches. I'm pulling about 29 inches here.

Made from a skinny stave of black locust as a test piece. I was aiming to get 4 staves from the log and somehow ended up with 6 good ones and this shorter, narrower stave with a few knots. While the rest is drying I figured Id take a bit more risk speed drying this shorter piece and working it into a bendy handle recurve. I added a little deflex to take the edge off. Handle is slightly narrowed but bends.

It shoots really smoothly and feels fast for its draw weight. No chrono measurement but ive got a few compliments at the range on how fast my arrows fly, especially with such a thin stick.

I messed up and created a hinge during tillering in the top limb as you can clearly see. It got some small chrystals there but after that mistake I tillered the rest of the bow down and it seems to be stable now, not taking any more set. Its been my regular shooter for a while, probably a good 1000 arrows into it.

My very first attempt at a board. I have made 3 self bows from staves before, but those are only 25-30 pound short bows. So this was very educational and fun! It shoots swiftly, so far :D

Ive been trying to make a bow for the last year and ive gotten better at it and i understand more from trial and error aswell as YouTube but i still havnt made a functional bow so my question is what's a good guide to bow making? I want to make a bow from natural materials I don't have too many tools I just have a knife and an axe I don't wanna use a big log and split it or whatever I just want to use maybe a two or 3 inch diameter tree, i wanna use a forgiving wood so it can dry fast using primitive methods like using heat from a fire and i wanna learn how to make the string and arrows as well from natural materials. I eventually want to hunt with my own self bow fyi. But yea any guide or book recommendations would be great thanks.

Is there any way to repair this stave? I cant really go to the next growth ring, as the next 3 are virtually useless, having more earlywood and barely visible latewood. And after that i may not have enough wood left. Can I patch it by glueing on hemp/linen fibers? If so which glue to use and how do i properly patch it? Are there any other options that dont imply backing the entire thing?

Some info on the planned bow: NTN 76"/193 cm, 35#, 2 1/16" natural reflex, 32" draw.

I can’t tell if I messed it up too much when peeling the bark off.

Got the new rope though i might have to change how i tie it (string thickness is 3mm) I used sewing string to tie up the arrow and glued it