Red oak board, 72 inches, aiming for 40-50 ish pounds. Currently at 30 pounds pulled at 17 inches. I can add more photos later, just want initial general opinions.

Very new to bow building, I live in California and I am hoping to find Yew and white woods for bow staves. I am looking for reputable sources to buy bow staves if you know reputable, good sources I would be grateful.

Anyone ever notice a difference in shock absorbency and bow noise with a D cross section bow vs a rectangular one? More in the category of BITH bows.

Almost every Osage bow I see is, at least a little snaky, either from the top view or from the side, at least some swells and waves and dips and whatnot.

I understand this is not considered a bad thing and can even be a desirable look to some, BUT if I wanted to get that all out, can you heat treat just isolated spots and use clamps the pressboards to force Osage to be "tidy" and have straight lines? Or will osage always be at least a bit wavey?

I started working on this tiny little ERC bow a while ago just sort of for fun. But yesterday I happened upon this tiny little feather and now I’m whittling a maple arrow for the bow, 😂.

Obviously still quite a ways to go.

Heard a crack while tillering and them saw this on the back.

I have a friend who makes self bows. He told me that often times will let bow staves dry and uses dry the dry staves for self bows. Also, he will often start with green wood and makes the bow till it is almost done. Once the "semi" finished bow is shaped he lets it dry, and finishes the bow with the dry partially finished piece of wood. He says he does not have cracking etc. Has anyone else herd of this? And if so, can you offer advice for a very new bow builder?

Hello!

Im working on my first bow out of red oak. Im looking for it to have a 40 pound draw weight.

At the moment im using a homemade tillering string which has a lot of strech in it and have gotten it to just about brace height at 40 pounds.

At what point should i change to a bow string to help tiller better? I feel like if i do it now the bow will be under too much stress

I got my hands on some free yew a while back. People are oblivious and treat it like a shrub around here. Nothing good enough to make a bow with, but it's the second most gorgeous wood around the PNW (yellow plum being the first, also, that's debatable) so I have been making random stuff with it. I have been playing with shellac, I love it and I'll never leave it for another, and today I split and put together a live edge bow rack . I have 3 good lookers I planned on hanging above the fireplace, and I went to go do it, my wife told me absolutely not. Not. I spoke to her about it and I told her about the importance of my creations, and how I believe they would be the centerpiece and the most attractive thing in our living room. I could tell she agreed, but out of spite she shut me down. I'm saying this here because I have no one else to go to. Thanks for listening, here's a quick picture of the rack pieces

I wanted to try fire hardening the belly of this bow. Unfortunately everything is too wet outside to make a fire, so I'm improvising. The heat is what matters right? Got the vent on am moving it up and down the length every 5 minutes.

Is it better to split a log for staves while it’s green or after it’s cured?

It had a bad tiller and a violated back. I put 500 ish shots thru it so I’m happy

Hi all,

I'm going to attempt making a recurve bow from a maple stave. I've watched a few tutorials online and read the section on recurve bows in TBB, but I haven't been able to find a definite answer.

When roughing out the bow, is there any ideal profile for a recurve?

Should I taper the limb width starting at the recurved section of the bow, or further up on the non-recurved part of the limb? This will taper to the tips.

I've seen some people taper the limb width and thickness after bending the wood and some do it before bending the wood. Is one option better than the other?

Thanks!

This $8 table top fire pit is perfect for heat straighten arrow shafts indoors. Highly recommend it for indoor arrow making.

If I’m outside I’d rather straighten shafts over a hot fire pit but for some lazy day arrow making this is perfect.

It's not to try that at home, i was just thinking to a kind of uchronie where people would have prefer to perfectionnate bows instead of using firearm and wondering if that would have been doable.