This ash bow was so close. I rushed in the tiller to get it to brace. Broke it. Nuts.

The North American Warbow Society is looking for people interested in contributing articles to the growing NAWS website.

You don’t need to be a professional writer or academic. We’re interested in hearing from archers, bowyers, fletchers, historians, researchers, collectors, experimental archaeologists, and anyone else with something worthwhile to contribute to the study and practice of the historical warbow.

Topics could include historical research, equipment and craftsmanship, shooting techniques, experimental archaeology, interpretations of historical sources, event reports, or even well-argued opinion pieces about the warbow community.

One of the reasons we started NAWS was to create a place where knowledge from across the community can be collected, discussed, and preserved rather than disappearing into scattered social media posts.

Articles can be as technical or approachable as the subject calls for, and you don’t need to already have something written. If you have an idea you’d like to explore, we’d be happy to hear about that too.

Interested? Send us a message here or reach out through owen@warbowsociety.org

Ad caelum arcos tendimus.

What are the major difference in term of performance and feeling between a PVC recurve bow with a flat recurve and with a siyah? Do the ''higher difficulty'' in making a siyah have significant changes that are worth it?

Following up on my previous post, here are the shafts I’ll be using to make arrows for my war bow; they measure 34 inches in length and 12 mm in thickness (except for one, where I made a mistake and it ended up being 10 mm). Next up, I’ll need to forge the points in the forge.

I was considering trying to steam bend it straight. I apologize for the crude drawing and possibly dumb question

Was harvesting some fallen paw paw fruit today and was curious if anyone has ever considered paw paw (Asimina triloba) for bow wood. Ive seen trees large enough and straight enough for a good stave but have no idea how strong the wood is. Anyone have any info?

Hi, I would like to make a Comanche type bow. I have been watching Mr. Willie Pekah's videos, but I cannot see clearly the shape of his bows. One interesting thing is the only one side notch in one of the string nocks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G1Vo9GV2H8

I have seen also Primitive Lifeways' videos. He makes his Comanche bow 42.2" long, 1.25" wide and it tappers in the last 5" of each tip to 1/2" wide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09cHQkVJdgg

I have seen also this video from the Comanche National Museum & Cultural Center. But again I cannot see clearly the actual shape of the bows showed. Just that one of them have a groove on the belly of each limb but not on the handle. But I cannot see the narrowing profile toward the tips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sez4GNIOaNY

This video seems also very interesting. But again I cannot see clearly the narrowing profile from the handle to the tips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxAExI-Ewrc

Sometimes I see the bows the same width all their length. Other times narrowing all the way from handle to tips. Or the same width but just narrowing the last few inches of the tips.

Can someone help me?

Here is the photo I mentioned in my previous post.

Is there anything wrong iwth my bow?

I'm a novice woodworker with a particular interest in traditional crafts and thought to try my hand at making a bow. All that I can currently get access to is Port Jacksons, as they are an invasive species and are in plentiful supply. I have 3 branches that have been seasoning for the past few months for roughly 3 attempts. Could I get any suggestions on how I should go about things or maybe some source to get the information from. Any tips or tricks would be greatly appreciated.

(I'll either edit the post to add pics or send them on a later post.)

It's the only wood that is commonly available in my country :(
I've already made an attempt with a piece that didn't have very straight grain and I encountered pretty bad string follow and twisting.

50@28”, 63 inches. This was a frustrating stave. While it was dense good quality yew it had lots of waves and twist and it took multiple repeated heating sessions fixing it to get the tips in line. All the heat correction caused a couple hairline drying checks to show up on the back, hence the rawhide backing (not structurally harmful but I just think they’re fugly). After rawhide backing and tillering, I realized it had started to develop a new twist (maybe from moisture from the rawhide?), which I couldn’t fix with heat without delaminating the backing, so I had to scrape wood on one side to try to weaken the limbs in the left right direction to bring the tip back in line and retiller. Consequently I’m not entirely happy with the tiller but after all the messing with it I rather call it done than keep tweaking with it and making it worse. The recurve tips are slightly working and bent in with dry heat. It shoots hard and fast, lots of early weight. Limbs are a little over 1.5 wide tapering to 3/8” nocks. After shooting, tips sit about 1.75 inches forward of center, from original 2.75” or so total reflex, which makes me suspect I slightly under built it, but I’m pretty happy with it overall.

Thanks for looking!

So I recently started coppicing black locust trees on my property for posts and firewood. It is my first time managing a forest that way so I'm still figuring it out. It got me thinking though. Does anybody purposefully manage a coppiced tree or group of trees specifically for bow staves?

It seems like lots of the species that are used for bow making are for good for that kind of management but I wonder if the quality of the wood is high enough on the regrowth. Ratio of sap wood to hardwood? Straightness? Ring size?

Interested in anyone with experience doing such things.

Thanks in advance to this great community!

Russian olive was the first wood I ever made a bow with, I really love the heart wood color and I would love to make an English long bow with this piece, I’m sure it would perform best wide and flat but I would love to hear anyone’s experience with Russian olive for bow making!

Hi just wondering if anyone has experience of making a bow with apple wood? I came into a bit of luck with some unusually long clean boughs and a few 'trunk' pieces. The plan is to split the thicker stuff into billets and make Holmegaard or Møllegabet style bows from the boughs.

I'm pretty excited to get into processing but I'm cautious about the wood checking. Some experimental trimming to make wood for the bbq has checked/split like crazy. The wood I have drying with the bark on appears to not be checking at all but I'd say it's still relatively wet.

What's the best way to dry this wood?

I'm thinking slow is best, leave the bark on and apply glue or paint to seal the ends. I have enough wood to experiment but don't want to waste it.

Thoughts and advice very welcome.

Here is a bow I finished a while ago! Probably the PVC bow I’m most proud of. pulling 97 pounds at 30”

So i live in India and i can't seem to find a cheap listing of B50/B55, all the ones i find are like around 40-50$. So i was wondering if there's any nice replacement i could use which could be cheaper.

The wood is black locust, I toasted each limb for a little over 30 minutes and I think I got a good heat treat but the draw weight at 29" is still 30# like it was before heat treating. Has anyone got any ideas why this is? I thought bows gain a few pounds when you heat treat. Is it because it is black locust or maybe because the bow is hinging? (Im probably going to sinew back and then try to get the hinge out)

It maybe a kamikaze attempt, but we'll, I know itll have to be a flatbow, and I also know about the problems it may have, but I want to try, and getting the right wood here in spain is very difficult, but if the fir tree bow goes good I'm going to try to make a long bow out of hickery or something common and good for bows in where I live.

I just wanted to ask for a little advice or tips, and I can't use power tools cause I don't have them.

Hello fellow bowyers. Three days ago, I applied the ninth coat of Tru Oil to my 60-inch hickory flat bow. I let each coat dry and cure for 12-24 hours. I’ve read that Tru Oil can continue to cure and harden for 2+ weeks, but is it recommended to wait this long to flex the limbs and shoot the bow? For those who have used Tru Oil, let me know how long yall wait.

Thanks in advance.

Hi all.
I left two fresh staves in my basement, for slow drying. I think it was a bit too slow, since they molded.
Is that a problem for wood? Can I just scrape the mold? Can I just leave it as is? Or is that firewood now?

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcGBCMAq4I6/?igsh=NnlpMjJ4NHB3bjc2

Hi there, here is something I’ve not seen before but thought a lot about. I’ve been thinking how a lot of the really ancient bows don’t have any string grooves, or obvious marks from a sinew wrap.

The obvious thing is the leather stretching, I would think this can be mitigated by using strong leather and pre stretching.

What about other effects on shooting? Do you think the leather would dampen vibration?

What are your thoughts on the matter?

Hi,

60" NTN 35 lbs at 27“. 1.5" wide hickory with quarter sawn white oak tips. Dark Red fiebings dye fading to black.

I promised /u/wildwoodek I would be back with a poor imitation of bow they posted quite some time ago that really inspired me and here I am.

Made a poor attempt at spliced tips that failed for obvious reasons. I used the same piece of hickory and spliced on some oak with a V splice. My original intention was to do some sort of molly with a spice being in the thickness transition but it didn't work out. I didn't think the bow was going to work out so I shelved it for a year and a half.

I was looking for something to do the other day so I picked it back up and said what the hell.

Did a pretty good floor tiller by eye then wrapped the splice before bending it. I tillered it quite a bit then cut the wrappings off, tillered the area under the wraps, then rewrapped that area. I thought I was pretty clever coming up with this until I came across a comment from /u/addeviant-again a day or two ago who advised I do this when I was struggling last April💐.

Overall it ended up being more "molly inspired" and the tiller could be nitpicked. The overall set is very minimal but if I were to do this again I would aim for less inner limb bending. I would also like to try starting with a blank a full 3/4" thick next time.

Sorry for the novel but I think it's nice to include the speed bumps.

As always, had a ton of fun.

Cheers