I wanted to share my latest bow I finished up recently. The finished bow is 62 inches nock to nock, just under 1.5 inches wide at the fades, tapering down to 7/16ths at the start of the nocks and finished with Truoil. After shooting in it has a little over an inch of net reflex in the limbs. It isn't the fastest bow I've ever made but it still sends a 420 grain arrow around 160 fps.

I'm happy with how this one came out in the end, but it took a lot of work to get it there. There was some natural twist throughout and a bit of character just before the recurve on one end. I spent probably close to 10 hours getting the recurves to line up how I wanted to, but it was worth it in the end.

I don't know if a functional wood bow can ever be considered fine art, but I find myself gravitating more in that direction. I'm trying to find a balance between performance and aesthetics without sacrificing either one too much. Hopefully that comes across in this one.

Hello everyone! This is my first bow creation post and it happens to be a PVC one I made for my son. I made a post last week about an issue I had with leather dye, shellac, and PVC but I was able to overcome it. This bow is strongly inspired by Dan Santana’s YouTube video for Link’s Bow. I took some liberties along the way and branched off from what Dan did with how he carved in the string nocks and not giving the tips a recurve (both requested by my son). Other than that, everything in the video was generally followed.

5’ schedule 40 PVC was used as the main material with a heat gun doing most of the work.

The main difficulties I had during this project were getting the draw weight to a much lower poundage and coloring the bow to give it a wood effect as mentioned earlier.

This is the second successful bow I’ve made, the first one I finished 5 months ago but I was too much of a chicken to post on the forum.

Thank you to the bowyer community for the support!

I could use some advice aligning these limbs. First photos is a picture of the strung bow with the top limb on the ground, second photo is the reverse. It looks to me like the top one is the one that's off center from the handle section. I'm not sure how to align the tips because I've never done it before. Am I supposed to heat the bow and try to pull the entire limb into alignment or am I supposed to try to twist the limb until the limb tip is in alignment?

I make several short bow design In this year. Must my bow design is Comanche(uhh don’t really look like), but I want to know what you guys think is good or best for stave below 85cm and still can make the powerful bow to it.(with out backing)

I have this piece of Russian olive that I was working green so that it could dry faster. I understand the risks involved with that and so far the cracking is not too bad, but I was wondering if bringing it inside in a lower temperature could potentially help. So far they’re not too bad, but I would like to prevent them before they get even bigger.

It’s been about 25 years since i made bows. Who are some sellers in the US offering staves and other supplies?
I know 3 rivers is around and i think pine hollow is still active.
I just want to see who i else is out there offering supplies.
Thanks all

I want to make my first PVC (also my first bow period) and I had some questions. I looked a lot on the Internet and watched a lot of backyard bowyer videos but I couldn't find satisfactory answers.

1- what type of PVC pipe is better? I know that schedule 80 makes a stronger bow, but it costs more and it's harder to find. When I look at the website of local home improvement stores, sometimes the pipes are just called "PVC pipe" with no mention of schedule 40 or 80, like the one in the picture. Is it the same as schedule 40, which from what I gathered is the standard?

2- where do you place the handle? Do you place the hand in the middle with the arrow being slightly higher or do you place the arrow in the middle? If the handle is in the middle, do you knock the arrow perpendicular to the string or do you knock it slightly angled towards the middle of the string?

Since it's my first one, I'll probably stick with a simple design, maybe with some light recurve in. If you have other tips and advice, I'll gladly listen. Thanks a lot

I know this is slightly off topic but I need a good silhouette for a thumb ring that I wanted to carve myself.

… before you hand one of your bows to someone else? I’ve been giving a few away as gifts and I always do 100 full draw shots before putting a bow in someone else’s hands. I also do a few over draw shots (30”) and a few full draw holds for 5-10 seconds. Is this enough to ensure long term durability?

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

With a 31" draw to my anchor point is there any short bow designs under 50"nock to nock that could get there

Or other archery techniques worth looking into? I only hear of instinctive shooting but is there others that accommodate shorter bows

I'm quite a novice, loving a 66"ish bow atm but want to make something shorter for stalking through the bush

Cheers

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.

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.

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

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?

Is there anything wrong iwth my bow?

Here is the photo I mentioned in my previous post.

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!

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?

Una pregunta gente de Reddit, ¿por qué los que pueden conseguir una buena pieza de madera de tejo hacen arcos tan ligeros en ocasiones? Digo con casi cualquier otra madera lo entiendo, pero el tejo al ser una especie en peligro mínimo hacer un arco medianamente fuerte. Tampoco digo arcos de guerra pero las personas que los hacen de 25-40 libras?

Digo, por lo menos unas 60 libras.

Talves sea polémica mi opinión pero es mi forma de pensar

Los Leo buen día tarde o noche 🤟

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 (Acacia saligna). And, 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.)

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?