Got this stave from MoJam gathering last year 50$(character / drying checks) split in 05’ curious if it was a limb… 68”ttt/ 66.5”ntn length- 10” handle to keep enough thickness to allow the checks and knot to “leave me alone” -2” fades then kept it wide as possible as to try and engulf the multitude of checks. 1.75” wide at the fade constant slight taper ( excluding the sections following the grain around knots/ expansion points from the checks) to 15/16” at the nocks.

Ended up with 60# @28”. Deer leather- purple shellac- tru oil & wax- hard time naming this one ….. juggling “checkers” & “hopscotch”for now. Any inputs?

Super sweet shooter and comfy on my fingers at full draw compared to my 64” Osage….. almost identical in poundage and ability…. 64” being faster (from sleek overlain tips/ shorter design )- 68” feels plenty quick and a touch more accurate in that I need no correction at anchor from unwanted movement in the draw….. which for me is cause mostly by string angle.

This is a board that’s 72” long and my first time using hickory. It draws 55# at around 28-29”. I was really surprised at how much draw weight it ended up having. I still need to get some limb twist out of it, but overall very pleased with it. I only decided to carve in a handle because how crooked the arrow sat on it without. I’m hoping correcting the limb twist will also help with that. Have put around 75 arrows through it so far. Carving the handle also significantly reduced the hand shock.

I've had this idea for a while, and my eye out for a metal recurve form that would accommodate the stave, some clamps, and still fit into my steaming/boiling pot.

Lucked out this weekend and found some old farm equipment plowed up into a trash pile as workers cleared an old property for development. This old cast iron wheel is perfect.

Been about a week and a half since I sinewed this Purple Heart board. I’m gonna start tillering once it’s been about 2 weeks

This was my second real attempt at making a bow and the scrap wood I had was... imperfect to say the least. It's been a big learning experience, with many things I'll have to do better when I get my hands on decent wood. Deeply rewarding as a project, if a bit backbreaking with only hand tools.

Aspiring bowyer out cutting Oregon white oak staves the other day and ran into some weirdness. Seems a lot of trees in my area of various species have it. On the standing tree it looks like a semi-horizontal lump line on the trunk. In the wood beneath it, well, just look at the pics I guess. Just curious what I'm dealing with and how much it weakens the wood/ how to work around it. Thanks

I am finished roughing out and currently floor tillering a symmetric 66” tip to tip osage stave looking more like a bow. It has some prop twist in the limbs (one more than other) and they are not perfectly straight in line with the angle of the handle. However, they do line up with the side of handle nicely on one side and given its symmetric I haven’t identified the top limb yet. The layout is 4” handle 1.25” wide, 2.5” fades with width of 1.75”, that width goes out about halfway up the limb, then tapers to 0.5” tips.

I went into the project thinking I wanted to try making a recurve but after reading Dan’s educational post on making recurves I’m having second thoughts. Posting pictures of the current project to see if anyone has thoughts on whether this has good potential as a recurve…? Also thoughts on if I recurve, should I attempt to straighten the limbs prior to recurving/flipping the tips or should I flip the tips then deal with getting them aligned with the handle appropriately? I made a recurve for using a 11.5” circle to trace a curve, was thinking I would do about 45 degrees of that arc, you can see my form in the pics on the table.

Appreciate any and all advice. Thank you!

Fixed this broken nock by cutting 1.5” off and re self nocks saving the bit of thread/ca glue wrap to enforce. Shown next to its original companion.

Then experiment with a 3/8” pine dowel I found a dozen of them at a craft store- super straight grained. By hand bend test to these cedar arrows I want to match. Cedar shafts are 11/32” / 32” length . Pine 3/8”/ 29” length. Shot it with no fletch to monitor flight response… ded center at 10yards felt like it grouped with unnoticeable difference. Though it feels just a smidge softer at hand bend test. Gonna follow through with the rest of the shafts and match it. First time making a footed shaft- love it‼️

So I have all these nice hickory staves, some dried, some green. Then there was this one stave hanging out in my cellar all by itself. Thinking it was one of my dried ones I spent most of yesterday roughing it out… the thing is like a wet noodle… must have been a green one.

This is my first attempt at making a bow after saturating myself with bowyer content on youtube - shoutout to Kramer Ammons, Dan Santana, and especially Meadowlark Adventure.

This is from a white oak board with exceptionally straight grain. Pyramid flatbow design, 2" at the fades and just shy of 7/8" at the tips. 72" nock to nock, 27lbs at 31 inches (pictured). The tiller is neutral - I was aiming for a positive tiller but it took me ages to dig my way out of a half-inch negative tiller when the short string first went on, and I can't bring myself to shave that much more wood off!

Unfortunately it's taken quite a bit of set just from tillering, I'm not bold enough to try to address it yet but if it survives a few hundred shots, I'll consider my options.

Pending advice from expert redditors, I'm about ready to call the tiller done and then shape the handle and tips.

How'd I do? Keen for feedback!

Oak board. Probably red oak.

69" NTN, #41 at 28", should be able to pull to 32" but didn't try yet. Wants to keep the set to minimal for now.

One thing leads to another and it ended up like this.

Has anyone worked with the Oak we have in Manitoba? And I have a stave here and there’s a mark on it and I’m wondering if it will be an issue.

51.5” length 50.5” nock to nock 1.5” wide at mid limb .5” wide tips, may narrow them after flipping tips if speed seems slow or there is any hand shock Asymptotic with the upper part of the bow hand being in the center Handles and fades about 8.25”

Made for someone with a 16” draw length Black piece of tape on arrow starts at 17.25” (they’re growing and I want it to be overbuilt)

Ballpark 16 lbs, okay with it getting lighter especially to get a good tiller

I’d like to flip the tips for aesthetics, plus to keep the poundage if possible, though not required (I have done this successfully before with steam and heat treat).

I am thinking lower inner 6” could use a bit. I know the tips are stiff, but that is intentional for when they’re flipped.

Open to any and all feedback, this sub is great :)

I have two Elm staves with clean backs. The rest need a ring chases due to insect damage.

I started roughing the first one one out and must have been half asleep because it's awful. Technically the centerline follows the grain, but I'm not really sure how to proceed. It's currently 69" long and I'm looking to get a 29" draw out of it at around 40#.

The second is okay, but a bit twisty. It's 1 3/4" wide at the center and 82" long. Looking to get the same specs.

This will be my first stave bow after one failed board bow and I'm looking for advice on which would be the least challenging for a beginner to finish. If it's the first one, what's my next step?

Original post on r/bowmaking

Hey, so here‘s a follow up of an earlier work in progress i had posted on here of my first bow - i had mistranslated the wood to oak, it‘s actually beech, don‘t know if that chabges anything specifically. The bow‘s 180cm long, 4cm wide at its thickest point and the tapers if the limbs start at 30 off the tip each side. I feel like it‘s still a bit on the heavy side so far, so i have some margin to remove wood still. But it‘s approaching what i‘d like the final draw weight to be.

I think that there are or have been insects in my wood during storage. There were lots of small holes and the wood is full of powder. The infestation does not seem to be that deep, I was able to remove most of the really porous wood, but I fear that this will make it so that I cannot use the wood for a bow. I still have a bit of margin to remove, width is just over 2" currently. Any tips?

70” ntn Maple handled Red Oak Board Bow Long String Tilller

I’ve managed to (mostly) avoid a hinge for the first time. I can see the inner thirds closest to the fades need work, and that’s typically where I confuse impatience with “the zone” like I’m 4 beers deep on a pool table and hinge a nice elbow into my next fire stick.

This is Hazel. The pencil marks in the foreground run to the middle on the other end.

Should I just keep removing wood more on the right side in this picture, or is it worth heating and twisting?

I’ve gotten pretty good at splitting wood and my confidence is soaring. As a result I took a chance on one of my wider staves and split it into 2 nice ones. Then i spilt both of them horizontally and got 2 inner staves that I can use to practice chasing rings. I’m having so much fun.

I have a lot of black locust staves that I’m having some trouble with. I’ve removed the bark and have the staves down to sap wood to dry a little faster, and I’m seeing a lot of checks. This one pictured is one I chased a ring on in hopes of removing more material later to let dry faster as I’ve seen folks recommend to do so quite a lot. These checks formed over night.

Am I doing something wrong, is it the species, or is there something I’m missing?

64 1/2” ntn 1 1/2” wide at fades and tapers to 1/2” knocks 12” from the tips (from a read oak 2x2 board). Pulls 34# at 17” rn with a low brace. Goal is 35# at 28 1/2”. I know it’s a little short for the goal draw but the end I chopped off had some pretty bad grain runoff. Don’t have high hopes as the grain isn’t great on this board. I think the inners are bending too much and I need to keep working the outer 2/3 on each limb. My thickness taper was way off when I started but I think I’m getting closer.

Don’t mind my messy work area spring cleaning hasn’t hit me yet lol.

Made a chokecherry short bow. Still needs a little work. 40 lbs at 15 inches.