Been watching some episodes of Alone, and it has me wanting to try and make a bow. I have access to lots of ash I can cut down that I assume would work well, although I would probably need to dry it rather than wait a year or two for it to dry.
Alternatively I could just try with green wood to see if I could do it. Then buy some wood to do a proper one after.
Anyone done it before? How difficult was it?
I assume I have all the tools I would need. I have the time. Thinking this might be a good project. Open to ideas.
Nice. Got any pics? Was it difficult to get it evenly balanced? Did you steam the ends to curve? Gonna watch some vids this weekend and decide how I to proceed.
I don’t have the patience to cut and dry a stave, so I picked up some suitable maple at the wood store today. Will get to work on it in the coming days and will post pics. Hopefully when all is said and done i can begin my new career. A meddlesome sheriff has been terrorizing my local woods, so I need a bow to protect the poor people of the forest
Got a little over zealous on my rough out using a draw knife on the board and ended up going a little too thin. Made a tillering tree and checked it out and it was light- around 34lbs @28" draw. Took it down to make
Some adjustments to even things out with the card scraper, went to string it back up to check again, and BAM- snapped a limb while stringing it. Obviously it was too thin and there was a slight imperfection where it snapped.
Lessons learned- slow down. Don’t take off so much at a time.
Gonna pick up more wood this weekend and try to find some time to try again.
It’s fun. I think I learned a bunch and will try a couple more over the next week. They don’t take much time to do, but it’s still gutting snapping my first one like that before I even had a chance to shoot it and put my
eye out.
Was also a good excuse to buy a couple new tools- a new draw knife and a beefy farriers rasp.
Well, got it functional. Still one more round of scraping the one side, then some final sanding and making it prettier. Obviously not a showpiece lol. But it shoots! It’s pretty light, only about 35# at 28". Will play around with this one for a bit and probably make another heavier one soon out of maple with a nicer handle. This is red oak with a small chunk of walnut to beef up the handle.
Definitely a fun little project to make something functional.
My plan is to try and get some grouse with it in a couple weeks. My aim is still decent despite not touching a bow in 20 years, but will still need to be within 12-15 yards to get a grouse I think.
If you are interested in trying, it’s pretty easy. Would be a good father son project to make a couple.
All you need are:
Farriers rasp
Oak or maple board (straight grain is crucial)
Card scraper
Measuring tools/straight edge
Small file/chainsaw file to cut nocks
Bow string sized to your bow
Longer bow string or thin paracord to use while tillering.
Recommend a tillering tree and scale- any fish scale or similar would work with a 2x4 and some paracord.
Made homemade arrows one year at boy scout camp and shot them with the provided recurve bows the camp had. When i got home, i promptly grabbed my compound bow to see how my wooden arrow would shoot. The shot went about 4’ high, over the hay bale, and squarely into the front of the barn, shattering it into splintered bits.
Haha- nice. I figured with making arrows the juice wouldn’t be worth the squeeze. Can’t really personalize them, and the tolerances for error must be minuscule. I just bought a bunch off Amazon.
I’m a bit concerned about what will happen in the event of a catastrophic failure at full draw- I.e. bow limb to the eyeball… hopefully that doesn’t happen. May wear safety glasses for a while just to be safe.
My brother made one that you could kill a man with when he was about 12 maybe. Thing was serious.
Power rating if my brother’s Triax is a 10, my Solocam is a 7 my Bear recurve is a 3.5 his stick bow was a legit 2.
I would estimate it could shoot a fiberglass arrow at over 100fps. It was shocking how good it was. All of our previous attempts were essentially not a weapon. He made a legit short bow.
I don’t know what those numbers mean. I ended up making 3 between 29- 45lb draw. Two oak one maple.
It’s fun, but the details are tricky. Have a bad hinge in the heavier one, and it’s not going to work out. I don’t trust it. The others are a bit too light at ~30lbs ish. Fun to shoot in the yard, and could definitely kill, but my aim isn’t good enough to hunt at this stage. I’d want to be better with my shots before I go after a grouse
My brother’s Triax is 80lb draw, 30.5 inch draw. It’s insanely powerful so its 10/10. 350fps. In decending order my Solo is 50lbs 29 inch draw. 240fps. Its about 35% less powerful, and so on. Just a rudimentary comparison. Withouts listing data as such.
That seems nuts to me. I was doing these at 28-29" draw. After playing around, 50lbs is the most I’d want if I was going to be firing off a lot of arrows. All the ones I did were 66"amo
I havent shot my Solo in over a year. I think I have bone spurs in my shoulders. The 80lb Triax is extremely hard. My Solo is a minor challenge but nothing like Triax. I bought a 200 dollar pillow to help my shoulders but it just fucked my back up.
