Build a Primitive Survival Bow - Live tree to long bow in two days 

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I know! I subscribedright away🤗

You bet!

Exactly!

And I will do just that too! THANKS🤝

Staves are the easy part of survival. You don't really even need what most would think of as a stave. A bundle of sticks tied together can make a bow that will kill a deer. Quite literally, anyone who has spent time in the woods can make a satisfactory bow in very little time. The difficult part is the bowstring, and the arrows from nose to toes. Making arrows that are accurate enough to protect you, and to bring in meat, is infinitely more difficult than making a bow. And if you've never made natural cordage, you'd better have some with you, or your bow just became a long, skinny club. Frankly, seasoning a bow stave is what you do when aren't in a survival situation. If you're in a real survival situation long enough to season a bow stave, you probably aren't getting out alive, anyway. It's easy, faster, far more efficient to keeping using green staves than it is to try seasoning one. The idea is to move, to get out of the situation, not to spend time trying to season a green stave. Native Americans, and anyone dependent on bows, should know enough to have several bows ready to go, and a supply of staves in the drying process, but this is not something you do in an emergency. A green bow, especially one you've been drying over a fire for hours, is all you need, and then some. You move, you keep moving, and you keep your eyes open. With a little bit of luck, you find a piece of wood nature has dried for you. But none of this matters without a string, and without pretty good arrows. This is where ninety-noine percent of you time in this area will be spent. And having said this, too many people think about hunting as a way out of a survival situation. It almost never is. This comes from too much TV, or maybe too much RU-vid. Unless you're in the desert, at least ninety percent of your protein will come from streams, creeks, rivers, lakes, or the ocean, not from hunting. Most of the rest of your protein will come from trapping and foraging. Hunting is uncertain, and will usually burn more calories than you will get in return. Fish traps work while you sleep, as do fishing lines used as banklines of trot lines. Bows are good thinks, but you'd better be expert at making arrows, including arrowheads, from scratch because this is the hard part. Not a hunter/gatherer trick, but something every woodsmen has known for at least seventeen hundred years. Contrary to books, movies, and RU-vid, the number one knife, by far, of hunters, trappers, pioneers, frontiersmen, survivalists, soldiers, sailors, woodcarvers, and the general public for the past seventeen hundred years has not been a belt knife, it's been a pocketknife with more than one blade. The big belt knife has always been used for self-defense, and for skinning/processing very large game, and the pocketknife has done all other knife work. Simply put, the pocketknife with more than one blade, specifically with more that one type of blade, such as the Stockman, does all of these things better than any knife with only one blade. But something else the pocketknife with more than one blade does is provide you with at least one, and often two, emergency arrowheads, two broadheads you can snap off, groove, and glue/lash to the end of an arrow. And you'll still have a working knife. A pocketknife with only one blade is as useless as teats on a boar. You're infinitely better off with a belt knife. But a pocketknife with at least two blades, and three is better, particularly those on a Stockman, is better than any other knife you can have, and better, in fact, than your belt knife and you bow put together. Every culture where such knives have been readily available has known this since the invention of the pocketknife. In a real survival situation, anyone can make a workable bow, but darned few can make workable arrows. Knowledge comes first, and the knife comes second. Wrong knife means lack of knowledge, and lack of knowledge kills.

Very good suggestions!

Lots of Native American Sinew Styles.

Compound bows with near 90 degree limbs are going to have about no hand shock, because there's no forward momentum of the limbs to resonate.

That's awesome, very interesting stuff. I like the idea of there being different levels of bows due to time and resource constraints, yet all require a minimum standard. Is there any resources you would reccomend for a beginner to learn about bow crafting? Any particular books?

The traditional Bowyer's Bible will tell you everything you need to know

Thanks John

wolf paw Small axe AND a kukhuri? Isn't that a bit redundant?

Scowler redundant? What you on benerfits?

Yep. Yucca, nettle, elm bark, etc.

Thanks Wayne, and good luck!

Haha! Good luck man. And have fun!

@@clayhayeshunter ANyhtime I am doing something with a hunk of wood, it's fun. Even the fails....Ultimately, if I tried this with a $2.50 pine 2x4, I'd learn something and your channel seems to be all about that process so, thans for the motivation and some of the thought that goes into a bow..like back-set and recurve and and and.. much to think about..lots of fun to have. won't cost me anything but my time..

Yes. Check out the. Board bow series.

I’ve done some smithing before.

Hey Rob, there is a short section on BL in the book. It’ll make a good bow but has a tendency to fret if there is a slight weak spot.

With the right shot it would be sufficient for elk.

We’d been planning on going together for a while!

Correct on the sinew and rawhide comparison. as to recurving the tips, you wouldn't be able to do that after backing without cooking the rawhide off the bow. Additionally, eastern red cedar doesn't respond to heat nearly as well as osage.

That would be what you are working on while the bow is drying. In a real situation you only need one or two arrows, more would be nice, but not really needed.

Bob Rees yea but arrows take more variety of material and take more precision to make than a bow. My biggest concern with building a “survival bow” in that situation would first be even getting close enough to an animal to kill and then actually hitting it when you get that chance.

One step at a time.

MustObeyTheRules Find more young cedar, cut every 28", split, whittle, duct tape for fletchings, cut up a can for broadheads, secure to head with fishing line or wire.

Several books about Ishi out there. How to make arrows and the bow. How to shoot and hunt.

Yes

I've heard on some bow woods you can like hickory per say but I haven't dealt with it enough to give you a proper answer but in short, yes. I would just make sure whatever wood you would like to use won't bust the bark off the back of the bow once it is under tension.

Plant fibre. In the USA yucca, dogbane, milkweed, mescal etc were used for bowdtrings and performed well as they werent affected by moisture. Not as good as sinew but they work.

I'm sure it's been done but I have't tried it.

It’ll work fine but it’s a little sluggish and the bows tend to take more set/string follow than better woods.

Yeah I figured that out I just finished my second bow I'd ever made and I had those issues also I had issues with splitting and fractures more so then when I used hickory for the first one

Haha! I did an older video where I cooked a trout and wild mushrooms on coals.

True, I was just showing that you could make a decent bow with minimal tools from a live tree in short time.

Well that depends on what tools you have on you when you “enter” that survival situation. I’ve built a 47# longbow using nothing but a 3 inch knife and a crude hand axe made of Texas Flint. You won’t have the perfectly sanded and finished bow you would get in a shop. But if tillered correctly it will perform just as well as a bow made at home. I currently build bows for customers that are made using nothing but a farriers rasp, machete or large knife, and a hatchet. Of course sandpaper and wood stain are used after, and a deer antler for burnishing. But THAT is minimal, like Clay was saying. I pack those tools in my pack anytime I travel or go into the woods. I’ve built a handful of stone tool bows and have learned to appreciate that extra 8 pounds of bow-making equipment in my pack.

The original review of the Sioux Bow ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-EnPud4T8Fus.html impressive with a more correct weight arrow.

We who are descended from the First People don't appreciate this comment.

So.....you are a descendant of the Moon Eyed people, the Azgens or the people from before?

Or maybe the mound builders? Just curious

www.firstpeople.us/

His name was Ishi