Your how-to videos are the best for making bows of anybody I've seen. What a body of work you've contributed, and what a gift to the bowyer (wannabe's included) community! I'm taking notes for doing my first board bow, hopefully hickory. Thank you for your videos.
Thank you very much. It is encouraging to hear your feedback. I had a lot of great help when I started so I enjoy giving back the community when I can. Good luck with your projects
When I built my first red oak longbow in the pyramid style, I was to uncertain to cut nocks. I glued and wrapped wedges instead. Now I am confident enough to go back to my old bow and cut nocks. I remember thinking I could build and finish a bow in a day. It took me 2 weeks. The majority of the time was tillering. Scraping and tuning with a cabinet scraper
Lots of great information. Currently building two board bows. One for my daughter and one for myself. Getting ready to start tillering my daughters, but I’m wondering what would be a good draw weight for a 7 year old first timer? Enjoying the building process and learning a lot. More projects to come in the future, thanks for your videos.
That's great! good question. I'm currently working on a video about kids bows but it's not done yet. My son is the one building the bow for the project so I'm going at his pace. Haha. Draw weight for kids bows can be a little tricky because kids can vary quite a bit in size and strength at that age. i think it's good to build bows for kids that are a little longer than needed so that they can grow into the bow for a few years. For example. of she can only draw 16" now you could build a bow that draws safely to 20-21". often around 20#@20" is a fairly good bench mark. At her current draw length she will probably only be drawing 12-14# but it will go up as she grows and draws a little further. The bottom line is that it needs to be comfortable and easy for her to draw or she wont enjoy it. I'd design the bow with the longer draw length in mind for the future and then just keep tillering until she can draw it comfortably right now. Then she can grow into it a bit.
Swiftwood Bows if I measured correctly, she has an 18” draw. I did a bit more of an American flat bow design, being that I used red oak, for a bit more material. Hopefully a bit more safe design with that wood. It does feel pretty stiff but it’s bending nicely. I’m just concerned that I may have to remove too much material to get it down to a easier draw weight. Backed with drywall tape as it’s what I had. If she enjoys it as much as I hope, I’ll start on a hickory bow and back it with raw hide. Also didn’t want to invest too much at first in case she didn’t enjoy archery. I’m thinking she will and i get to craft more bows in the future. Thanks for your response and help.
Are you able to put a riser on all four sides and shape the risers where you shape it to have an arrow rest on the right and left hand sides while allowing area to add a sight on a board bow where it doesn't effect the back or belly?
Awesome content man! So what adjustments can you do if the string alignment is off? I also had an issue with limb twist with a few board bows I've made. I checked out your website and sent an email with some photos. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
Hey, I was curious where you didn't chase a ring if it would make the back of your bow more likely to pop a splinter? I am just getting ready to try and make my first bow, so I was just a bit curious
As long as the grain is running straight through on both the face and sides then the board will have a lot of integrity. quartersawn boards are typically easier to find with straight grain than flat sawn. I like working with staves but if you cant get good staves a good board will make a fine bow.
Great job, thank you! I have two questions... How is this clamp called that you use in the vise? Commercial or self-made? Second, when I look at the board in part 1, the back of the bow should not have one complete growthring? Is this not so critical with this design, I thought this is important? Thanks again - phil
Thank you. That is called a stave press, you can get them on 3rivers website. Ideally a bow should have one complete growth ring on the back. When using a board that is not usually possible. As long as the grain is running all the way through the board from end to end on the back and sides it will have enough integrity to make a durable bow. If you have a board that is thick enough you can sometimes chase a ring if they are oriented in the right direction.
Hey, great Tutorial! I have a question: I'm about to build my first Bow, but the only proper piece of Wood I got my hands on is a 63" piece of Beech. It is a thick enough piece to to make a stave bow out of and the Grain looks good. Would a pyramid Bow be a good idea to start with? As far as I know the design works good with short limbs and the fact that you can build it symmetrical would make it easier to tiller, I guess.. If I choose a Flatbow design I'm afraid it wouldn't draw to 29" which is my drawlength.
I don't think beech makes a good bow. I've never tried it but from what I heard it's not really suitable. With a 63" board you'll only get a 61" bow. Double your draw length of 29" and add 8" for the non bending section and you get 66" as a safe minimum. That's adding you're using a good bow wood. With something less than optimal you likely want that even longer to take off some stress. So given all of that I'd say keep looking for better wood. You'll be glad you did.
I think America elm and white mulberry are the 2 woods I would use. I am making a horse bow out of mulberry and I really have to use the big rasp on this. Tougher than Osage orange or Pacific yew.
Hey Richard, I began anyway its White Beech (the only kind of Beech you can use for a bow) so it should be fine, i have to string it today and start the tillering process... maybe I'll back it first with tape just to be on the save side but it's working so far.. wish me luck!
It's a scaper holder from Lee valley tools. The joints imy hands get sore after a lot of scraping and the holder eliminates that problem. It's not super cheap but for me who does this everyday it was well worth it.
I've got all kinds of extra strings lying around. If I didn't have one the length I needed I would just make one that was long enough. You could use something else if it was strong enough and didn't stretch too much. Just keep it as short as you can.
@@FunHobbies225 haha, sorry. Didn't mean to imply you should have it laying around. That was just my way of saying I haven't had to get creative. I've heard of people using paracord so I'd give it a try if it's all you've got. I'm sure it will stretch a bit though. You'll need a real bow string soon anyway so you might be better off buying a spool of string material and learning how to make flemish loop strings. Then you can go ahead and make a tillering string too.
@@SwiftwoodBows right I found a guy that builds them so getting him to make me a tiller string for now then get a bow string when done with tiller the right length. What length you used when u finished the bow I built mine exactly same size and doing it same power u did
Hey man I just got through my first board bow (red cedar) and had some compression lines in the wood closest to the handle and developed some cracks later on bottom limb. Any key tips to avoid that on the next one?
Are you using Eastern red cedar or western red cedar? Compression fractures come from the wrong design/wood choice, poor tiller or wood that has too much moisture. The tiller stick could cause compression issues due to adding unnecessary stress but it's likely that one or more of those other factors were involved as well.
Swiftwood Bows I couldn’t tell you, but the red cedar was from Home Depot. It actually feels somewhat dry but I’m not entirely sure. For poor tillering, which it may be, how do I fix this? On the limb near the handle had the largest gap when put with a straight edge, but this should be find right ? Or should it be the same gap all the way down the bow?
@@cadegossett2653 it's likely western red cedar that you're using then. Unfortunately western red cedar is just not suitable for bows. It's too light, too soft and too weak in both tension and compression. If it doesn't break on you it will be riddled with compression fractures. I really think you should quit while you're ahead on that one and find a more suitable bow wood. I don't mean to be discouraging but there are some woods that are just straight up not cut out to be a bow and that's one of them.
