How to Make a Longbow 

"And now for something completely different ..." - Monty Python, MrCrispin

The smell in that wood shop must be delightful

I was said student and it was a pleasure to be part of the video.

Fond memories of the green Hazel bows my Grandfather and I made every summer. Bledlow village was safe from the French until school started again in September.

Really great teaching and workmanship there. The carved warrior head was a really beautiful touch. And I raise a glass to your late friend Mr Derrick Conway. Long may his memory live on!

What a delightful video, and a super team of instructors and students!

Well, you have done it again Crispin! You have somehow taken something that is totally foreign to me and made it fascinating! A superb video as always - thank you !

As a professional engineer who makes furniture for fun, this a lovely inspiration for something new to try:) thanks

Really enjoyed that mr crispin fantastic insight into bow making thanks

Fun Video! I watch your channel for your machining work but I didn't know you loved archery too. I have been shooting for years and woodworking on and off since my middle school days. In just this past year have taken up the goal to learn to make my own bow. I have made one which I have successfully shot but was under-powered. my second bow was coming along nicely before it broke on me during tillering and testing. It was great to see how the club in your video teaches the crafting techniques. I hope to complete my next bow soon.

Very interesting! Longbows are very scarce here in South Africa, so I really enjoyed watching the process. The bows we made as boys were a lot more crude, basically just a single piece of Rasinbush, and all the shapong was done with a pocketknife. We made our strings from animal sinew though, and that was almost as laborious a process as making the bow. First you had to kill the animal, and that without a bow. After finding and cutting out the sinew, we boiled it to get it to seperate into strings, then clean them thoroughly before plaiting them. However those strings lasted many years of boyhood practice and mischeif. Thanks for bringing back the memories Mr!

Hey mate! Hope everything is alright! Keep the videos coming!

I haven’t seen Cascamite glue since I helped my father mix it up from powder with water as a boy. I will be sixty next year. Thank you for the memory!😊

"Careful you'll have someones eye out with that!" King Harold 1066

Fascinating! I went to a castle some years ago where there were some demonstrations of medieval English archery. After the demonstrations, I asked them about the longbows and what they would have been made of. The bloke doing the demos reckoned that the stave of the bow would have been made from yew (for its flexibility), and ash (for its strength), although I'm not sure how they would have been bonded. The string would have been made from willow I assume as it has long and strong floppy branches. Not sure how true it was, but he also told me that this was the reason why church yards always had yew trees in them so that could be easily farmed for their branches.

That was very interesting. I have been interested in archery. Brilliant.

Fantastic! Nice to get out of the workshop once in while. Excellent instructors and a blast to watch. The comments are nearly as fun as the video. Very enjoyable to read about all the past experiences folks have with archery.

Brilliant. What a fantastic way to get out of the workshop. I really enjoyed this little out of the shop video.

Well, did a course some years back to teach Archery and enjoyed teaching young people in the use of. Didn’t know how they were built up though. Thats another string in my bow. Excellent video Mr Crispin and all the cast. Many thanks for sharing. Till the next one, stay well.

Hello Crispin, enjoyed the video. I too am a engineer, started in my father's factory at the age of 7. Health and safety, Hmmm. I also do archery, have done for many years, not only target shooting but making them as well. My heart was overjoyed to see the art of engineer tea drinking isn't dead. Carn't beat a cold cup of tea, but now I'm in my 60's I've installed a microwave in the workshop to keep the tea hot. Keep up with the archery, nice to see we've got something in common.

What great episode!!!👍😀

Thoroughly enjoyed watching this one, very well presented. Big thanks to Andy and Mel for showing us all the details. Well done!! Good luck from Spain!!

What a great idea. Thank you, sir.

Archery is a Nice sport 40 years ago half of our family was shooting competition weekly No Some nephews are shooting

Good evening (2159 here in Australia) Sir, Just a quick check in to see that all is good in your world. Look forward to your next video. 👍🇦🇺

So very interesting. Thanks for making this.

Very interesting , nice to see people making their own equipment.

Very interesting topic. Thanks for posting.

Of course Mr Crispin is an Archer, and has awesome friends like Andy and Mel who are beautiful craftsmen, love the content and appreciate the hard work

As much as I love the bow calculator, the nifty tools, and the gorgeous woods, my favorite part is listening to your wonderful English, Mr. Crispin...I don't hear it where I am from.

Mr C, they used to have archery practice next to the main office at RR Hucknall. I can remember being stuck in a rather boring meeting and looking at them practicing their archery skills.

Absolutely Fascinating 👍👍😎👍👍

A very interesting departure from the machining content that is typical of your channel. Attention to the nuance of how these are built is right in line with your presentation style and I enjoyed it immensely. A nice peak into the other parts of your interest portfolio. Thank you for sharing with us.

That opening clip made me chuckle 🤣🤣🤣 Great work Mr C 👍

Good day Mr. Crispin!

This was great ! thanks

So something totally different and very enjoyable Thank you

Great video fantastic team of instructor's well done for putting up something so different on your channel

This was an interesting insight into modern longbow manufacture, with its odd mixing of English and Japanese woods and hand-tools.

Amazing bro

You are multi talented. A new facet to you. Thanks for making this video. If my shoulder will let me I need to get to my local range and try to shoot again.

Very interesting and very educational. Beautifully presented video. Thanks very much, Mr. C.

Far out that’s a long way from me with a green branch and string.😊

greetings to everyone. i love this.😃

That was an unexpected treat. I used to shoot. Set up an archery club at uni and had an instructor from Overdale Bolton. Couldn't draw a longbow though too heavy. Still have my old yamaha somewhere.

I just spent one hour of my life watching this whole video. I'm a new subscriber. I don't know man, there is something about Mr. Crispin that just draws you in...

Excellent. Now we’ll all be ready to take part in the Agincourt rematch.

Great.... now i have to look into a class here in the states

Way cool !!

I’ve been watching you machine and never realised you are a fellow archer.

That Sir is probably the best piece of RU-vid i have ever watched. Hats off to you (pun intended) congratulations.

Muy buen trabajo de enseñanza y muy bonitos arco, mi enhorabuena

In your opening scene I almost expected to see the butler holding the target up.

Hope all is well sir. Was watching another channel and they mentioned your name and just thought i would stop by and see how you were. Are you still working on the locomotive?? Hope to see some new content soon! Cheers!!

Excellent video. That process was big industry 700/800 years ago. All ye named Fletcher,Bowman, Archer, Arrowsmith or whatever can attest to that,

When you threw your hat, I somehow was expecting it to land in your workshop on one of your machines, or on the head of Jefferson😅 And as always thanks for another very interested video!

Love the humour. Almost as dry as in my video

hope you dont get an allergic reaction to that funny coloured metal mr crispin!, shot longbows myself, not as easy as you'd think, nice to see the tradition kept up.

Blimey, what a workout the bed was getting at 52 :30

Oh **** I may well have competed against you, I started shooting 22 years ago (recurve) until about 6 years ago (kids). I used to compete rather a lot including shooting for Warwickshire and I have a couple of good friends who shoot at Anchor Bowmen... Also nice technique :) Funnily enough my main hobby is fine woodworking and making a longbow is on my list of things to do so this'll be a useful video!

Now that MrCrispin was very interesting to watch 😁👍👍 , do you have any plans to do more future videos on this ?

I now know what a knocking shop is. It is where you add knocks to a longbow.

Something different, very interesting. Arrow making in the future maybe?

brilliant! next, come visit Texas and ill teach you how to hand forge some bodkin and swallowtail arrowheads. :) ( cant blame a fella for tryin )

👏👏👏👏

Coming up: Violin making, followed by Church Organ building? Joking aside, I found this fascinating!

Very different to your usual videos... and very interesting! As a former hobbyist woodturner of 25+ years ( I now turn steel into chips!) the wood selection seemed somewhat surprprising. I thought you'd be using some fine English yew rather than exotics.

Nice video. Although I seem to remember something about a locomotive that was being built. 🤔

Another fine (but unexpected) video Mr. Crispin! If my history is correct the English longbow is a key reason you folks north of the Channel don't speak French as your first language. I enjoyed my days in target archery (compound bows) but haven't participated in nearly thirty years.

The arrows are next? really enjoyable video!

I have an old 90lb long bow and that thing is a bear to pull!

Thought that longbows were usually made from yew.

Good ☹🇬🇧

⭐🙂👍

I would blue that stave to measure the cup fit 😁

Just wondering if it's possible to get yew wood suitable for longbow these days?

Oh you toxophyle you. Lovely!

Thank you for this interesting and well presented feature! The audio was perhaps not as finely crafted as your metalwork, but headphones helped and nothing was lost. Like a Meister you have the sitting, drinking tea, watching with half an eye down pat - but you can’t fool us, there was enough footage of you giving a hand - you are a good man :)

JRR Tolkien's Numenorean Men used hollow core (tube) steel long bows; presumably some kind of spring(y) steel.

Too smooth to glue is a myth! There have been quite a few A/B tests done and there is no difference between smooth and rough sanded. I may sand to remove planer marks or contamination from the planer deck but it's not necessary for glue.

A longbow for Longshanks, as it were. :)

Are you using Dacron for the strings? Noticed no one from the dark side shooting at the club😱. When do you start your course? 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Thats very interesting, did'nt know we share the same archery interests! Forget about all that engineering malarky, lets go shoot some arrows! or playing archery as my wife calls it.

Needs a dial indicator... somewhere... I'm sure of it!

I was sure that first arrow was going to end up in your hat!

I have always followed mums advice...."Don't jerk it"!

I guess I could take an abundant stave of ash, dry it out and carve a flat-bow out of it, just like in the Viking-age. Yew exists, but are mostly not available in Sweden, because of their toxicity to horses and cattle, historically :)

jolly good crisper!! tally ho

Guys headphone warning on the bandsaw. Holy shit that's loud

Message for you sir...

I thought longbows were made of yew or ash wood?

Preparing the string was very interesting. Audio is terrible.

I hate woodwork. Mr Crispin. Make one out spring steel with a wooden handle

Tilloer is incorrect for a longbow. Too round in the middle and too much mid limb bend, not enough mid to outer limb. Use a more elliptical tiller. You can get better efficiency eg. arrow speed.

The best longbowmen were of course, not English but Welsh

that is not how a longbow is made, a longbow is made from ash, using the softwood for compression, and the harder wood for tension, it's not made from several different woods

Nothing worse than spending a few days shaping the bow for a hidden weakness in the wood to break whilst tilling.

Have you abandoned your steam locomotive?

Yew didn't make it out of You.

Mr Crispin, as an ex archery instructor before ravages of failing eyesight and mobility issues this was good to follow the course; like you I was a strictly target archer using a hoyt pro gold medalist. Interesting toxopholist facts: ➀ legend has it there used to be Yew trees planted in graveyards as a 'hidden' source of bow making material in the odd chance 'them dam froggies' decided to invade: ➁ V sign was a taunt to show that you had your draw fingers intact and ➂ that it was still law that every able bodied man must shoot a dozen arrows after church on Sundays..just in case.