In this video I make a survival bow out of bamboo. Not counting drying time the whole project took about two hours. Survival skills, primitive skills, tropical survival skills
I feel you'll make a better shorter bow if you compounded the bow by using two pieces of bamboo without any joints and glue or attach them on a piece of hardwood. You can use fire to make the bamboo curve outward.
Termites are bad in the Philippines too. I solved the problem by painting my bows and materials with a product called " Timberguard " which is an evaporating oil that leaves the woods full of permethrin, and repels all pests.
For folks that are willing to use more modern materials in combo, you can increase the strength, durability, and poundage of the bow by adhering a layer of fiberglass cloth to the front and back, either with Titebond III wood glue or G flex epoxy. Also, in Asia, they first soak the bamboo in borax solution to deal with insects and mold. And if you do equal parts borax and boric acid, you turn it into flame resistant material as well. But it would need to be soaked for awhile in that. To dry it out, on sunny days, put something very dark or preferably black on the ground and put the bamboo on top of it, but lifted up on either end by other materials so that there is some air space between the black material and most of the bamboo. The solar heat collected will help to dry it out faster.
I going to start doing a bambo bow(Japanese style) after 10 years of studying and wathing vids,I have a peace of land with bambo growing on it...the fire cure its a must right? Gonna fallow tour channel for tips TY
Glad you enjoy, I dont post them often but I have a number of videos brewing. The fire cure is essential to help keep insects out, but i suppose that could be done another way. I also feel like the fire cure helps strengthen the wood, but there are people I respect who disagree on that point.
Here I use, sansivera plant, rawhide or sinew. rawhide or sinew is always your best easiest bet in survival, but I've made a decent bow string with dogbane. It just has to be thicker than modern materials.
Nice. Shoots pretty fast. I'm on St Thomas. After taking a bow making class at Dirt Time 2010, I came home and looked for suitable wood. I didn't really care for bamboo. But I did find that Maho is excellent for the Whole Thing! It makes a great self bow. The bark makes good cordage for bow strings, and if you look for a good size branch that is growing horizontally, it will have sucker-like branches growing straight up, vertically that make good arrow shafts. The one thing I'm not finding is rocks suitable for knapping. I've seen people fire treat certain corals which will give you the concordial fracturing needed for knapping, but I haven't tried it. It would be great to find some obsidian At some point my wife and I will have to head on over to spend some time with you guys.
Here is my Maho self bow. A little on the light side at around 35 pounds. I'm very happy with the tillering. The stave came from one of the trees in the background. hosting.photobucket.com/albums/n259/vigunfighter/bow7.jpg
I'm currently looking into good bamboo to make a self bow from. You discussed length and thickness with some detail, but what diameter ranges would be ideal for doing this? I'm not sure what the size of the center hole was in the video, so even with knowing the thickness I'm not quite sure how large around the bamboo should be.
I'm always looking for something that is no less than 3.5 inches diameter at the least, but preferably 4.5 inches. It really depends on the quality of the bamboo, which varies considerably. I have a patch that i collect from with 2.5-3 inch diameter that works great, and one in the 7 inch range that is pretty poor. I would say start with 4.5 or wider but try whatever you have access to.
Sorry for the long wait in replying, I was teaching. When I'm not rushed I usually only need to dry the bamboo for about 2 to 3 months. It dries much faster because of the structure of the bamboo.
Nicely done and a quick bow.hey Matt did you spend some time at roots school in Vermont ? Also looks like your a long time student of Tom brown tracker school..
I'm good friends with Brad and Sara. I met them at trackerschool back when i was taking classes. I've actually been teaching at tracker for the last twelve years or so.
It's a one sided machete. Im very careful to keep my chopping strokes very parallel to the surface I'm working, and that keeps me from removing too much material at a time.
Great work there! But I don’t know in terms of draw weight. The arrow’s speed kinda look like the bow ain’t powerful enough (more like 25-30 pound). Or it could be because you are using relatively lighter arrows? Just my thoughts.
The poundage is 45, but the arrow speed isn't great. I brought down the tips some and it picked up a good bit of arrow speed, but shorter limbs would likely help too.
While I haven't had any luck finding churt/flint/obsidian or other knap-able stone, I did find some 'Heinekinite' which makes reasonable points... hosting.photobucket.com/albums/n259/vigunfighter/P1050383.jpg?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds
Is that a San Mei III Cold Steel SRK? Mine's kraton handle started to defogeicate, so I replaced it with a couple of slabs of dyamondwood. It looks better, and more important it handles better. hosting.photobucket.com/albums/n259/vigunfighter/P1060037.jpg
