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Anyone make a self bow? Trying my hand.

NMSbowhunter

NMSbowhunter

Well-Known Member
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Jan 3, 2022
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Ok, so as if I don't already have enough going on, I have been slowly falling down the rabbit hole of primitive archery and bow making. My goal is to make a selfbow, my own river cane arrows, and knapped stone points and kill a deer with it. I doubt very seriously I will be anywhere near ready this for this fall, but it is a process and I have begun.

I am trying my hand at making a hickory selfbow. After looking at quite a bit of information online and in books I chose hickory because of the quality it has for being readily dried and fire hardened from a green stave. I do plan to go harvest a few Osage orange staves soon. It does not grow around my house, but it does grow about a half hour to the east and I have a place I can go get some. It does need to dry and season for at least a year, though, and quite frankly my bow building skills are pretty much zero right now so I would likely not mangle a premium stave anyway, if I had one, at this point.

So, here is what I did so far. I cut a hickory tree the other day and chose a good, straight piece and cut it 70 inches. I can shorten it later if need be. Today I went out and split it and peeled the bark. I then built a fire and put the stave over it to force dry it.

So, has anyone else done this?
 

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I started last year making a hickory bow last year and lost it to a worm hole.

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Never made one myself but I do own a sweet @movehuntir self made longbow. He does some good work on his bows.

Best Payback Ever!

So I did a little thread injecting for a buddy I work with. He comes up to me today and says " I've got a little something out in the truck for you". Turns out it's this awesome hand made long bow. Talk about a super payback . . . !!! He's been kidding me for a while now that I need to get...
saddlehunter.com
 
If you zoom in on that limb on the right you’ll see the bad spot I was hoping would go away. I almost made it, but that’s not good enough, lol
 
dalton916 said:
If you zoom in on that limb on the right you’ll see the bad spot I was hoping would go away. I almost made it, but that’s not good enough, lol
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Yeah, that's got to be a heart breaker when they snap. I fully expect the first one I make to go that route. I plan to be careful but there is a lot to learn.
 
You don’t see that stuff until you get inside one and it is indeed heartbreaking. I was well beyond the thickness in that picture and had a good bend already in it, but the hole wouldn’t end.

I’ll try it again, but that was the last piece I had that had a chance of being a bow.

I tried to buy a blank from Keith Shannon, but he wouldn’t sell me one, lol. His logic was good in that this was my first time and he didn’t want me to break a $200 blank tillering it as my first bow.
 
dalton916 said:
You don’t see that stuff until you get inside one and it is indeed heartbreaking. I was well beyond the thickness in that picture and had a good bend already in it, but the hole wouldn’t end.

I’ll try it again, but that was the last piece I had that had a chance of being a bow.

I tried to buy a blank from Keith Shannon, but he wouldn’t sell me one, lol. His logic was good in that this was my first time and he didn’t want me to break a $200 blank tillering it as my first bow.
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Yes, I've been watching Keith's channel and Thad Beckum's on fire hardening hickory and also a lot of Ryan Gill's Hunt Primitive channel. I fully expect to destroy this blank but who knows, it may work out. The price was right, lol. It should be fun, and I will learn something ether way.
 
Personally I would start with board now and work on tillering as then as you are slowly working on your hickory stave you would have a better understanding on the tillering process. Hickory is a great piece of wood to get your feet wet but Osage is king. Wish I still had a stave or 2. I actually just split 2 hickory staves the other day that’s been dried for the past 3 years. I’ve been getting that “feeling” in wanting to make another self bow but with limited time I have im gonna go slow and work on it as I much as I can
Ps. If you can get the bowyers bible vol1 great read material
 
Board bows are a easy way to make a bow in a few days and learn grain patterns and tillering. If one snaps, just head down to the lumber store and grab another piece of hickory.
 
My thoughts on going with a natural stave was to learn tillering with all the little problems the knots and imperfections will offer. I have a pretty long background in woodworking and worked as a cabinet maker years ago. I also have quite a bit of metal working background also and worked as a machinist too.
 
On thing I would suggest is to make a tillering jig which is nothing but a block of wood with a hole drilled in the center for a pencil or marker that you insert and once you get it on the short string put it on a tillering board and run the jig across the limbs and if it makes a mark on the wood that’s where you scrape or sand it and continue until you get it to full draw and exercise the limbs after each scraping and never never pull past your intended draw weight wether it’s 50# at 15” or 20” if you want 50#@28” then do this
 
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