California Indian Style Archery Set Build-a-long

[JackCrafty]

This weekend I am resuming work that I started a while ago on an archery set for my oldest daughter.
It is based on California NA style archery equipment.
The bow is juniper, the quiver is a bobcat pelt, and the arrows will be river cane.



I've already tillered the bow and painted the back with acrylic paints.
The string is elk leg sinew and has been dyed to resemble backstrap sinew (don't ask me why....seemed like a good idea at the time  )
It still needs some fine tuning on the tiller and a final finish.
I'm not going to describe the process I used to make the bow in this build-a-long.....there's already quite enough bow building info out there.




I wrapped thread around the tips (glued with TB) temporarily, so it wouldn't break during tillering.
I will remove this later and apply sinew or rawhide......haven't decided yet.




The handle is thicker than the rest of the bow, but it still bends through the handle.

[madcrow]

Looks like you are well supplied and ready to go.    I can't wait to see more.

[JackCrafty]

The bow had about 2 inches of natural reflex when I started (can't remember exactly).
I used heat to remove some of it....and set has removed about 1/2" of reflex.
The bow's draw will be 20" and it pulls somewhere in the 30lb range.
I'll record all the stats later.....and tiller it so it will be pleasant for my daughter to shoot.
I'm not sure what the final weight will be yet.



The bobcat pelt is case skinned and commercial tanned.
It is in excellent condition except for damage to the face and a small bare spot in the fur.



My daughter did the sewing of the holes after I cut out the front leg skins, ears, and nose area.
I cut away quite a bit of the damaged face but there was still enough left to preserve almost the full length of the pelt.

[JackCrafty]

Here's and end view of the river cane I will be using.
As you can see, there's a lot of variation.
I hope to get about 6 arrows out of this batch.



The way I process river can is probably different than most other methods.
First, I wipe off the dirt, mold, and remove the leaves.
Then I peel most of the outer skin off in order to remove blemishes (dark patches and stuff).



I also trim the leaves completely off the nodes.



I sand off the leaf stems and clean up with a knife.








I scrape the nodes with the knife to clean them up further.



Here is a "before and after" picture.
You can see there is quite a difference in the final look.
The bare shaft not only looks good (to me), the paint sticks a lot better to the shaft.



I will show details of how I straighten and finish the shafts later.

[JackCrafty]

OK, while I still had some daylight left, I decided to make a few bone arrowheads.
The bone is from cow's leg and I cut the blanks on my band saw.
I used picture of an actual bone arrowhead as a guide.
The picture represents the arrowhead's actual size.




The first step is to sand the arrowhead to the proper thickness....a little less than 1/8" thick.
I'm guessing this is "proper" because most leg bone shards end up being this thick after they are sanded flat.



The next step is shaping the arrowhead so that there is a central ridge.
I've noticed this ridge in several pictures of this type of arrowhead.




More shaping and comparing to the picture....








Next, I sand down the hafting area.






Then I draw the shape of the notches and cut them out....

[JackCrafty]

Final shaping and sharpening of the arrowhead....












OK, now that the first one is done, I use it as a pattern for the others.












Final shaping.....

[JackCrafty]

I'll post more tomorrow.

[El Destructo]

                 Nice Job....Can't wait for More....this is My Style of Bow and Arrows....gottta Love them West Coast Bows!!

[cracker]

Very cool thread.Ron

[JackCrafty]

Today I'm going to work on the arrows.
Here's my setup: spine tester, grain scale, shafts, etc.




Before I start work on the arrows, I need to make some decisions concerning the bow.
I've decided to make the final weight 25# @ 20 inches of draw.
Here are some current stats on the bow:






Technically, in order to have arrows that spine at 25#, the deflection needs to be .8" or a little more than three quarters of an inch.
I checked my batch of river cane and found that they were all way too stiff.




I tried scraping the cane a bit more and checked the spine again.
It worked, but I was not even close to the amount of deflection I needed.
I was going to give up on the river cane idea (and choose another shaft material) but I decided to stay with the cane.
I chose a dozen of the weakest canes (out of about 85) and scraped them until they were all deflecting at about .35"-.37".

[Jesse]

Great build along Those points are a perfect match. Looks like you have a nice camera too

[JackCrafty]

The spines feel plenty flexible at .37" of deflection so I'm not too worried.
I can scrape the arrows a little more (if I need to) when I test them by shooting.
The long foreshafts should weaken the dynamic spine, and the 1" wide handle doesn't need much paradox, so I think the arrows will work out fine.

Now I match the nodes (on the front of the shafts) and make the shafts exactly the same length.
When they are all exactly the same, I weigh them.
I also cull any canes that are larger in diameter from the majority.
















Then I straighten the shafts.
Normally, I would have straightened (and sanded the shafts smooth) before spining.....
but these were pretty straight to begin with and river cane doesn't need to be sanded smooth (like wood shoots).

[JackCrafty]

There's about a 40 grain variance in the shafts.
I will put the heaviest foreshafts with the lightest shafts and then fine tune the weights by removing wood from the foreshafts.



This next series of pictures is the forshaft construction process:

[JackCrafty]

Hafting the arrowhead on the privet foreshaft:











The foreshaft and arrowhead weigh 100 grains combined.



I made a foreshaft out of ipe just to see how different the weight would be.
The ipe foreshaft is 1" longer than the privet foreshaft.
I think I'll cut it down and re-weigh it, but, as you can see, the weights are not that different.



Next, I attached the foreshaft:






Total length of arrow:

[JackCrafty]

After the sinew dries for a little while, I smooth it down by "rolling" over it with a stick (with an ipe backboard).




The nocks will be lined up with the arrowheads.







Painting the shaft.
The green is acrylic, the red is red ochre with shellac binder.








Next comes the fletching.
These are pheasant tail feathers.