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http://imgur.com/a/nZy9YThis is going to be a long post (and my first one here), so brace yourselves. I have been shooting a Rudderbows Archery hickory English longbow for a while now, and it is really getting a lot of string follow. I started thinking about replacing it, and after pricing new bows, the sticker shock drove me to bowyer forums where everyone promised that it really isn’t that hard to make your own bows. Like so many other beginners, I started combing through every red oak board at my local hardware stores. I wanted a 1x2x6, but ended up with a 1x4x8 because it had the best grain out of all the boards I looked at in two different stores. It was $17 at Lowes. There was a knot about 1/3 of the way up on one side, but I did cut two good staves out of it – one is 1” wide and 73” long, the other is 1-1/8” wide and 73” long. I used a circular saw to rip the board, with a guide to keep the cut straight.
I decided to use the 1” x 73” stave first. I determined to go for about #30 draw weight because it is my first bow. I marked out my dimensions. Length: full 73” tip-to-tip, 71” nock-to-nock (measured on the belly). Width: from center, the first 3” are full width (1”), then tapers linearly to 1/2" at 33” from center. Depth: first 3” are full thickness (3/4”), then tapers linearly to 1/2" at 33”. I planned early on for the bow to have a very blocky, rounded rectangle cross-section. I didn’t want to round the back hardly at all since red oak sucks with compression. I clamped the stave down to a sawhorse and started removing wood with a Stanley Surform. That was too slow, so I went to Home Depot and bought a Diablo 4-1/2” 50-Grit Grinder/Sander Conversion kit (about $10.50). It is made for metal, but when I attached it to my $10 Harbor Freight angle grinder, it made short work of the oak. It made a TON of dust, so I think I will be getting a plane. I ground off all the wood down to about 1/16” of my lines, then used the Surform and a file to achieve the desired starting dimensions.
I rounded the corners on the back to about 1/8” radius, then bought 1/4 yard of 54” wide flax linen from Hancock Fabrics for $3.50. Because the bow is 73” long and the strips I cut were only 54” long, I had to use two pieces, which I overlapped at the handle by about 3”. I soaked the fabric in water and dry until only damp to help the fabric get saturated with glue. I applied Titebond III to the linen and the back of the bow, rolled the linen on, flattened out bubbles and wrinkles, then put a layer of Titebond on top of the linen once it was in position. I let that dry for 24 hours, then trimmed off the excess. The backing actually wraps around the radiused corners of the back, so if you look at the bow from the side, you can see 1/8” of linen. I did that to help prevent splinters from raising on the corners, but I didn’t realize that it would prevent me from scraping the sides of the bow while tillering.
I built a tillering tree from a 2x4 and screwed it into a stud in my garage. I cut nocks with a small round file, then using a long string made of paracord, I started tillering with a file and cabinet scraper. I built a Flemish Twist string making jig and bought a 1/4 lb spool of white B-50 Dacron, and on the third try made a string that fits the bow perfectly. As soon as I was able, I braced the bow with the short string. Just about all tillering was done on the belly. I went slowly, and the whole time I battled with a mid-limb hinge on the right limb, and the rest of the right limb was a little too stiff. I made a tillering gizmo, which works AMAZINGLY well and is the key to my success.
Near the end of tillering I tried to focus on thinning out the last 8” or so of the limbs, and am still not sure I made them as flexible as I should have. The tiller is elliptical, and the bow bends a little in the handle. As luck would have it, draw weight ended up being right where I wanted it, #30-32 @ 28”. I took several pictures while tillering. I would transfer the image to my laptop, open it with MS Paint, draw a line between the nocks, save the picture, open it in an editor (I used Fotor), straighten the image based on the line I drew in Paint, save it, then open it again in paint and draw guidelines so I could use the Ellipsis tool to overlay a red ellipsis to see how the limbs were bending. I did all that at least 12 times.
After scraping off tooling marks with the cabinet scraper, I sanded, raised grain, and sanded again, down to 400 grit. It was raining outside, so I set up my target block in my garage and shot a dozen arrows from about 5 feet at half draw, then checked the tiller and examined the belly for chrysals (there were none). I repeated that process until I had shot 50 arrows at half draw, then shot 50 at full draw, always listening for the dreaded “pop” or “tic” sounds, which never came, and stopping every 12 shots to check the tiller. After those first 100 shots, I made an arrow plate from walnut and glued it on with Titebond III.
I applied (even over the backing) 4 coats of Minwax Tung Oil Finish which I learned that many woodworkers avoid because they hate false advertising – it does not actually contain any tung oil. It is a mix of linseed oil and varnish. I had used it previously on my Rudderbows U-finish bow, though, so I knew that it would work and look nice, so I used it anyway. I rubbed the bow down with #0000 steel wool in between coats. I used a strong magnet to remove tiny pieces of steel wool that remained on the bow, then wiped it down with a damp cloth. I waited 24 hours between coats. I didn’t use any stain before finishing.
I got a sheet of 1/8” thick cork from Amazon and cut out some rectangular pieces a little shorter and narrower than the grip. I glued the cork on with Elmer’s Rubber Cement, then carefully shaped them with a sanding drum on my Dremel. I wrapped over the cork with cotton string, wrapping over the ends as you would when serving a bowstring. I had earlier procured a green leather cover from a damaged leather-bound journal, which I cut a grip from. I measured out the location for the stitching holes, which I made by putting the leather on a scrap piece of pine board and poking it with a sharp awl. I soaked the grip with water and stitched it on with white artificial sinew with the lacing facing the back. I mistakenly thought that I had done it backwards, so I cut it off and stitched it on again with the lacing facing the belly. Then I realized that I had done it right the first time, so I cut that off and did it with the lacing on the back again.
Finally getting the grip right, I gave the whole bow - backing, grip, and all - a coat of Johnson’s Paste Wax. This stuff has been used by archers for decades and is supposed to really help block humidity and moisture from getting into the wood. The paste wax also darkened up the leather grip gorgeously. Looking back, I should have put some paste wax on the handle before I put the grip on but I didn’t. And I’m not stitching that grip on a fourth time.
I stretched my bowstring out by wrapping a 400-pound-capacity ratchet strap lengthwise around a 2x4 and hooking the hooks through the loops of the bowstring. My 10-strand bowstring should theoretically be able to handle up to 500 pounds (50 lbs a strand). I ratcheted the strap down as much as I dared, then left it in my garage for 2 hours. The string was about 69” when I made it and it is now about 69-7/8”. I served the string with green Brownell serving using a serving jig and tied on a dental floss nock point. Brace height is a little under 6”.
I have shot the bow outside about 100 shots, and it has no stress fractures. It ended up with about 1-1/2” of set/string follow, which is normal. Hand shock is similar to my hickory bow. I haven’t shot many different bows, so I can’t tell you if it has a lot or a little hand shock.
The whole process was amazingly fun, and I look forward to making a second bow from my remaining red oak stave. Next time I will back it only on the back so I can easily tiller the sides of the bow, too.
