Best bow design?

[ballista]

haha-well, I've only gone really treaditional for a few months, but ive been shooting instinct for a while. for a wooden bow... well, the longer you hold the draw back, the arrow willslightly dip. the bowyer's bibly prays to the 2.5 inch bows, but they have alot more mass, with alot mre efdfort to make correctly and a good hunting weight. horn composite bows- the very, very high string ones take near 4 years to complete with traditional methods, not much higher class than sharp rocks. my personal opinion would be a Dlongbow wth a little reflex, and a bit whip ended for a smooth draw, with a leather wrap, maybe an arrow rest. gosh- this makes me wanna go back in the garage and start scraping at that hickory longbow sitting there staring at me   good post man -jimmy

[benjamin]

I feel bad about using the technichal terms now. Sorry, I didn't mean to sound smart. I didn't know about any of those terms for AT LEAST my first 70 or so bows. And I think I broke all of the first 30 and lots of the next 20. Heck I just broke one on SAturday pushing the limits. Then Guys like you come on here and have amazing success with the first or second. I envey you. Learn all you can and at your own pace. It's not nearly as fun making a bow to someone elses specks if you don't like the look of it.  Make it the way you want and if it follows the string by 5''(stays bent), don't worry. You made it, be proud of it and make the next one better. You've got a lot of resources here.
     Pyromid bows are very wide after the handle and taper in straight lines to the tips like very long triangles. They have the potential to be extreemly fast since there is sooo little mass at the tips.
     D bows bend through the handle as opposed to stiff handle bows. Do a search here for D bows or "Eastern woodland bows".
     TBB (Traditional Bowyer's Bible) 4 volumes. Nearly the definitive work on bow physics and archery. Some few things in them are still not totally true but the vast majority of it is the most valuable library of bowyer information ever written. Well worth the money. Feel free to ask more questions. I still ask them. I can almost garentee that someday, you'll be answering questions like this to other newbies. Welcome to the obsession.