Challenge!

[paulsemp]

I don't want to speak for others but i don't think people get truly upset but are trying to protect the website by not allowing glass bows in because it would clutter up this place. Around the campfire is a perfect place to post your latest glass bow. Exceptions have been made on glue, strings and others materials because there would almost be no bows posted here. Most people, me being one of them don't have enough time to hand scrape a bow from stone flakes or twist up a natural string. Also remember that a lot of people here shoot glass bows and some even shoot compounds but every one comes to P.A. to see wood bows only. I guarantee if you handed a primitive man a chainsaw, bandsaw, belt sander, super glue and a roll of string material he would take it.

[Tyke]

are you going to harvest or barter for your own sinew and hide for glue? To me that would truly make it primitive.Its not like our ancesters could just order some up.

[Tyke]

And i accept your challenge im gonna snag that small stave next to your drive way and get started we'll build them together

[carpholeo]

To be truly primitive, wouldn't you first have to make a primitive hatchet and knife?. then use them to make your primitive bow?

[wizardgoat]

all my bows are made with a hatchet, rasp and scraper. the only electricity was the stereo 
I'm not against power tools at all though
my last sturgeon backed juniper i posted i used hide glue, and it worked just fine.
with the sinew string it certainly had a cool vibe and feel in your hands.
to me primitive is anything that pre dates bows made of modern materials, although i'd really like to make a stone age bow.
only stone tools and all natural materials

[Del the cat]

My Brother once pointed out that 'Primitive' man used the best available and most hi-tech tools available at the time.
If he had CA glue and a hatchet or a rasp, he'd have used 'em with no qualms.
Del

[JoJoDapyro]

All very great responses. Eddie, I made my first bow with only hand tools. I tend to get "Lazy" (also read as smarter than I used to be) and use Power tools when I can. Tyke, Great, lets do it. I did the old fashioned thing, my friend (Fred) let me know that he was going to be putting an item up on the auction block, and I used my hard earned clams to bid more than anyone else. I'll say it again, I respect the craftsman here. I don't have any issue with any tools used. I just want to put my money where my mouth is and do this to prove to me that I can. I think it is funny how much people that don't have access to Juniper want it, and I really haven't given it any second thought!

[Pappy]

Yall have fun, been there done that. I use mostly hand tools anyway[not primitive]Hand tools, throw in a band saw and belt sander once in a while. Your description [Old fashion]
would come closer to describing what you are challenging folks to do.  :)Nothing really hard about that, just takes a little longer in most cases.
   Pappy

[JoJoDapyro]

I agree Pappy. It will be fun, and I am sure filled with bad words. That is ok, my wife can't hear me from my shop!

[PEARL DRUMS]

Id say half my bows are all hand tools. My saw and sander are outside in the garage and my shop is in our basement. So most of the stuff that I can easily do on a sander gets done by hand, 100%. Things like tip overlays and grip shaping.

[jimmy]

I don't get it.  What exactly is the challenge?  I think a good portion of the good folks here have done this, and aside from the string material, do it regularly, if not on every bow.  Nothing new.  Have fun making a wood bow like everyone else.

[JoJoDapyro]

Jimmy, I don't recall having seen any of your bows. The challenge is to build a bow from locally sourced material. Or Material that CAN be locally sourced. If Osage doesn't grow in your immediate area it is not locally sourced. As stated previously, If it wasn't available to you in 1900, it isn't fair game. If you use sinew, I really don't care where it comes from, as sinew is available in most areas. I never said it has never been done. I see a lot of very well made bows here. I see a lot of very well made period bows here.

I want to try and do it, and was hoping that others would too. Doesn't matter in the end if anyone else does or not. I am sure I will learn a lot from this build.

[GB]

I'm just past the second year of my wood bow making apprenticeship, just finished my 16th bow, learning from the master bowyers on here and elsewhere on the net and in books.  Most of my bows have been from boards because thats what is available to me, but I have made four from staves.  I rough 'em out on my table saw and use hand tools the rest of the way.  My two favorite shooting bows are a plain unbacked osage flatbow from a stave and a R/D bamboo/elm/osage.
Personally, the only challenge I'm ever interested in is making a better bow than my last one.

[Badly Bent]

I recall seeing a few truly primitive bows posted on this site, the tree taken down and worked with stone tools that the maker fashioned himself and I believe they had sinew strings and animal fat finishes as well.
Most recent that I recall was done by Twistedlimbs, quite an accomplishment and yes primitive. I know that there are a lot of guys on this site that could do it if they were so inclined but as mentioned this is a time consuming task.
As for bows made entirely from hand tools, well many of us do that. Yes I've used a chainsaw for harvesting wood but have used a handsaw for most of the trees/saplings I've cut. After that it has always been a hatchet, drawknife, rasp and scraper. Don't have a bandsaw but often wish I did and the few times I used
my belt sander I nearly ruined the bow which made me believe that the use of power tools to craft a bow might be more of a challenge than the hand tools.

[E. Jensen]

As far as I see it, you can make a primitive bow, and then you can make a primitive bow primitively.  Steel, even steel hand tools, are not primitive.  Neither wood iron.  Maybe copper tools.  Maybe.  But you can still make a primitive bow and no one would know how it was made, its the same product.  But to make a bow primitively, in my mind, you would have to do like the cavemen.  Start from nothing.  Go out and make a stone knife and hatchet, then find some fiber and make cord.   Then fell a stave etc etc.

This is actually a goal I have for myself and something I am thinking of doing a youtube serious on.  My goal is to go out and use nothing but nature for my bow.  I have obsidian for tools, new mexico locust for staves, and yucca for fiber.  That's about as primitive as it gets, and would expect no one sane to want to do it that way haha.  Of course to help make it easier, I'm going to build the same primitive bow using non-primitive means first, and then try it the hard way.