Anyone else make bow's free hand (no measurements or layout)?

[High-Desert]

I have made them free hand, but I can't stand asymmetry, so I measure everything with a calipers, making sure every point on each limb is the same as the other limb at that point, in width, NOT thickness. To me, that's enjoyable part, but I have a very analytical and engineering mind. The artsy folks are more likely to do their stuff free form. No wrong or right, both ways make nice bows.

[PEARL DRUMS]

Well said Eric, I'm somewhere in the middle, but more towards symmetry than art. 

[bjrogg]

I agree. I don't use a band saw either so often I'll split wood off the side to find my bow that's left. I definitely agree either way is great. Whatever makes you the bow your looking for.
Bjrogg

[DC]

I've found that my eyes are plenty good enough, I just have to learn to trust them. The other day i was sighting down a limb and I spotted a few inches that looked wider. I measured it with the calipers and that one spot was .030" wider. 30 thou and it stood out like a sore thumb. So I scraped it off and sure enough the limb looked better. Eyes are amazing things.

[George Tsoukalas]

I measure length, width, handle, and draw the center line following the grain. Jawge

[CrescentWalk]

I measure the center line and go from there. The wood usually tells me the rest of the lay out. I only use hand tools so it makes following the grain easier.

Yup. I notice that when using hand tool's it's very easy to get a bow/stave practically perfectly straight by following the grain. I'm still a novice but now I can look at a stave, feel the weight of it, bend some thick pieces of wood hanging off of it and get a very good feel for the draw weight, draw length, and bow design I can get out of a particular stave without using measurements or laying it out.

I am not doing this, I even use sometimes AutoCAD to help me regarding some tapers. We engineers don't like doing bows free handed. Except snaky profiles of course.

Now regarding past, I don't think people didn't use references or even simple measuring tools when constructing bows. They definitely did in medieval Europe but I think they even did in prehistory. You know, "go for three fingers wide there", "initial thickness like width of thumb" and so on.

I think that in the past they did at least get the center line sorted out because most of the bow's found are pretty symmetrical while some are not symmetrical but a lot of them have equal limb length's on either side of the center line.

I was reading some time ago about how the tapers on some of the English Warbow's had odd tapers on both their bow's and arrow's. So I'd guess they did very crude measurements (such as marking the center line and length of the stave) and did everything else free hand.

Of course I could be wrong but I made a bend through the handle longbow made out of Sumac just marking the center line and taper point (where the taper begins) and it's my fastest shooting bow to date.

[FilipT]

Very cool. How did you do the taper, just pencil and free handed? Just googled sumac, it seems I saw that brush numerous times but your grew to be enough for timber. Very good looking color.

[CrescentWalk]

Very cool. How did you do the taper, just pencil and free handed? Just googled sumac, it seems I saw that brush numerous times but your grew to be enough for timber. Very good looking color.

I tapered very slowly with a rasp until it looked right and felt right. The eye's are very good at noticing symmetry I have learned and I just matched up both tips based off of how they looked and felt.

[leonwood]

Just measure the center and the length and that’s it. Will draw handle shapes and basic profile etc on the bow but I do that freehand. Only hand tools and I think that goes well without measuring

[OTDEAN]

Hi,

I use a string, axe, rasp and file and charcoal to draw my design out with and the string to find centre.  My bow lengths are my wing span.  I just use my fingers to judge thickness taper, my eyes and the growth rings on the belly to help with the thickness taper.  My bows take forever to make.  But if you love what you do, time does not matter.

[CrescentWalk]

Hi,

I use a string, axe, rasp and file and charcoal to draw my design out with and the string to find centre.  My bow lengths are my wing span.  I just use my fingers to judge thickness taper, my eyes and the growth rings on the belly to help with the thickness taper.  My bows take forever to make.  But if you love what you do, time does not matter.

Very interesting (and primitive) way you go about building bow's. I'd enjoy watching you build one.

My bow's take quite a while to build as well (about a month or so taking my time but I could easily take two month's on a bow). I've learned that the slower that I go, the better that my bow's turn out. I try to treat each bow as though it will be the bow that has to last me the rest of my life time which means taking extra care and taking my time.

[Taxus brevifolia]

Great thread guys, very interesting. As a newbie, I rather enjoy measuring and marking, I spend a lot of time laying it out. Maybe with experience I'll get away from that.

One quick point:

Grammar Nazi says...the plural of bow is bows

[OTDEAN]

Very interesting (and primitive) way you go about building bow's. I'd enjoy watching you build one.

My bow's take quite a while to build as well (about a month or so taking my time but I could easily take two month's on a bow). I've learned that the slower that I go, the better that my bow's turn out. I try to treat each bow as though it will be the bow that has to last me the rest of my life time which means taking extra care and taking my time.

Yes for sure, the slower you go the more accurate your work is.  Next time you have a new stave, try making the bow a custom fit for your body.   Your wingspan will be more than enough length for an arrow that is measured from your breast plate (sternum).  With minimal tools and try imagining how to tiller it just using your arms or legs without all the extras.  You can feel the balance of the limbs just by putting the middle of the bow on your knee and pulling the limbs backwards and fowards slowly.  You can tiller using shadow outdoors from the sun or hold the bowstring away from you and pull it away from you at eye level and look down the bow to see the stiff spots.  Or you can put the bow on the floor and put your foot in the middle and slowly pull the bow string up and you can see the bend.  Lots of simple ways to tiller without a tiller tool.  You will become a much better bowyer for it when you atune your problem solving skills without all the extra crap like tillering sticks and calipers.  All you need is a sharp edge, some string, a marker of sorts and your brain.  Plus a lot of time!  All the extras making the job easier, but where is the fun in that?

[CrescentWalk]

Very interesting (and primitive) way you go about building bow's. I'd enjoy watching you build one.

My bow's take quite a while to build as well (about a month or so taking my time but I could easily take two month's on a bow). I've learned that the slower that I go, the better that my bow's turn out. I try to treat each bow as though it will be the bow that has to last me the rest of my life time which means taking extra care and taking my time.

Yes for sure, the slower you go the more accurate your work is.  Next time you have a new stave, try making the bow a custom fit for your body.   Your wingspan will be more than enough length for an arrow that is measured from your breast plate (sternum).  With minimal tools and try imagining how to tiller it just using your arms or legs without all the extras.  You can feel the balance of the limbs just by putting the middle of the bow on your knee and pulling the limbs backwards and fowards slowly.  You can tiller using shadow outdoors from the sun or hold the bowstring away from you and pull it away from you at eye level and look down the bow to see the stiff spots.  Or you can put the bow on the floor and put your foot in the middle and slowly pull the bow string up and you can see the bend.  Lots of simple ways to tiller without a tiller tool.  You will become a much better bowyer for it when you atune your problem solving skills without all the extra crap like tillering sticks and calipers.  All you need is a sharp edge, some string, a marker of sorts and your brain.  Plus a lot of time!  All the extras making the job easier, but where is the fun in that?

Absolutely. I try to keep thing's as simple as possible and most importantly, to take my time. I started out tillering my bow's using a mirror only but just started using a tillering tree very recently and it is the way to go in my opinion unless I'm building a bow with one not available in which case I'd use a tree as my tillering tree.

From a historic perspective, I don't see why bowyer's from 1000+ years ago would have not used tillering trees. Pulley's have been around for thousand's of years and are simple to build even out of stone.

I do have to admit I'm pretty dogmatic about the way that I build bow's. I keep it Amish style and use no electric tools or gadget's since I find the traditional way (and the traditional hand tools) of doing things much more satisfying.

[Selfbowman]

I could but I don't. Calibers on occasion but not usualy. A lot by feeling deminishing mass while both limbs bend as even as possible. Still learning what to do with the mass in different designs. Seldom getting away from Osage. Always a learning process. Arvin