Finished my first bow, watcha think?

[Jodocus]

Hello everyone,

I just made my first bow. It is made from a birch (Betula pendula) that had been cut last autumn and has been laying outdoors during the (rather warm and dry) winter. The log was roughly 16 inches thick. I used the outermost yearring as the bows back.
I did not measure anything, used an axe, a rasp, sandpaper and a scraper. The bow is as long as I m tall, 5‘8’’. At my full draw it is probably about 50 pounds. The arrow shelf is about half an inch above the bows center. On the back, I glued overlapping scales of the white birch bark, as I just love the look of that. It took about an inch of set while tillering and shooting the first 50 or so arrows.

I cant really tell if it shoots well, as I have no experience shooting bows. Right now, I cant even hit a large target from 10 yards. But I’m practicing hard.

Now, before starting the next one (I am making arrows at the moment): Having no experience at all, I probably overbuilt the bow a lot. Where could i have reduced weight? Is there a way to find out, I mean, except breaking bows?
Also, as you see, I still got the tillering string on it. Is it at a good length like this? How about the tiller? Limbs and fades are not the same length, since I wanted the arrow to pass close to the bows center. Was that a good idea?

I would appreciate all advice on how to modify this one or go about the next bow. I got some nice maple staves seasoning, some more of that birch and a short (4’5’’) but otherwise perfect yew stave. Some more wood is still standing, but on my radar. I love the wood hunting, I got to say.  Bow hunting or fishing is strictly illegal here in Switzerland, so I will mainly want to target-shoot and have fun in whatever vegetarian way there is to have fun with a bow.

Thanks and greetings

[Del the cat]

Excellent, my first wasn't that good.
Del

[Stefan]

Looks very good to me! Certainly for your first bow. Do you have a lot of experience with woodworking?

I check the braceheight of my bow by placing my hand with extended thumb on the handle of by bow, my thumb will just touch the bowstring. Propably there are some others with better advice 

There are people who like the arrow to pass in the center, thats OK as long as tiller accordingly. I would move on to your next bow and focus on making a good set of arrows that match the bow, I rather shoot a crappy bow with good arrows then the otherway around.

Greetings,

Stefan

[Jodocus]

Thank you. I have no experience at all with woodworking. I just proceeded very slowly, always paranoid about cutting off too much. Having no clear picture of what to aim for, it took me about 40 hours or so to make this
Next time i'll go more quickly, sticking with the axe longer...

[Adam]

That looks great!  The birch bark is a nice touch, I'll have to give that a try sometime.

[Bryce]

There have been a lot of "first bows" recently here on PA but this ones my favorite. Good work.

[bubby]

what do i think, i think you made a heck of a nice bow, raise the brace to about six inches and start practicing, Bub

[TurtleCreek]

  Nice work, really like the way you did the birch bark.

[JW_Halverson]

Your tiller may not be perfect, but I've done worse on bows long after my fiftieth bow was finished!  You took on a rather tough design and turned out a shooting bow, that's a sure sign that you are a patient woodworker!  And the finish work with the bark on the limb back is very novel and quite attractive.  I would say you have something to be proud of, Jodocus, good work!

Good luck hunting carrots and cabbages with your bow!  Who knows, maybe some day you will make a trip to the United States and can go hunting with some of us! 

[Jodocus]

Thank you Stefan, judging by the rule you propose, I still need to shorten the string quite a bit.

It will be a while until I have made a couple of good arrows. I can't sem to get any two or three shafts with similar spine AND weight up to now...  I have made about a dozen shafts up to now from hazel and hackberry (I like the hackberry shafts better). I absolutely want to find some wayfaring tree shoots, but i dont recognise them with no leaves on. In europe, it is almost the only wood used for arrows since the mesolithic.
I straighten the shafts by hand, cold, wich works just fine, and put some kind of bone field-points on them.
last week my wife told me about a dead grey heron (like the great blue ones) that was lying in the field. I sure got some nice feathers from it. I have no flechting jig and am still quite tense while flechting, though it is very satisfying to look at when done.

[dragonman]

I would say you did pretty good for your first bow, congratulations.    They will only get better. and birch isnt the easiest wood to make a good bow out of. I would say you would get a better tiller if you make both limbs the same size next time. But  still a great looking bow.

[ErictheViking]

Very nice bow regardless if its your first. really like the birch bark backing too. great job

[Jodocus]

Thanks everyone for the positive feedbak, it is very motivating.

The birch baking was pretty tricky. While birch bark ist quite robust, this is only true for the lower layers, and those have an orange or pinkish color. I wanted the truly white stuff, and this one is fragile, brittle and tends to disintegrate on touch and thus is messy. I therefore coated it with wheatpaste after the glue had dried. This helped well. In the end, the whole bow, including the coated backing where treated with linseed oil. the oil spreaded nicely on the dry wheatpaste.

[Dazv]

awesome job!!!!!! I can't wait to see your next bow!

[PAHunter]

First of all absolutely fantastic job with your first bow!!  seriously.  Extra points for cool look and creatitivy!     On the next one just take the tillering slower and don't progress past where you see any issues.  Both limbs should be even.  Your right limb (upper) bends much more than the lower.  it's supposed to bend slightly more but very slightly (3/16 of an inch at brace).  Since it's not a hunter you could carefully take some scrapes off the bottom limb to even it out a bit.  May be perfect after that.  Using a computer to draw a line on it like this helps show the tiller.  Again really great job overall!  Remember hunting butterflies and grasshoppers are in all year!!