I have not seen much posted on the topic of a baldcypress flat bow. Ever since I saw one depicted in Hamm and Allely’s Encyclopedia of Bows, Arrow and Quivers of the Native Americans Vol. 1 I have wanted to make a cypress bow just like the Seminole did. Besides what self respecting “swamp monkey” wouldn’t at least try to make some archery gear from a cypress tree. However, finding a cypress tree to cut is slim pickings here in southeast Missouri, since most of our swamps are drained and cleared. Most remaining cypress trees are on public land. So I kept the idea in the back of my mind until opportunity struck. Then one day I visited the Woodcraft store in St Louis and there it was: a rack of boards ALL made of cypress. I was the fattest hog at the trough. You might even say I was giddy. They don’t carry this stuff on the internet; you have to visit a store to get it. I set a land speed record reaching for my wallet to pay and be on my merry way.
I chose a de-crowned board with the straightest grain they had. I carefully laid this out along the crown. Using a table saw I cut the bow out. I know that is not terribly primitive but I wanted to save EVERY scrap of this wood that I could. I intend to make some arrows and perhaps another bow from a quarter sawn section later. “Waste” was not on my list of things to do.
Examining pages 70 & 72 I was able to get width and total length data but nothing on thickness. So I visited a few museum web sites with nothing to show for my efforts. Left with only my wits and experience, (yeah, not exactly the provisions you might hope for) I spoke shaved the bow down to about ½ inch thick figuring that would be a good starting place. I thought this was plenty thick until I pushed on it to test floor tiller. It was feeling very springy and not as stiff as I expected. I had a surge of panic that I went too far and on a precious resource like this – NOOOOOO! God favors fools and small children. Once I got to the tillering tree I found I was close but not too far gone.
I calmed down and began to sand the bow to get rid of any rough edges. Then I put the tillering string on loosely to bend it on the tree. Each pull of the tillering rope made me wince. You would have thought I had a long bundle of dried pasta noodles on the tillering tree by the way I pulled the rope. Fully expecting an explosion, I looked on with my head partially turned.
I proceeded on.
Notes:
Before I had the bow at brace height I noticed I had a weak spot. Although I corrected the bow’s bend I noticed three compression lines from this process all in one spot. They all centered with the one area where the grain was influenced by a small knot.
Cypress is a soft wood that dents and mars easily. The string pressure alone made minor depressions into the wood where the edges were too sharp. So I sanded those edges a bit.
Getting rid of tool marks was easy, but I had to watch so I didn’t affect tiller in the process.
Four more trips to the tillering tree gave me a bow with 35 pounds of pull at 26”. The bend was good and I moved on to finish work.
Final Dimensions:
• TL = 71 inches
• Width = 1 5/8”
• Thickness at handle = ½”
• Thickness at tips = 7/16”
• One inch of set at the tips
I test shot this bad boy with surprise. It really flung arrows. I decorated the belly with cypress leaves and cypress cones. The back I decorated in Seminole arrow heads; A shark tooth, Alligator gar scale, and some sting ray barbs.
A little linseed oil(really brings out the wood’s beauty), several coats of tru oil and I was done. -a dream come true. This swamp monkey had a ball making this product from the swamp.
