FIRST LONGBOW

[wingman]

Hi all,

     I'm new to the forum and brand new to making bows.  After buying and reading all four volumes of the Tradcitional Bowyer's Bible I am ready to take the plunge into bow making.  There is a local store that sells bow stave blanks with the bark still on them and they are available in Red Elm, Hickory and Black Locust.

Any words of advise on which would be eaiser and more forgiving to a newbies inaccuracies and mistakes?

Thanks

[Del the cat]

Just leap in and have a go, you'll learn more on your first attempt than almost any other bow.
If $45 is a bit hard on your pocket, just have a play with almost any branch you can get your hands on first just to get some idea and to help you get your eye in looking at the tiller.
You'll find plenty of help encouragement and humour on this site. We all need the odd bit of advice, even the old hands.
Good luck
Del

[burchett.donald]

      Hickory would get my vote from that list as far as durability and will normally hold up as a bow even with bad tiller because of it's absolute toughness. Make sure it's dry and keep it that way or it will take set.

[PEARL DRUMS]

I would stick with hickory and use Jim Hamm's osage flatbow recipe in TBB1. Even though his is osage, its grossly overbuilt at his given dimensions. They will work great with hickory at 28".

[Matt Heppe]

I'd second what Del said. Cut a sapling or a branch and work with it for a little while. My first two bows were green sapling bows I made for my daughter. We still have one. It took a ton of set, but I learned a lot and she loves shooting it.

[nativenoobowyer86]

Hi wingman!  I have tried the elm and hickory from AMC, i found the elm to be a better quality choice.  Albeit, the hickory was very moist when i got it and i dried it out myself, the bend tests on small pieces were less than impressive.  The elm was nice tho, easy to work, and an exceptional stave by all means