Welcome, Joe. Most of the best advice has already been given but I have been building bows for two years and I guess the advice I'd want to give you is be patient and take your time. The temptation will be there to compare yourself to the bowyers on this forum but I would advise that you do not, at least not in the beginning. I never made a pvc bow so I don't know how much experience from that would transfer but after 2 years I'm still not ready for recurves. Counting my failures, I have made eight bows, 5 bows that have lasted the construction process but they are ghastly looking things compared to what's put up on this forum. Still I'm proud of them. For books, I would recommend the Traditional Bowyer's Bible series, if you only have money for one, buy the first one. You also mentioned you're from Australia. I don't know if they have Osage orange there and if they do not, I would not recommend that for your first wooden bow attempt. Get something that's easily accessible in your area. For me, red oak is the easiest wood for me to use because I can find it in several hardware stores near my area and I have found more straight grained material in red oak than any other form of lumber and I do not have access to wooded areas to collect tree split staves. Plus, expect mistakes, so if your heart is set on Osage, it might become a real expensive hobby to get a good bow out of it if you break the first couple. I would stay away from power tools when you're still beginning. The only power tool I use is a bandsaw and I only use it to rough out the stave into a bow blank simply because I do not have unlimited time to spend on building bows but for every other part of the bow building process I use hand tools. A farrier's rasp, a Japanese saw rasp, a Nicholson four-in-one rasp, and a sharpened paint scraper for a scraper are the tools I use most. Experiment and use what works best for you. Good Luck.
Aaron
