A question about wood

[Donavan269]

    After reading the traditional bowyer's bible I started to search for suplies, and after pricing a piece of yew wood @$98.00, for a long bow, and a piece of Osage orange for a flat bow @$79.00, I decided that i needed a different plan. So, I began to look at the dimensional wood that the books talked about and tried to think of some alternatives. First there is the longbow, the beginning dimensions give are one and a half inches by one and a half inches by seven feet long. The second, the flat bows dimensions read as one and a half inches by three and a half inches by six feet long. So, the dimensional wood that i hit upon is a two by two by eight foot furring strip and a two by four by twelve, cut in half, from my local hardware store.
   My question is weather these dimensional woods will be sufficient to practice with. I want to learn good technique before taking the chance of ruining an expensive piece of wood. Any advice would be appreciated.

[Pat B]

Welcome to PA.       Boards make good bows!  Check out Jawge's site. He explains everything you need to know about board bows...from picking the board through tillering and more.     Pat

[Ryan_Gill_HuntPrimitive]

you goin to be hit here real soon with others telling you about making a bow from lumber. there is some good information to be had.  its a good method of starting, but me personally, i never started with lumber i went straight into staves, so my suggestions may seem different than others.  that being said-
      those prices are pretty severe for osage and yew.  ebay has cheaper alternatives.
also those types of woods are prime bow wood which you dont need right now. there are many many trees that can yield great bows. elm, hickory, ash, oak, hornbeam just to name a few.   these are usually easier to work and more forgiving and not to  mention cheaper. i would try to find a hickory or elm stave to start on, the trading post on this site is a great place to start.
   also get yourself a good dvd. it will help you a lot. 3 rivers has some good ones.  my personal opinion is that dimensions are not as critical as some others believe. roughly 1 1\2- 2 inches wide is usually good.  longer is better for starting out, maybe 68inches long. there is a lot of useful info on this site so welcome aboard.
      if you want and further help feel free to pm me or many others will also be a great help. lots of knowledge on here.
      as i said before, i personally recommend a hickory or elm stave. others will recommend starting with a board. its all up to you and what you want to do. in any event have fun with it and start making shavings- Ryan

[Ryan_Gill_HuntPrimitive]

AHH PAT BEAT ME

[radius]

The easiest way to achieve tiller is to build a jig and laminate strips of wood together into that jig.  For this, you need dimensional hardwood lumber.  Man, get yourself a couple plainsawn hickory boards and start having some fun.  Look around on the net for some ideas for bow forms, get yourself some good epoxy like G2, and before you know it, you'll be turning out some beautiful bows. 

What kind of tools have you got?  Are you set up in a shop?  If so, you can turn out bows more easily than if you just have a sharp rock clamped between your knees...

Check out Ferret's archery page online...google it...he has some great instructionals on making board bows.  And just spend some time scouring the bows and buildalongs on this site, and asking lots of questions.  Make some posts of your progress, and helpful bowyers will offer their advice. 

Have a good time.

[JackCrafty]

IMO, practicing on boards makes you good at building bows from boards.  Practicing on staves (or saplings) makes you good at making bows from staves/saplings.  The two sources are like night and day.
If you want to work with staves (eventually) then I recommend practicing on a tree your neighbor cut down.  Just take a drive around the neighborhood on "lawn trash pickup day" and collect some free wood.
(Or just tell your co-workers that you build archery bows.....you will soon receive offers for "free" wood as long as you cut and haul it away)