how do i prepair a stave or limb?????

[Shooter_G22]

ok,

   i was thinking of taking my boys into our local wooded forest area and look for a couple of tree's to trim for our sake of comming up with some good bow wood...

  what we have available is oak... overloaded with oak tree's every where... and i have had some of the boys in the youth team.. that have located a few horse apple tree's or i think they are called bodark or osage???  but i do know they are horse apple tree's...

we also have a bunch of pine and cedar trees and maybe a few pecan..  but i really dont want to trim the pecan trees since i have pecan wood already that i bought and have been working on trying to build some backed bows with that as is...

so what i was thinking of doing,  is triming some oak tree's.. and i know there is some construction going on where they are building a bridge and widening the raod sooo i think ther is some trees that might have been torn down... mus try and make it over that way and see if there is anything that is useable left or if has all been chipped or hailed off....


but i know there is alot of oak trees and its real thick in some parts of the forrest soo i think if we can trim some of those tress it might even help the trees be a little healtheir...  anyhow were gonna trim some tree's to get the bow wood anyway..lol...


but i dont know what to do from there... i mean when i was a kid making stick bows i just cut  a pretty think limb and carved out a bow and srtung it up... and when it would geet to week ffom bending one way becuase it was still green than i's unstring it and the next day try and bend it the opesite directin and shoot it till it broke... and then go chop another tree up...  or find a branch or limb from some ones  tree triming set out in front  of there house in piles for the city to pick up...

but wheni take these boys to the woods to look for some oak.. or some horse apple i want to teach them or explain to them the proper way to make a stick bow...   know hurry in making them some bows right now we have some 25 to 35 pound fiberglass youth bows that they are praticing with for the mean time... but i want them to make there own bow out of something that they gather from there natural surroundings...

so if anybody could explain how to get the wood cut and treated in the proper way or what is the best technique to do this for the best results.. is be appreciative... 

oh by the way we will be making primitive style arrows out of some straight brush tree that is also out there as well and we will be gathering pine and or cedar sap to make some pitch glue as well...
and hopefully i can bag a turkey this hunting season soo we can use natural feathers as well...
im also in the process of aquiring some flint to learn how to knap stone points its going to be fun for us the next few months and i have allready talked to some of the kids on the team and they are all stoked and ready to go...  ;

any help or advice will be greatly appreciated... thanks in advance...

i will be taking pictures as we go along and if i can figure out how to post them i will be posting them...
by the way i will be needed help and advice on this project for the team soo i will be posting alot... hope thats ok with everybody???

[JackCrafty]

Sounds like you've got a lot of work ahead of you...fun type of work.

I wish I could say that there is a short video on everything you need to know about primitive archery...but I can't.  The knowledge is spread out all over the place.  It will take some time to learn unless you have a tutor.

Search this forum and invest in the bowyer's bible series.  That's what I did.

[Postman]

I would try a board bow or two (lots of pages here, especially George's website) as you get a hold of some horseapple (AKA osage, bodark, monkeyball, ) that is straight for at least 66 inches or so with no bark twisting around the tree like a "barber pole" . Can be hard to find. Chat up some farmer's kids, they probably have tons of the stuff, and probably hate it. That's pretty much what I did. make or blow up a few board bows before you hit the osage. IT'LL NEED TIME TO DRY ANYWAY. 

[chessieboy]

where are you at? knowing a local someone may speak up.

[Papa Matt]

In general, you need to dry the staves, and you may or may not be able to take off the bark and/or seal the ends with polyurethane or something else that may work. When you were a kid, and you would bend the sticks one way til they started curving too much on their own, the reason is that you didn't dry them, you just strung them right up. You must dry them good, and the best way to do that depends on the wood. I like to store them for a couple months or more and let them dry naturally. But if you're in a hurry you may be able to speed it up, it just depends on your wood and what you want to do with it.

Another very general rule of bowmaking is follow a single growth ring on the back of the bow (the side facing away from you when you are shooting it). This is also called "chasing a ring" and it can be very dificult if you are a first time serious bowyer. It means stay with one ring and DO NOT cut into the next one on the back of the bow. On the belly, you can. It is recommended that you look up illustrations, such as the Bowyers Bibles like Jackcrafty mentioned. After these two general rules are understood and followed, the rest is finer details and trial and error and/or much instruction and reading, or asking for help.

For me, the 3rd general rule is, make sure the bow bends evenly, no sharp bends or straight sections anywhere except MAYBE in the handle area.

My advice, Get a piece of wood cut, stay away from pine, go for osage or something else. Then post pics and dimensions of it and either buy the Bowyers Bible (which most people do sooner or later) or ask us for help step by step. I hate buying things and would rather ask questions, so I'm not afraid to talk you throuhg it step by step if you don't want to make the purchase. And you'll end up asking questions anyway, whether you buy it or not.

So just make your decisions and get back to us. We're always glad to help. 

[Dane]

Papa has some good advice. I would say...slow down! You are really into this, it is new, and trust me, it never gets boring. Taking a bit of time though to learn as you go is part of making bows.

Practicing with the glass bows is a great idea, to get your skills to the point where you can hunt ethically and compassionately.

Chose a hardwood - NEVER pine or another softwood. Oak is fine, so is that pecan, fruit wood usually makes into fine bows. You want as nice and straight a log as possible, with as few or any branches and knots as you can find. A nice large sapling is also good to look for, too, and is less work to cut down and split. Shoot for about 6' staves, about 3" wide or so. I use myself as a tape measure, if it is my height, it is 5'6", etc. You will have to split the wood into staves, using whatever tools you like (splitting wedges and sledghammer, etc). Maybe or maybe not debark the wood just now, and seal the ends as SOON AS YOU CAN, or as the wood dries, it will start to check and will be ruined, and you will sob like a baby. I have, I think we all have - all the work, ruined. Use shellac or maybe paint to seal the ends. I use wood glue, slather it on with my hands, and I get to peel it off after, lol.

At that point, you will have to let the wood dry and season. You can work the stave down a bit to speed up the drying process, but that is maybe for later, and keeping it simple is a good idea for now.

Sources - dont get shot trespassing, Sometimes it is a gift from nature. Last winter, the snow knocked down about a 8" diameter branch from a maple in my front yard. Dragging the still wet wood into the garage was a challenge (green wood can be heavy), but it was just there for me to take. I just harvested a few 3" saplings near my house, again of maple, it was easy work with a small bearded hand axe, a Viking replica I love. If you scrounge some from folks cutting down trees or from construction sites, try to get to it before it dries or starts to rot. The sooner, the better.

You will, I guarantee, ache like you never imagined, but the work is worth it, and making bows from wood you harvested is a true pleasure.

Dane

[Papa Matt]

Dane, I love the way you put that "sob like a baby"         Ain't it the truth!!  Every time I did that my wife ended up sympathetically saying, "Poor little baby, come here" and putting her arms around me and hugging me til the hurt went away      And then following me out to the shed to split some more wood 

~~Papa Matt

[wolfsire]

Shooter, there is plenty of good advice here in this thread, but it might not be what you are looking for.  Maybe it is, but in case it is not, I present you with some other thoughts.

You mentioned “trim” “sticks bows” and “boys”.  That makes me think that to start off with you might be more interested in a simple branch bow rather than a well carved and tillered self bow, at least to start off with.  Definitely save the osage until you have more experience.

I recall reading about one course where they had the students make a 5 minute simple branch bow, like you did when you were a kid; then a 1 hour bundle bow, a bunch of twigs tied together in the shape of bow; then a rough self bow involving beginnings of the more serious woodwork of making a traditional self bow.  Nothing wrong with either juming right in to the hard stuff, or wading in.  Working on boards is one way of starting in the middle.

If you are looking for something simple, like you did as a kid only better, there are some good examples of actual primitive bow styles that you can use.  Here is one example, but there are others:  http://www.theartofafrica.co.za/serv/bowarrows.jsp

You can just string up a green branch of the appropriate size.  To improve on that let it dry.  That can be speeded up by debarking, though leaving the bark on the back might help protect it from breaking.  Protect the ends from checking, or splitting, by sealing them with glue or wax.  Speed it up even faster by slowly and very lightly toasting the wood over a fire moving it around (actually more like steaming out the water than toasting).  That will get you half way there.  It will still be wet in the middle, but that will usually prevent splitting.  It might be an opportunity to straighten out the stick as heat makes a wood bendable.

While a stick that is thick at one end and thin at the other will function as a bow, and some bows are purposefully asymmetrical, you can even the limbs up to make them the same by scraping the sides and belly- the part that faces the archer.  Don’t mess with the back as indicated.  It might help to actually toast the belly over a fire a little to a light brown color.  Some woods take to that- Im not sure about oak or round bellies and backs.  That just uses the same principle of fire hardening a point to make the belling stronger in compressive strength.

Well, that is just a start on a simple but effective stick bow.  It will not be as powerful as many, but it is still a deadly weapon and likely get you in the range of 25-35 lbs.

[Shooter_G22]

thanks everybody.. 

 believe me im going to tke a bit of everybodies advice and try and do my best...

Jackcrafty,  yes it is going to be lots of work indeed..., but it will give the oys something to look forward to.. and it gives there activities some variaty...  they do lots of stuff... mostly paintball,

but they also do :
mountin biking
hiking
camping      (when we go to paintball trips like Oklahoma D-day)
mountineering
climbing and reppaling
some do a little marksmanship shooting with me and in there JROTC CLASS
and i have traineed a few in some basic boxing and kick boxing..
we also train in map reading and compass or (land Nav)
but right now they are really getting excited about this archery stuff...
and survival..
so it will give them something new and they are really excited and been asking for less of the other and want more about archery... its almost like it is something in the air cuase the all have bow fever.. cant say i dont either... i'm bit too... lol....

postman,
a board bow... like you read my mind...
chessieboy,
im in Dallas Tx... 75211  in the oak cliff area...  and im actually right at the bottom of the hill from IBA.. its a bow rang that we stumbled across while we were hiking around in the woods...   i live in an apartment complex that is smack damn on the edge of Oak Cliff / grand prarrie.. oak cliff  is like the Gheto part of dallas and grand prarrie is a suberb of dallas that is a lot nicer... but we have mountin creek lake that separates the two..
anyways i live in the city but there is a big wooded and i mean its really big with some small hills ...not much but enough to consider it woods... and then the lake.. but the lake is contamenated so its no good for anything... but im right at the edge of the woods in my apt/town home,  cuase across my street is a creek and then woods for miles.... but if you take a step out my front proch and take a left and go to the end of the block its the servic road for spur 408 and if you go up the hill bout 1/8 mile you will hit the IBA... http://www.ibatx.org/index.html

and when we found it i we went back home and got my little 48" bear magnum recurve some cedar traditional arrow i have had for yrs i bout the set up several yrs back when i decided i was going to bow hunt and i had huntined with it twice in one season and no luck and then put htem up until we stumbled on that rang.. and i also had a coulpe of 25 # deflex style fierglass youth bows that are aldoer than dirt in my storage and one we 35 pound glass bow that was in my grand pa's shed that my little cousin fond after he passed away and we were cleeaning out his stuff befor my uncles were planing to rent out his house...
soo we grabed what we had and went to taht iba and now tahts all the boys have been wanting to do... everytime they come over for there outdoors week end...

Papamatt,
tahnk you for your replies and yes on the bowers bible i'm just not found of spending a whole lot of money on books becuse im not a strong reader... its funny cuase i will read and pick at this type board for hrs if its online or even on computer.. but if its in a book pst... piss on that...lol..
but i promis i will try and pick one up but ther is a company out this way n north texas that sells used books called Half Price Books and the have serveral locations and i have bought a few reloading manual's there cause yes i shoot rifle and love to shoot long range guess its that Marine Corps Sniper thing in me soo i hand load all my ammo... for better accuracy.. and i have bought books for that soo i guess im going to have to invest in a bowers manual as well...
but i'm not in a real hurry for now im probably going to pester ya'll on this board till i stop getting reply's (hope that dont happin) soo i'll learn how to post pics some day and i'll look to ya'll as my mentors...

Dane,
trespassing hope not, ill try not too..  we have plenty of open woods here i dont know just what the land is i think its just govt. land i dont think anybody can build on it... dont know why or what but ther is no absoloutly no signs up of any soarse and we are the only ones that go into them wood except for an occasional couple of people that might go out there on four wheelers and tear up the trails we have made hiking and there is a couple of guys taht ride there horses out ther for excersize but i know its not there land i think it might be some kind of researve...
but who knows been hiking and scouting them woods for a cuple of yrs and still dont have much of it expolered...   but thanks for the tip on the wood glue... defanantly going to use that one... i wonder could you use the reg.. white elmers glue for that prupose just ask cuase its sooo much cheaper...  plus i know a school teacher that could get me that stuff for an un beatable price..

wolfshire,
stick bow?  ive done that one with a couple of the kids... and i say boys but they are teens... my oldest team member is 16 and the youngest one will be 12 in a couple of months  btu the majority are 15 -16yrs old...  but i have been working with most of them since they were about 12-13 and now they bout 15-16...  some come and go and some bring new members and some last and some dont... but i try and give them something othere than hanging out doing bad things and teach them stuff that is fun and challangeing and give them something other than mischeif to get into...  bundle bow... i have never tried that but i always though of it since i saw preditor w/arnaold shceristnaieger  i know i misspelled that one for sure lol...    maybe one weekend we will try it as a project... but i was planing on doing a board bow project since if they brought bout 5 bucks each i could take them to lowes and have them pick out an oak board and we could work on that for the imediate and take them out to the woods and have them try cut wood and debark and seal it and store it til wood is ready i just didnt know what or how to properly do it soo i take it :
Cut , split, debark, seal ends with glue and store for a couple of months.

and as they waite for that wood they can work on baord bow and maybe a heat or fre treatd stick bow??? and if all fails they can still practice achery shooting with the glass bows until they produce there own bow and maybe one of each style and eventually hunt with there prefered bow???   

if there is anymore advice im all ears...
thanks you all...

[JW_Halverson]

"Chose a hardwood - NEVER pine or another softwood. "   ;DYeah, what he says....no softwoods, like, er...let's see...ummmm...YEW!  Heaven help yew (pun intended) if you start making yew bows, everyone I know that has ever touched the stuff ends up with a addiction that makes heroine looks like Kool-Aide! Consider yourself warned.

If ya got any archery shops or ranges in your area you could also hang out there and ask a few questions. I would be willing to bet someone in your area makes bows and as you can plainly see we all like to help each other out. Meanwhile if you are heading to the Black Hills on vacation let me know (same goes for the rest of you). 

[wolfsire]

There is lots of good info here on board bows.  Here too:  http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/archer.html

Some say that only 1 in 50 boards are suitable for a bow though.  It is about having the grain not wander off the board and having violated fibers.  In fact, there has recently been a discussion about cutting the boards all snakey to follow the grain!  http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/20333  Picking out several boards from one Lowes might end up getting you a bunch of exploding bows.  But if you can rip wider boards, you options expand.   And, backing the board with various materials can help protect the bow too.  So might a forgiving style, such as a long wide bend in the handle D-bow.

Good Luck!