Need help on first bow.... UPDATE ON PROGRESS

[StickMan47]

Hello Everyone. I have been wanting to make a selfbow for awhile now and I guess the "bug" finally bit me. So I went out and bought a draw knife and a few other tools I didn't have. I have an Osage stave but I am leery of attempting a first bow with it and taking a chance on killing a good stave. So I found a good oak tree, around this part of Southeast Texas we call it pin oak or water oak, and harvested it to "practice" on.

I know it is possible to make a bow out of this wood from all that I have read. I have all four volumes of the Bowyer's Bible and I know the basics. Now I'm ready to attempt to transfer the information in my brain to my hands!!

Here is what I have done thus far: I have split the tree into staves. I got six pretty good staves out of this tree and a couple of knotty ones. I sealed the ends, with the bark still on, on all but the best looking one of the bunch. I removed the bark on this particular stave and began attempting to chase the ring on it. Well I violated the first ring  and decided to try for the next one. As I went down to that part of the stave it seemed that the wood was peeling instead of the drawknife actually doing the cutting. This "peeling is what violated the first ring I chose. Of course this may be due to my inexperience with the drawknife.

I am finding it very difficult to "chase the rings" on this white wood. The stave is 70" long and I have chased, or attempted to chase about 18" on one end of it. I hope I have not ruined this stave. It is 3 1/2" wide on the bark side and about 2 1/2" thick measuring from the bark side to where the apex of the triangle is. I think I still have plenty of wood to work with.

My question is this. Is it necessary to chase one growth ring when using oak? I was not intending to back this bow.

I am looking to make this first bow for my 13 year old nephew. He has a friend that has a bow and he has the bug now too! So because of that I am not looking for a hunting weight bow. His draw length right now is about 24". And I'm thinking 30# would be plenty for him right now. I would like to tiller it to around 20 or 25 lbs. for his 24" draw and let him grow into the bow some. So that when it is pulled to 28" full draw it will be around 30# of pull.

Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated. I am hoping to dry this bow in a homemade dryer so that I can give it to him as a Christmas gift. I was going to rough it out before putting it in to dry in order to speed up the process some. My main concern is giving him a bow that will be safe for him to use without it blowing up on him. If this is not feasible with this type of wood then please tell me.

Thanks for taking time to read all this. And again, any and all advice and comments are appreciated.

[autologus]

Remove the bark and cambium and make the exposed sap wood your back.  No need to chase rings on white wood.

Grady

[JABK]

Best case scenario, the bark and cambium just falls off when you look at it, like it says in the books, but I think that's purely theoretical. You really don't need to chase a ring, like Grady said, but if you are determined to make it work (which I have done several times), use a cabinet scraper.

Drawknife that sucker to the ring that's right above the one you want, and then use a scraper, piece of glass, or an old knife and scrape that ring off (a cab scraper works a lot better than glass or a knife, but they both will work).  A scraper gives you a lot of control so you don't violate the ring, since you are only taking off a little bit at a time.  I'm pretty handy with a drawknife but I still always use a scraper to take that last little bit of ring off. 

Even worked down to a single ring, I think for a kids bow you should back it with rawhide or linen for an extra safety factor, as even precocious kids still can abuse the thing.  Linen is easier than rawhide, but both are way easier than sinew.

Good luck on the first one.  It doesn't get any easier (kidding, I'm kidding)

jack

[aaron]

i agree with much of what's been said. (just remove the bark on oak, back kids bows with linen, try other tools)
While some folks can chase a ring with a drawknife, it's a tool that has the potential to remove way too much wood. A spokeshave works  like a drawknife but removes less. Another good combo is a fine rasp and scraper. ( a "real" scraper, sold at woodworking stores with a burr on it)
So, maybe you should save the drawknife for other tasks and make your back with  these Other tools. Once you get the hang of it, you may be able to switch back to the drawknife .good luck!

[StickMan47]

Thanks guys. I worked on it some more yesterday. And I believe y'all are right. I'm at the point where the draw knife is taking away too much wood causing it to dig in. Of course that's prolly my fault. Gonna try a different tool. I don't think I have killed this one yet, but if I continue with that draw knife I prolly will. I think I will go ahead and back this one as y'all advised. Found a couple of small pin knots (I guess that's what they are) hidden under those first two rings. Wound up cutting below one of them, but I'm sure there are more that aren't showing, so for safety purposes I'll go ahead with some backing. One question comes to mind about the linen backing, will it hide the grain and beauty of the wood once applied? I'd really like for the wood to show.

Thanks again for all the help. After beginning this, i can't imagine how primitive man made bows without modern tools! It seems to me a daunting task if i only had stone tools available!!!!

[JABK]

Backing will hide the ring on the back of the bow, but you get all the other good grain and rays around the belly. 

Pin knots shouldn't give you too much trouble; the tree naturally built some support cells around them.  Just don't ignore them and try to beat the stave into submission.

As a thought exercise, it is pretty amazing to consider than primitive man hacked out bows with stone tools, but if you talk to some of the more primitive primitive-skills guys around here, they will tell you it's not really any harder than with steel tools (except if you use a bandsaw.  A bandsaw would be an advantage.)  But, you can make a shootable bow in a day with some chunks of flint.  I've made a willow sapling bow with primitive tools for grins and it's not a great bow (and I mean it's not great at all, not even good), but it shoots an arrow hard enough to kill rabbits and squirrels, and that's meat on the table. And it only took me a few hours of chopping and heat treating over a fire.  It's easy to forget that a bow, at its core, is a survival tool, and they don't have to be perfectly designed and tillered to fling a pointy stick and kill something.

Let us know how you get along.

jack

[StickMan47]

Well here is an update on my oak firewo.... oops, I meant bow! I kept at this stave for a few days, spending a little time here and there on it. I finally decided to put it down. Felt like it was just becoming a chunk of fire wood.

In the meantime, I acquired 2 nice Osage staves and a knotty little cedar stave. Left the Osage alone for now!! I just don't think I'm ready to ruin such a good lookin piece of bow wood. I don't wanna make any Osage fires this winter! So I picked up a moisture meter and it said that piece of cedar was ready. Got 9 to 11% in different places.

I wish I could post up picks on here, I love working with cedar when building woodworking projects, and this particular piece of wood is sure purty! Several knots in it. I did succeed in working it down to one ring on the back. I have roughed out the limbs and got it to floor tiller stage at this time.

Now back to that piece of "oak firewood". I know some of you guys when you read this will prolly give me a lot of flack for this, and that is fine, I got the bark on, let the comments come. I used me a power tool on that oak stave! Yea you read right, I put a 110 volt draw knife on that sucker. Now let me say this, that electric hand planner will spoil a man real fast. But fear not all you purists, I have done the cedar stave all by hand and plan on doing the Osage the same way.

So as of now I got the oak stave to floor tiller. I ran the hand planner across the back, belly and sides to rough it out. Then back to scrappers, files and drawknife. But gosh that hand planner did in a few minutes what it took me days and days to do on that soft ol piece of cedar!! I planed the back down smooth and flat, I know I am into more than one ring, but I went after that thing with the mind set that if I had started it from a board from the lumber yard it would be the same thing, right???

So has anyone else out there used a hand planer on their bow? I'll keep posting updates as I build these two bows. I'm hopin to be able to sling me some arrows in a few weeks.





 




 

[Newindian]

remember boards at their best are still ifey , and power tools make bow destruction a snap. try to get some pics up

[steve b.]

So you made a board from a log and then made something resembling a bow from the board?  It sounds like you did a lot more work doing that than if you just started with the oak stave from the log and made the bow with hand tools, not sure.  Because you can't take a log stave and make a bow with an electric hand plane.
Try a farrier's rasp sometime.  It shouldn't take days and days to cut through cedar.  I could cut through a cedar 2x4 in minutes with rasp.

[StickMan47]

Steve, Yea it took days on the cedar. I don't have a good rasp yet. Got one ordered today tho. Plus this thing is knotty as all get out. Plus I'm knew to this and taking my time on the cedar, I don't wanna kill this thing. And I am not using a clamp or vice. I don't own one of those yet! So all this is going on in my living room with the stave wedged between me and the door! I worked that cedar with a drawknife and a scrapper till I got tto the handle and did some file work to shape it. Maybe I'm slow but dang I feel like I got a lot of hours in this thing. I know I got a lot of sore back and shoulders!!! LOL.

[Weylin]

What kind of cedar are you working with? is it Western cedar or Eastern Red Cedar?

[SLIMBOB]

Don't know where in SE Texas you are, but if you find your way over to San Antonio sometime, let me know and we can work on that Osage stave if you want.

[StickMan47]

Weyland, I believe the cedar is eastern red. I'm not certain tho. I know that it has a fine red/whittish yellow contrast between the sapwood and heartwood. I got a ton of cedar boards from back when hurricane Rita blew thru here. That is the purtiest cedar I ever seen. Heartwood on it is PURPLE!!! But this stave I picked up on eBay. Me and my Dad have been building stuff outta that "Rita Cedar" for awhile now and when I saw that stave I had to have it. I gotta figure out how to get some pics up for you guys. Then ya'll can tell me what all I'm doin wrong. Hehe, that is prolly gonna be a long list!!

[Newindian]

purple heart wood sounds like eastern

[StickMan47]

Hey Slimbob that would be great. I don't get over to SA often but I do have a cousin living over there. I'm in a little ol place called Buna, bout 35 miles North of Beaumont. I have 2 osage staves that I'm dyin to work on right now. I'm just worried that I'll screw them up seein I'm still pretty green to bowery. I found me an elm tree down by the river bottom the other day that will make some nice staves, might go harvest her and bring it home. Been sleepin on it some. But yea, if I get over that way this spring or summer I'll bring some wood with me!