Hi, The three bows I showed above are all made from cedar off my inlaw's ranch in Cherry county Nebraska. The first bow is made from the upper side of two different limbs. I glued the handle splice with some recflex to give that gull wing profile. It's 2 inches wide for most of the limb, about 68" tip to tip and 42# at 28". The handle is narrowed to ~ 1.25". I backed it with two thin layers of elk back sinew and then covered it with prairie rattler skins. The upper limb broke during a 3D meet after ~ 2 years of use
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, but I couldn't bring myself to throw it away. About two years later I went back to the same tree and selected another tree limb. A new splice, reworked sinew and new snake skins and Ta Da! As pictured the hendle is wrapped with rawhide. I found the rawhide to be noisy and uncomfortably rough, so I replaced it with a leather grip made of braintanned moosehide. Much quieter and very comfy!
The second bow is an English longbow, complete with horn nocks and an inlaid horn strike plate. It's 1.5 inches wide. ~ 68" long, but came in under weight at 38# draw weight, so I gave it to a friend.
The third one is pictured with a stave I had just collected. I had an eastern woodland bow in mind when I laid it out for cutting, but I left a very high crowned belly just to keep a strip of heartwood. It has a thin deer sinew backing and western diamondback skins. It's ~ 1.5 inches wide, with a narrowed handle, 68" long and 40# at 28".
