Anybody Make Bows?

[Milford]

So i have made 1 bow out of hickory and it was a pain in the butt to work with. Any ideas on a better type of wood to use for my next one?

[carverken]

Well as they say if there are no pictures it didnt happen. I have not tried a bow. But you have intrigued me. i will have to try that one for christmas.

[carverken]

all right the boss just told me I'm stupid hence the need for pictures. Are you talking about an archery bow or a present bow?

[Milford]

An Archery bow, I'll a picture of it. Thus proving it exists xD

[carverken]

SWMBO was right, How sad is that when you said bow, she thought archery and i was carving loops and tails for my next christmas present. Oh well I guess my guy card is really in jeopardy now.

[TreeWizard]

I had a longbow when I was a kid, I remember it was supposed to be made from lemon wood.

[Milford]

Main Index - Wood Carving Illustrated Photo Gallery

Mmmkay here is the link to my Bow pictures....

[jmischel]

I haven't made a bow, but I've read a bit about it. I do believe that the wood of choice for an English longbow was yew. I've heard people say that Osage Orange (also known as Bois d'arc or "bodark") makes a really good bow, provided you can find a long enough straight branch. But if you found the hickory difficult to work with, the Osage Orange is going to drive you nuts. It's an exceedingly hard wood.

[LBlake]

Sorry to tell you, I remember hearing hickory a lot from my friends who made stickbows back in my archery days. I remember maple, too. Doubt that's much better.
Anyway, If you're willing to do some laminating, bamboo is terrific for limbs, with as heavy a wood as you can deal with for the grip. Maple is decent for a grip.. the more dampening, the better, of course.

My favorite longbow has bamboo limbs with maple veneer on the front, and a kingwood & maple grip. All the boys were always super impressed with how fast my little girl bow shot - it was the bamboo limbs.

[Thomp]

my nephew makes self bows and laminated 3 piece take down bows
the self bow (1 piece) is usually of clear straight grained bod-ark, hickory, ash or maple. steaming and bending into shape, lots of hooey but he gets paid well for each..

the 3 piece take down laminated limb bows get into more of the science of fiberglass resins and heat cure cooking times with specal thickness charts of limb layers
like i said there nice bows, but i couldn't tell ya where to start....