Making a Bow

[John Havard]

There are many wonderful sources of how to make a bow from boards or from wood such as osage. This particular thread is quite helpful. Also, there are other threads on the Tradgang site that describe "how to" for building bamboo-backed bows, sinew-backed bows, yew bows, and many other types of bows. I hope this helps! The world of traditional archery is wide open to anyone with just a bit of patience.

http://tradgang.com//noncgi/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=000046

John

 

[pumbaa]

I have read a few books recently that have horn bows in them . Admitably these were fiction books , but is it possible to make a working bow from horn ?
Cheers
Pumbaa

 

[Marts]

If you look in the articles section under Skills and DIY you will find lots of articles from members on making various types of bow, arrows, fletching etc.

One that was mentioned above is a bamboo bow - try Chris Claycomb's

article

 

[Paganwolf]

Roger Harrington from Bison Bushcraft runs a long bow making course, I havent attended one YET but knowing Roger it will be a top of the range course well worth going on..

 

[John Havard]

Hi pumbaa

Yes, it's possible to make a bow entirely from horn. A couple of years ago in Traditional Bowhunter Magazine a gentleman described making a bow from two gemsbok horns. As I recall the bow was approximately 84" long with a very heavy draw weight - perhaps 80#? @ 28". He joined the two gemsbok horns together with a dowel which he had tapered on both ends to fit into the hollow portion of each horn.

Also, at the present time Dryad Bows out of a small town near Fort Worth, Texas is making an otherwise all-wood high-performance longbow except they have a horn belly. Their website is shown below:

http://www.dryadbows.com/

John