The bow is one of the first weapons that allowed man to hunt at a distance. Boys love to play with it from early childhood, imagining themselves as brave Indians or fair “Robinhoods.”
The process of making a bow with your own hands is quite labor-intensive. A good bow requires a lot of time and patience, but it brings enormous pleasure. A bow made with your own hands is not only a source of pride that you can show off to your peers, but also an original gift for your best friend. A person who knows how to make a bow himself is not afraid to find himself in any extreme conditions, even on a desert island. And this is a compelling argument!
Materials and tools needed to make a bow
Materials:
- Skis: pieces of skis for making bow arms;
- Lumber - for making a handle. You need either a large beam (minimum 8x8x50) or small beams;
- A couple of bolts, washers, wing nuts - to attach the bow arms to the handle;
- Nylon thread (or any low-stretch string) - for the bowstring.
Tools:
- Hacksaw;
- Clamps;
- Hand drill with a set of drills;
- Chisel, hammer;
- Wood rasp or file;
- Sandpaper of various grain sizes;
- glue.
The tools listed below are not necessary, but will help make the process much easier if you are making a more complex bow handle.
— Table saw;
- Drilling machine;
- Band-saw;
— Planer;
— Belt/disc sander.
Bow hunting
Due to its quality and properties, the bow is suitable for hunting birds and animals. But the following fact is of critical importance: the use of a bow (not just a compound bow, but such weapons in general) as a hunting tool is prohibited at the legislative level. It is not included in the lists of hunting weapons.
The use of a bow is allowed only for entertainment and sports purposes, subject to safety precautions.
- However, in fenced areas, training use for hunting purposes is allowed - with strict control of the actions by an experienced shooter and without the presence of unauthorized persons. The danger of a bow lies precisely in the fact that a mushroom picker or simply a lover of forest species is under the threat of a silent shot and the arrow itself.
- The bow is selected or made exclusively for yourself, otherwise posture and muscle function will be negatively affected.
- It is important to move slowly with a bow.
- If the arrow is inserted and the bowstring is pulled, it is never allowed to point the bow at a person.
- The shot (like releasing a bowstring) is done softly. To protect the hand and fingers, special gaiters are common - archer's gloves.
Hunting with a compound bow.
Bow Handle Design
Original handles in real size:
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A collapsible bow includes two arms in its design, which are attached to both sides of the handle using nuts. The handle should have two flat surfaces for attaching the shoulders, a place for a hand grip, and a shelf-cutout for the passage of the arrow. The handle should not bend (at all!) while using the bow! As long as the bow satisfies these three conditions, it doesn't matter what it looks like. Now is a good opportunity to show your creativity.
Start developing your bow design with a couple of sketches on a piece of paper. I did a few scaled-down sketches so I could have some ideas before drawing the full size handle.
The two handles I created were approximately 51cm and 46cm in length. The handle pictured on the left was designed using only one bolt to secure the bow's limb, while the one on the right was designed using two bolts to each limb. Don't pay too much attention to this. Even after the bow is fully built, there are ways to change the angle to increase the tension on the string. We'll come back to this later.
Next, I made a model of the handle from 5 cm thick foam. This step is not necessary, but it may be useful when later cutting the handle out of wood.
Make a copy of your drawing so that you have the original drawing to transfer to the wood. Cut and glue the design to the foam board and cut it out using a knife or rasp.
On a foam handle, you can choose a comfortable shape for the part that your hand will hold on to, and adjust the curves before making the handle out of wood. The foam model helped me a lot. I'm not very good at transferring a three-dimensional picture from my imagination to a plane. Having a 3D model allowed me to tweak the design before making the wood handle.
Making a bow handle
Depending on your desire and available materials, this step can be short or take quite a long time. I didn't have a piece of wood large enough to make the handle, so I glued it together from several pieces. This method will also allow you to make the handle multi-colored. If you decide to use one piece of wood, get it as square as possible using a table saw, jointer, planer, and move on to the "Rough Cutting the Handle" step. If you want to make a handle glued together from several blocks, read on.You will need several pieces of walnut, oak, and pecan wood. Take some time to “play” with them and create an interesting color combination from different types of wood.
Use a table saw to shape the selected pieces of wood into uniform widths (along the grain). The width of the blanks should be approximately 5 mm larger than the widest part of the ski. In my case it was approximately 5 cm for both pairs of skis. The 5mm allowance will be removed later with sandpaper. Now cut the planks to the same size along the length (across the grain).
To do this I used a hand-held circular saw. Please note that the planks turned out a little uneven. For high-quality gluing, it is important that the boards fit together as tightly as possible. If you have a plane or surface planer, make the boards even or sand them using sandpaper placed on a rectangular piece of wood.
Materials for work
To make your own bow, you should find a long rod that is flexible, durable, and has a smooth surface. For sports competitions, of course, it is better to purchase a weapon from a specialized store or have it made to order. The skill of self-production will be useful for entertainment, development of self-confidence, which cannot be avoided in extreme situations, and indeed in life in general.
If you have to face an insoluble task, the impossibility of transforming the environment, sacred knowledge, connection with past generations, history, and the experience of civilization are lost. Making onions can be called a fascinating process, interesting, non-committal, but useful. You can create colorful decorations and give a holiday to yourself and your loved ones.
The most suitable types of wood are:
- oak;
- acacia;
- ash;
- yew.
The length of the rod should be such that the weapon ends up being slightly smaller than the height of its owner. In general, the dimensions of the bow can be different. They are selected according to personal preference and purpose. In ancient times, hunters often made their own bows, customized them to suit themselves, so as not to feel inconvenienced in pursuit of a bird, animal or fisherman.
It’s better, of course, to look for the most suitable rod, ideally straight and flexible, spend more time searching and less time remaking the bow. This is a more complex weapon than a spear. It is designed for long-range combat and is endowed with significant power. In the old days, quite a lot of attention was paid to its manufacture, more than to the manufacture of a spear.
A homemade version may not work out on the first try, or it may be difficult to repeat the success. You need to be prepared for this. You must also have talent for weaponry. So you shouldn’t forget about the possibility of purchasing paraphernalia. The work doesn’t always work out; it’s more rational to stop trying and choose a store-bought one.
It is recommended, when deciding how to make a bow with your own hands, what dimensions, to give preference to a luxurious attribute, the largest one, at full height. This is the perfect option to make an impression. The photos will be great, the mood will be wonderful. His accurate shooting will surprise everyone, but even without shooting, he will make an impression.
The smallest bow will be useful to make the game of Indians dynamic and vibrant. It's better not to use arrows when playing with friends. It will be easy to run and hide, but you can hold a competition, a competition in accuracy, in a separate order, keep a bow on your shoulder, arrows in your quiver.
To determine the required length of arrows and base, the arm span is usually measured. These are the required dimensions. If you follow this rule, you will be able to quickly, without risk, make a bow suitable for hunting and fishing.
To make a bowstring the following is used:
- fishing line;
- leg-split;
- hemp rope;
- silk rope;
- cotton;
- nylon cord.
In ancient times, rawhide was used. Now this is rare. It’s easier to find a cotton thread, make a bowstring from a scrap of fabric, or make a fishing line.
To make arrows you only need wooden rods. Nothing more is needed. They should be approximately the same length, not exceeding the length of half the bow.
Gluing the handle
Now the wooden planks are ready for gluing.
Any glue for gluing wooden surfaces will work for us. Next I used wood glue. If after gluing you finish with some kind of polyurethane, then there is no need to use waterproof glue. Cover the surface to be glued with small drops of glue, and then spread it over the entire surface to create a thin, even layer. After the glue has been applied to all the boards, press them together with a clamp and remove any beads of glue that protrude from the edges. Make sure there are no visible gaps between the boards. Leave them in this position overnight.
If you decide to save time and glue all the boards at once, they may move during the gluing process (see photo). Before you continue working, it will be better if they form one surface. In my case, I used a planer. To avoid displacement of the boards when fixing them with a clamp, glue them several at a time, and not all at once.
↑ Recommendations for use and care
Put the string on shortly before shooting and remove immediately after.
It is not recommended to “let other people shoot” your weapon, even if they also practice archery.
Sew a case for the bow to prevent damage to it during transportation and storage.
Store onions in an upright position at room temperature and moderate humidity.
Shoot your bow at least once a month to keep it from getting out of the habit of shooting.
Treat your bow with care, and it will respond to you with faithful and long service!
Making a bow handle
Rough sawing of the handle
So now you have a straight piece of solid wood (or glued wood), it's time to cut out the template and glue it to the wood.Rough cutting of the bow handle is best done with a band saw, but a jigsaw will also work. First make cuts from the edges of the workpiece to the edge of the template. They are needed to make it easier to remove excess wood and facilitate sawing along the curved lines of the template.
Once these cuts have been made, begin sawing along curved lines. As soon as you reach the cuts, pieces of wood will fall off. This will create natural places to stop the cut.
Now you need to cut out the shelf for the boom to pass through. Turn the bow handle blank on its side and draw the outline of the shelf. If you have a band saw, the cutting process is simple - follow the same steps as when rough cutting the handle. If you only have a jigsaw (like me), then you may need a chisel. Most jigsaws can cut into boards up to 5cm thick. The handle I designed is about 7.5 - 9 cm thick when placed on its side.
To chisel a shelf, hold the piece against the bench with a clamp and make a vertical cut with a handsaw. Next, turn the handle blank on its side and secure it again with a clamp on the bench. Using a hammer and chisel, carefully holding the chisel as perpendicular to the workpiece as possible, gradually cut out the shelf. Now it's time to grind, use a rasp and sandpaper to give the handle a smooth shape. I did most of the work using a belt and disc sander.
Ski trimming
To get an idea of what the meadow will look like without the string, place the ski and bow handle together as shown above. You don't want the bow limb to be too long or you'll lose some power. This is especially true for cross-country skis, because... they are less harsh.For a 45cm handle, I cut the ski to a length of 55cm (including the part that overlaps the handle). The shoulders were made slightly longer than the handle to maintain visual balance. Use a square to make a straight cutting line and cut off part of the ski using a hacksaw. Do not use a circular saw or ax for this operation, especially if the ski has metal reinforcement.
Make sure the ski is cut exactly at the right angle. If not, use sandpaper and a rasp to smooth out the corner.
Drilling holes for fasteners.
To drill the hole, use a drill bit that exactly matches the diameter of the bolt. You don't want the thread to cut into the wood. The bolt should fit into the socket without resistance, but should not play. At this stage it is very convenient to use a drilling machine. Press the ski to the handle with a clamp, place them on the drilling machine table, the plane should be perpendicular to the drill. If you don't have a drill press, these holes can be drilled with a hand drill.
Mark the center of the future hole (with an awl or nail) in the middle of the ski and approximately 3 cm from the edge of the ski. This will help you drill the hole accurately if you are not using a drill press. Place the bow limb and grip together and drill a hole together. You can also drill the holes individually. To prevent the bolt head from protruding from behind and being scratched, it must be “recessed”. Use a drill bit that is a hair larger than the diameter of the widest part of the bolt head. Determine how deep to drill the hole by holding the bolt next to the folded ski and handle, as shown below. It is necessary that approximately 1-2 cm of thread protrudes from the front in order to put on the washer and tighten the wing nut. Make a mark on the handle and return to the drill press (or drill).
If you're wrong
It may happen that the arms of the bow will not be in line after you insert the bolts into the holes, and the bow will look something like this. A small gap like this will cause the bow limb to play, causing the bow to be inaccurate. Don't worry, it's easy to fix.Cut and glue a small wooden wedge onto the end of the play arm. When the glue is dry, sand it down with sandpaper so that the shoulder fits tightly. Finishing the bow handle
It's time to remove all marks and scratches. I used M40 sandpaper. M63 paper will also work. After sanding, remove the wood dust and apply the finishing touch. I used two pieces of finishing gloss polyurethane sandpaper with an intermediate sanding of M40.
Making a bowstring
To perform a weak bend (10 kg or less), there is no need to strengthen the ends of the arms. Several needle files I used for the jewelry did a good job of making the grooves. Be sure to round the edges of the grooves so that the bowstring does not rub against sharp edges.For such a light bow, the nylon thread is strong enough to serve as a bowstring. The thread itself is too thin for the slot in the heel of the arrow to properly tension and shoot accurately. This can be corrected by weaving the thread in a special way (see below) to double its thickness.
Before making a thickened bowstring, determine how long the slightly untwisted bowstring should be. Tie two bow knots at the ends of the string and draw it across the bow. If the string is too long or too short, it will greatly interfere with its use. The distance between the string and the handle is called the "base". Although it may vary slightly between bows, it is approximately 18 cm.
To make a twisted string that will fit a bow, cut a piece of string equal to three times the length of the single string drawn as the bowstring. The video below shows how to twist the thread. If you can't see it clearly enough, here's what happens: Fold the thread in half. Using the thumb and index finger of your left hand, hold the thread by the loop (with a pinch). Place the upper end of the thread coming out of the pinch on the end of your index finger, press it with your thumb and roll the pad of your thumb along the index finger to the joint, unwinding the weave of the thread. Having rolled the thread to the joint, press it with your thumb, and without releasing it, grab the second end of the thread with your index and middle fingers and turn the hand towards you. Move the pinch holding the loop forward a little. Repeat.
Detailed description of the operation on video (in English)
Now you have a large piece of twisted nylon thread, tie a double knot at the end to prevent unraveling, trim and melt the ends.
The string is almost ready. The part of the bowstring where it comes into contact with the fingers and the nock of the arrow is subject to increased wear when shooting. An additional thin thread layer can be added to strengthen the bowstring. This process is called bowstring maintenance. Maintain a section of the bowstring a few centimeters below and above the arrow shelf.
To prevent this area from fraying and sliding up and down, it is necessary to thread a hemp thread through the bowstring. Also, a small nail can be inserted into the twisted bowstring to thread the hemp thread. The tape in the top photo is used to hold the hemp thread in place during the twisting process. This process is similar to basic overcasting. However, the hemp thread is not strong and pulls the end of the loop back and twists it. Therefore, thread the working end of the hemp thread in small increments through the twisted bowstring. Tie the end in a knot and add a drop of superglue to the end to prevent fraying. Last steps.
Now the onion is completely ready. To finish, I glued a small piece of leather onto the arrow shelf.
How to make a bow with your own hands?
To make your homemade bow strong and neat, it is better to make it together with your dad. He, like no one else, knows what a real Robin Hood's weapon should be. Here's a little hint and instruction.
1. Select a long branch. It should be smooth, without cracks or damage. Good choices are oak and white acacia. The optimal length is 1.8 m. Please note: the rod must be flexible, but you should not take a green one - it is not as strong compared to a dry one.
2. Find a natural curve. To do this, place the stick on the ground and press it with your hands on top and in the middle. The rod will turn towards you in a natural bend.
3. Eliminate unevenness. Use a knife to smooth out any uneven surfaces and remove knots. If the rod is thinner at the top than at the bottom, cut off the top of the onion: its thickness should be uniform along the entire length.
5. Make notches for attaching the bowstring. At a distance of about 5 cm from the ends of the bow, use a knife to make notches. They should be located on the outside of the bow.
6. Select and draw the string. Use fishing line, thin nylon cord, or regular twine as a bowstring. Please note: the string must be shorter than the bow. Gently draw the string back and check that the bow bends evenly.
7. Make arrows. Thin, dry branches are best. The length of the arrow should be equal to half the length of the bow. Clean the branch from any irregularities. Make a cut on one side of the branch and sharpen the other.
When using a bow, follow safety rules: keep the bow away from your face; shoot at stationary targets and only under adult supervision.
Adjusting Bow Power
Here are some ways to increase the power of your bow.
Angle between the handle and the bow shoulder:
The smaller this angle, the more the bow arm will bend when drawing the string, and thus develop more energy. To avoid putting too much stress on the skis (otherwise they might break), I prefer to reduce this angle to 0?. The easiest way to change this angle is to cut a small wedge out of wood and drill appropriate holes. Insert a wedge between the arm and the handle and bolt them together. To make the wedge more visible in the photo, I wrapped it in paper. Shoulder wedging increases the draw of this bow from 26 to 30.
Changing the length of the shoulders
If the bow limbs are too long, the bow can end up being quite weak. Long arms bend less when the bowstring is drawn. Less bending means less strength. The string can be drawn back further and the limbs can be bent more without likely breaking, increasing the strength of the bow. Shoulders that are too small can be broken by normal bowstring tension. My advice: if you want to replace the shoulders, measure approximately 10 centimeters from the edge of each shoulder. Drill new holes and make a new string.
Removing material from the ends of the arms
Not all the force developed by the tension of the bowstring is transferred to the arrow. Significant energy is spent returning the shoulders to their original position. If the arms are lighter, less energy is required to move them, resulting in more energy transferred to the arrow. This does not change the draw weight of the bow, but it does make the bow more efficient and powerful. Because the ends of the bow must move as far as possible to reach the starting position, they are often the part of the bow from which material is removed. To remove material, use a rasp, file, sandpaper, and use them to “sharpen” the ends. If you remove too much material, you will compromise the structure of the bow. I warned you. This can be done as long as you don't go too far. Do not remove more than 20% of the material in the top third of the onion.
What is a compound bow
So, we have dealt with the classification, and now we will take a closer look at compound bows for hunting. These products contain blocks with an eccentric axis in their design. On the shooter's side, a bowstring is attached to the blocks, and cables are wound in the opposite direction. As a result, when the bowstring is pulled, the blocks unscrew and collect the cables. At the same time, the bowstring is released, and the shoulders come closer together. In this way, kinetic energy is accumulated, which will give speed to the fired arrow.
The eccentric axis of the blocks itself plays a special role - thanks to it, unlike a classic bow for hunting, with increasing stretch, the required force of the shooter decreases, not increases.
The greatest load during a shot appears not at the beginning of the bow opening, but at the end. Simply put, a compound bow for hunting pushes the arrow, giving it acceleration. This operating principle also applies to sports bows.
This same quality allows the shooter to spend more time aiming, because such a hunting bow can be kept cocked much longer.
For shooting from sports bows, a device called a “release” is used: being attached to the bowstring, it plays the role of a kind of trigger that will prevent the shooter from getting injured.
Advantages of PVC products
This device is easy to transport. And the large dimensions do not interfere at all, because it has a prefabricated device and is very easy to disassemble.
Together with arrows, it easily fits into a quiver. The weight of such a bow is light, but the accuracy is high. A good homemade tool is in no way inferior to its factory-made counterparts in terms of combat capabilities.
This ancient weapon, made with your own hands from PVC pipes, differs from the factory version in its lighter weight. And it differs from its wooden counterpart in higher strength.
A video will help you make a bow from a PVC pipe, where the production is presented in great detail.
The low cost of synthetic materials makes it possible to produce this device at a cost that will be an order of magnitude less than purchasing a finished product.
PVC pipe is considered the simplest and most affordable material option. You can use leftovers after repairs, or buy a small size of the workpiece (3 meters).
An additional advantage of a bow made from PVC is its long service life. After all, such a product is not subject to rotting, unlike wood.
List of required tools
Knowing how to make a bow and arrow at home, you need to acquire the following tools:
- large file;
- chisel;
- vice;
- plane;
- with a very sharp knife.
Here is the recommended set of tools needed for the process. You also need to select other tools that will correspond to the design chosen by you personally and will help to carry out high-quality processing of the base. This will make the manufacturing process much easier.
