The Bowyer Chronicles

Tabo's First Attempt

Added 12 July 1998

Through this web site, I have met someone who may be of great service to an aspiring bowyer. His name is Takayuki Shodai, a.k.a. Tabo, a.k.a. Raven. Tabo decided to try his hand at making his own longbow. He has reported back to me with the results and lessons learned from his first two efforts at creating a longbow. If you would like to add your own story to The Bowyer Chronicles, please feel free to contact me.

Well, the first bow didn't turn out too well.
The poplar ended up to be a bad choice. After stringing it and letting off a few arrows, the limb began to show compression ridges. It was about 35# at 30", and when I pulled to 32", the poplar compressed too much, and the backing snapped along the compression ridge.
It was a good feeling, though. I learned a couple things from it. One was that I didn't glue the backing and belly too well, gotta use more glue and use a few more c-clamps. I spaced the clamps about 1' apart- I'm going to try a different technique for gluing.

Overall, it's not that expensive.

From Home Depot
Maple- 2"x1"x7" was $2.50 a foot.
Polyurathane Glue- $4.00 a bottle (don't remember the brand)
7 C-clamps- $2.00 each.

Bought stuff for the sting last night at A.C. Moore,
a large roll of Hemp 400' 20#- $2.99
Beeswax 1"x2"x3" block- $2.00
Cotton twine for serving- $3.00
Scrap bag of leather for grip, lacing for grip- $5.00

Some other things I have that others may not-
Hand Plane- $10 at HD.
8" Circular Saw- $40 at Sears. I use a cordless 5-1/2" model, which works great for small projects like this- $150 from Sears. You don't need a circular saw, but it's quicker than planing by hand.
Saw horses or work bench- You can make 'em from 2'x4's or buy prefabs.
You should have a way to clamp things to the bench. You don't need these, you *could* clamp to your kitchen table...
Sandpaper- $2.00 a pack at HD

I've been thinking of it for a long time, and started researching building one a few months ago. Decided to jump in last week. Woke up one morning and went to home depot to buy the wood. You just gotta do it! I suppose if I had used the circular saw to shape the wood instead of planing everything, I could have finished tillering in an hour, instead of the four hours. Basically, I got sick of staring at my computer screen 16 hours a day and decided to get some air. And while outside, I figured why not?