Category Archives: Uncategorized

Yew snake skin and rawhide backed Deflex/Reflex Longbow. 56#@26” (Bow No. 13)

This bow was built out of one of a bunch of yew branches which all came from a group of yew trees which produce some really beautiful orange heartwood. In my experience, no two yew trees produce the same quality of timber, however all of the branch staves which came from these particular trees have a good ratio of heartwood to sapwood and they all have this wonderful bright orange heartwood.

This fortunately means that none of the branch stave cut from these trees are likely to need much, if any sapwood removal in order to optimise limb composition. This is really helpful as the growth rings on these particular branches are nice and tight which is definitely what I prefer in terms of optimal yew bow wood. But tight rings on yew staves with undulating backs makes chasing a ring quite a challenge! Particularly if the stave has lots of additional character – which is kind of what I like, and is oftenwhy I chose to use a particular stave in the first place!

This particular branch stave was pretty clean across one obvious potential face, however I have to admit that the glaringly obvious deflex was not an immediately attractive quality. Fortunately the deflex was evenly distributed through both limbs and the handle section. This deflex amounted to about 3” worth so was going to require a bit of thought and consideration.

Whilst thinking about how I’d work around all this deflex, I remembered seeing a couple of beautifully made primitive osage bows made by a well know and accomplished bowyer in the US call Mike Yancey. Mike owns and runs Pine Hollow Longbows out of Arkansas. If you haven’t seen any of Mikes work, then go check out his stuff. He’s done a few really interesting podcasts and has a few youtube videos which you might find interesting. His website is here: Traditional Archery – Pine Hollow Longbows and his youtube channel is here: Pine Hollow longbows – YouTube

A couple of Mikes signature bows have quite a bit of deflex deliberately built into their design. This has always intrigued me as I’d always assumed that lots of deflex would cost a bow significant cast. Mike seems unfazed by this though and counters it to some extent by flicking the tips. But even with the tips flicked, some of his shorter bows still carry a good couple of inches of deflex overall.

Despite all that deflex, Mike and his customers report that those same bows shoot fast, hard, smooth and quietly. So with this particular branch stave already carrying a lot of natural deflex, I decided to have a go at producing a bow with a similar side profile to the shorter bows which Mike makes. That way I could encompass as much of the natural deflex into the design of this bow as possible.

My plan was to produce a medium length (56-58” N to N) flatty with an elegant pyramidal front profile. I planned to flick the tips since they were relatively knot free, and I planned to keep the last 4” of the tips static. Mike uses Osage almost exclusively so I couldn’t be sure that his basic design profile would work for our English yew. So with this in mind I opted to keep reflexing down to a minimum with a view to offsetting some of the deflex but definitely not all of it. The flicked tips would also avoid excessive stack too given that this shorter than average bow was going to get tillered to 26”

The handle section on this stave was full of beautiful orange heartwood which I wanted to maximise the potential of as a feature, so I opted to keep the handle thick enough to show off all that wood. As a result of keeping the handle so thick, the handle would obviously end up rigid. This would result in the 4” handle section plus 3” fades taking 10 inches of the bow out of action. The 4” static tips would take a further 8” out of play too. This would leave only 20” of each limb available to work. That’s not a lot of moving wood to accommodate for a full 28” draw length so I opted to keep this bow to a 26″ draw length. Since 26″ matches my own draw length, that suited me just fine! So all of that natural deflex would now act as a bit of a buffer and would mitigate the risk of building a bow that was starting to resemble quite a high stress design. Maybe that’s why Mike deliberately builds in so much deflex on his high performance short osage bows.

This particular stave was fairly easy to rough out as the grain was quite uniform for the most part. I often find that our local yew wants to tear out, even when away from knots and other typical features. I have come to think that this isn’t necessarily due to propeller twist, but is more to do with our generally higher wind speeds stressing the limbs of our local yew into growing with an uneven cross section in order to brace itself against our stronger than average prevailing winds. In fact propeller twist is something that I seldom experience with our local yew. I wish the same could be said of our white woods!!

The face of this branch stave which I’d planned using as the back of the bow had previously acted as the top of this branch as it grew on the tree. As a result of this, the growth rings were tighter in this section of the limb when compared to the underside of the branch. The result of this growth is often that the pith of the branch ends up running closer to the face that acts as the top of the branch. This was the case with this particular branch. As such, the pith would need digging out of both limbs in order to optimise for limb compression strength and minimise the risk of bucked heartwood on the belly.

By the time all of the pith was out it was clear that this bow would end up incorporating a shallow hollow limb type appearance in the inner thirds of both limbs. This was just fine in my eyes as I find that a HLD cross section limb profile looks nice and enhances performance. So out came the gouge and the swan neck scrapper and soon I had both limbs free from pith and down to a nice even thickness of between 14 and 12mm distributed evenly between all the humps and bumps and twists and turns.

With the face profile and limb thickness roughed out, I got on with flicking the tips with a simple jig and some dry heat from a heat gun. I decided to keep the flicked section to a long gentle sweep rather than the usual 6” of more aggressive curve. This would allow half of the flicked section to do some work whilst keeping the last 4” completely static.

Next a small amount of dry heat was applied to the top limb fade in order to correct a small amount of string misalignment. Then it was time to cut some tillering nocks. I was quite happy with the side profile of the bow at this early point and was keen to see what the stave looked like during the first few pulls on the tiller tree. Other than an obviously stronger bottom limb, the first pulls looked nice. A bit of re balancing of the limbs to improve the elliptical tiller I wanted brought my eye back in so I could see that there were a couple of spots on both limbs which needed to be let off a bit. After that the rest of the tiller came together pretty quick.

The natural deflex and added reflex had created a shape which looked very nice once reaching full brace. Since this bow was symmetrical, I wanted to try and maintain a ¼ positive tiller throughout the tree tillering process knowing that the bottom limb on a bow this length would likely take on a fair bit of stress and a little set if shot split fingers.

Brace to 22” went smoothly but it was clear by now that a fair bit of weight removal would be necessary before pushing out to 26” as she was currently very heavy at 22”. I was aiming for a bow around 55-58 at 26” so stopped when I got to 55 at 24”. I’d shoot in the last 2” of tiller then adjust accordingly. So with the temporary nocks serving to let me shoot her in, I gave her a couple of weeks worth of stump shooting to settle in properly.

After a lot of shooting, all looked good and the positive tiller had held up well albeit reducing down to about 3/16″. It was clear by now that this design of bow was very efficient. In fact I was really impressed with the power and speed this bow was demonstrating. I shot stumps with her using some old battered 30″ 500# Gold Tip Traditional Classics which are as close to bomb proof an arrow as you’ll ever find and subsequently an excellent choice for blasting stumps with. They are also a very heavy arrow. Tipped with insert, ballistic collar and 150 grain stump heads, these things are coming in at 575 grains so I was expecting this bow to respond to them like it was being asked it to throw logs! But she was sending them on their way like my 50# Satori sends them. I was impressed!

Back at the workshop after all the shooting in the tiller still looked great and the finishing process could begin in earnest. I wasn’t intending to put this bow up for sale in my shop as this bow was intended to be a gift for a mentor of mine but I still wanted to enhance the durability of the bow’s back. So on went a couple of premium quality wild red deer rawhide strips to bomb proof her back. You can buy them here: One Matching Pair of Wild Deer Rawhide Strips – Etsy UK Then on went a couple of buffalo horn tip overlays. Last but not least, I wanted to use this bows rawhide covered back as a canvass so that the back could earn the right to sit next to all that gorgeous orange belly wood. So on went a whole King Rat Snake skin from tip to tip.

This bow had an arrow shelf cut into it to increase functionality. The shelf is cut pretty close to centre which has reduced arrow fussiness considerably. I refrained from wrapping the handle so the handle wood could shine. Covering up that gorgeous bright orange handle wood would have been criminal in my opinion!

After a very quick and easy re-tiller to account for the addition of the backings, I was ready to sand and polish her up. Then a little black and white artwork was employed along the boundary between the wood and the backing to make the contrast between front and back really pop.

To seal her up I gave her a few baths in Tung Oil to give her a wonderful satin finish which really suits yew in my opinion. Finally I built her a 12 strand B55 flemish twist string with nice small loops to keep everything in line whilst hanging onto those tiny nocks. Two Wild beaver fur silencers dampened down the tiny amount of sound that remained on this already whisper quiet bow. Fur silencers also look pretty cool and in keeping with the overall primitive theme in my opinion. You can buy them here: 1 X Pair of Beaver Fur Bow String Silencers beaver – Etsy UK

I have to say that I’m really impressed with this bow. And even though the wood that this stave provided was a major contribution to the efficiency and performance of this bow, I simply can’t help but think that this deflex reflex profile enhanced the smoothness of the draw and the retention of power which might have been lost through set born from a straight or reflexed starting point.

I’m going to continue to experiment with this profile further. I want to confirm whether or not the performance of this bow can be readily replicated in other bows of similar stature. I’m also now curious to see how bows of other woods would perform when designed this way. I will keep you posted on my findings!

Here are the stats and the photos. I hope you like her:

Mass: 566 grams

Length NTN: 56 3/4”

Width: 1 3/4” at widest

Tips: 4” static 3/8” wide at tips

Back: Marginally crowned with undulations. Face profile pyramidal.

Belly Profile: Working limb sections concaved to mirror back, transitioning at the tips to D shapes then triangular cross sections.

Tiller: Elliptical 1/8” positive.

Brace Height 5 1/2″

Draw Weight: 56lbs at 26”

Snake Skin Rawhide Backed Yew Character Longbow 48#@28″ (Bow No. 12)

A mate of mine gave me this stave ages ago and said ” I bet you cant make a bow out of that!” To be honest, on first inspections I agreed with him!! But on closer examination, in principle, this 4-5″ diameter yew branch had plenty of potential. For a start, the best face (which had been the top of the branch as it grew of the tree) was fairly clean of knots, bar a few wispy bits of epicormic growth. With this face showing promise I inspected the cut ends of this 74″ branch. The sapwood/heartwood ratio looked good with about 8mm of sapwood showing. The heartwood was a beautiful dark orange and densely ringed. The pith was clearly biased towards the face I could use, which was to be expected given that the top of a branch typically has the thinner growth rings, and this was certainly the case with this particular branch.

The thinner end of the branch had a big drying split extending several inches into the usable part of the branch so it was obvious that this section would end up as an offcut. That would leave me with around 65″ of decent stave to work with. The branch was certainly undulating along it’s entire length and very slightly reflexed along what would be both limb sections, however the section which would make for the handle had a significant roll in it due to a massive knot on the belly side. This knot was going to require some thought to deal with. The large roll that this knot had produced was also presenting some deflex in what would be one of the handle fade areas, but only on one side. This would need to be either excepted as character and incorporated into the bow design, or possibly heated out to some extent.

This knot was presenting another problem too as it was causing a significant side bend which would throw the string alignment out of centre by a good couple of inches. The likely hood of this misalignment being removed completely was low since I could see that this large knotted section would only bend through substantial steam heating. To over cook an already cracked knot like this would invariable result in a massive crack right in the lower fade/handle so I was forced to except that the best I could hope for in relation to fixing the string mis-alignment was to end up with a bow with the string slightly favouring the side which it naturally wanted to. This was a shame as I’d sooner the branch was bent the opposite way as the limb which would have to be the lower limb was nice and snakey, and therefore the limb which was carrying the most character. I’d much sooner that this limb had made the top limb since it’s always better to have the most characterful limb as the top limb, or at least in my opinion!

Despite the branch being 4″ wide at the thin end (closer to 5″ at the fat end) the face which was usable was quite crowned. In my mind a bow made from a branch like this one would benefit from having hollowed out limbs. Digging the limbs out would also ensure that all of the pith was removed since the pith was running close to the back of the stave in the thinner end.

So after getting the bark of so i could see exactly what i had to work with, I cut the branch back to 65″. I then began reducing the belly material with the axe. Once an approximate limb orientation and thickness had been established I set about working down the edges to create and approximate face profile. The branch was starting to look something like a roughed out bow now so I set about working out exactly where the handle and fades would sit. My idea was to turn this stick into a 50lb ish, asymmetrical, pyramidal longbow with a four inch handle and 3-4″ fades. I also liked the idea of flicking the tips very slightly, and on a yew HLD this long, the tips could easily be static.

I decided to go for a contoured handle with a shelf. The large knot was going to be located in the bottom of the handle where the fade transition was going to be. This unfortunately put the large roll which was previously mentioned right in the bottom fade too. due to the shape of this roll, it was becoming apparent that I was going to have to except a thicker bottom fade. Had I tried to keep the fade thickness the same for both the top and the bottom, I’d have ended up with a handle which would have been shaped in a way which was uncomfortable to hold. So I decided to accept the thicker lower fade and use it as an opportunity to act as a canvas for the rather beautiful, albeit inconvinient knot.

With everything now roughed out I got the handle over a pan of boiling water and set the timer for 45 mins. Whilst she was steaming away, I said a quiet prayer the the bow gods and asked that they would see that the knot did not split through the handle and fade. My prayers where obviously heard as the thin seasoning check which was there already did not get any worse. So with the handle and fade nice and hot I put the stave into my bending jig and gently eased the string alignment back to centre. After cooling for several hours the clamps came off and further inspection confirmed that the string alignment was now just a tad off centre and favouring the correct side for a righty. Hopefully it would stick!

Next I flicked the tips with the heat gun whilst the limb thickness was still excessive. At least that way, if one of the small pin knots popped during bending I might have some extra material I could remove to take out the cracked pin. I didn’t go mad with the recurve jig so the tips survived the modest amount of flick. At this point I was thinking back to a post I’d seen on PA years ago where a seasoned bowyer had used antler main beam to reinforce and make static recurves on a beautiful osage primitive. I’d put aside a few bits of Red Deer main beam with the intention of trying this strategy for my self some time. So I decided that now was the time to give antler reinforced static tips a go!

After matching the antler pieces to the shape of the recurved tips, I glued and clamped them in situ with TBIII. This would now mean that the tips were set in place so if the tips needed alignment work later on then I would have to apply heat and bend from within the working section of the limbs, fades or the handle. Since the tips actually lined up reasonably well already, I didn’t envisage having to do much tweaking except maybe for some very minor twist. This small amount of twist came out quite easily with some dry heat later on.

Now the tips were set up I proceeded to hollow out both limbs. First with the gouge and then the goose neck scraper I mirrored the various undulations found on the back and projected those same contours onto the belly in reverse. Where there was a hump on the back, the belly would get dug out deep. Where there was a flatter spot on the back, I would shallow out the digging. By aiming for any even 14mm thickness at every spot between the handle fades and the fades of the static tips, it was pretty easy to get a good floor tiller.

Temporary nocks were cut into the tips which, at this point, were still oversized in terms of width. Then onto the tillering tree she went for some first pulls with the long string. The bottom limb looked very stiff so that was dealt with first. Next the inner third of the top limb was let off a touch until the elliptical tiller I was gunning for was achieved. With both limbs bending evenly, albeit with a slightly stronger bottom limb, I got her braced. At this point she was still very heavy so after working down to 50lbs at 22″ I decided to stop and get a rawhide backing on her.

After hide gluing on a couple of nice, thin, strong, home produced red deer rawhide strips, I considered decorating the rawhide with artwork, or maybe a stain. But then I remembered that I had a really beautiful full length cobra rawhide begging to be used somewhere in the workshop. On the cobra skin went along with a pair of red deer antler tip overlays and some deer back strap sinew to secure the antler static tip reinforcements. This sinew wrapping would also double as a means to cover the transition between the end of the cobra skins and the underlying rawhide.

After a week of drying she went back on the tillering tree for the last part of the journey. She was in need of a bit of rebalancing since the backings had moved the tiller a bit but in pretty short time she was back to an nice elliptical 1/8″ positive, pulling around 48# at 26″. I took her our stump shooting for a week to shoot in the last couple of inches as I always do. Final assessment (post shooting in) was that the tips needed just a fraction of twisting in opposite directions to get some better string alignment. Other than that she was holding the positive tiller and after a couple of hundred arrows had settled into 48lb at 28″.

Final touches where a nice thick piece of red stag neck rawhide for a handle covering, and a touch of black stain on the section of exposed rawhide visible at the tip sections. This stain was then wire wool scrubbed to create an aged look. I deliberately left the tips unbacked with the cobra skin as in my experience, snake skin will often end up getting very worn and tatty towards the tip of the upper limb due to the constant rubbing brought about by stringing the bow.

I painted the edges of the snake skin with a thin black boarder line overlayed with white dots to make the contrast between the tan snake skin and the yew sapwood really pop. And the whole bow including the rawhide handle was finished with 6 coats of tung oil applied over a couple of weeks to let it really soak in. I find that this type of satin oil finish really draws out the grain of yew heartwood really well.

I really like how this bow came out even though she is a big heavy girl. I think she’s a real looker with lots of character. And she can sling an arrow too! The obvious advantage of having a bow like this one with string alignment which clearly favours the left side, is that arrow fussiness is not an issue. I shot 40#, 50# and even 60# arrows through this bow and they were all achieving acceptable arrow flight. I was a bit concerned that the weight of the antler reinforcements in the static tips would create a bit of hand shock but by keeping the mass down to a minimum, hand shock is not an issue.

As much as I love the look and performance of this bow, I’ve not got the space for her and would love to see her end up getting shot with the degree of regularity which she desires, so this bow will be made available to buy through my shop. If you would like to become her proud owner then please visit my Esty shop here: Snake Skin Rawhide Backed Primitive Yew Longbow 4828 – Etsy UK

Here are the stats:

Mass: 858 grams with string

Length NTN: 64”

Width: 1 7/8” at widest

Tips: 8” static 7/16” wide

Back: Marginally crowned with undulations. Face profile pyramidal.

Belly Profile: Working limb sections concaved to mirror back, transitioning at the tips to D shapes cross section.

Tiller: Elliptical 1/8” positive.

Draw Weight: 48lbs at 28”

Squirrel Tail Bow String Silencers – Quick and Easy Way!

After a fun few hours chasing after some squirrels with the airgun and the hound the other day, it dawned on me that a squirrel’s tail might just make for a useful and rustic looking bow string silencer.

I’ve made god knows how many string silencers before, usually from rabbit or fox (my personal favourite) fur but have never thought to give squirrel tails a go.

From time to time I will egg tan a pelt just for use as string silencers. A properly egg tanned, softened and smoked rabbit or fox pelt lends itself perfectly to being cut into nice soft thin strips of fur which can be wrapped around a bow string to produce great authentic looking string silencers which function very well.

But the truth is, in terms of performance, you don’t actually need fully tanned and softened pelts to make simple and effective string silencers. You can just wrap a piece of raw pelt around your bow string and let it dry in situ.

In fact, without laying your hands on them, most people would not be able to tell the difference between a properly tanned piece of pelt and a raw fur pelt strip which has simply been wrapped and left to dry thoroughly on your bow string.

So interested primarily in what a squirrel tail silencer would look like, I decided to skin off a squirrel tail, split it down the middle and wrap it in its raw albeit dried state around a bow string to see what it looked/functioned like.

Here is a description of how I went about the experiment and what the end result looked like:

For this project you will need a sharp knife, cut resistant gloves and a squirrel (preferably a dead one like this guy!)

Start by making an incision at the base of the tail. Only cut deep enough to cut through the skin. Try to refrain from cutting through the deeper tail muscles as you will weaken the tail to a point where it could rip it completely off when you come to pull the skin away from the bone in a minute.

Once you have cut through the tail skin all the way around, start to pull the skin down towards the tip of the tail. Try and work around the whole tail so that you can see the underlying muscles all the way around.

Now work the skin back about an inch. Then take your thumb nail and press down against the roll of skin that you have formed so that the force imposed by your thumb is directed down towards the end of the tail. At the same time, start to gently pull your hand which is gripping the skin down and away from the base of the tail.

You should start to feel the skin slip away from the bone and muscle within the tube of skin. Make sure that you pull hard enough to pull the skin away, but don’t pull so hard that you rip the whole tail off the body.

The tail skin should just slip right off the end of the bone/muscle like pulling a sock off.

Now stretch out your skin tube and lay it down on your work surface so that the widest two faces of the fur/skin tube are facing downwards and upwards. You want to cut your skin tube in half by making the first incision along the widest face which is now facing upwards. I do this by inserting the tip of my knife into the opening and making a slit from one end all the way to the tip of the tail.

Push the blade into the opening as far as possible and slit the skin tube right down the middle.

Take your time to make sure that you are keeping to the centre line so that your strips end up equal in width.

Once you have split the skin tube right down the middle you can lay the skin out flat and straight ready for the next cut.

Now find the centre of your skin and with a rolling, slicing and pressing motion, cut straight down the middle of your tail skin.

You should be left with two strips of raw tail skin with hair still attached. Trim off the base end a bit to remove the widest piece of skin and the adjoining short hair. This section with short hair is of no use to us.

Give the two strips a good wash with soap and water to clean them up a bit.

Now rinse them off and hang them out to dry somewhere that will stay dry and warm. I hung my two strips above my wood burner and they were completely dry after just one night. The next day I gave the dried skin strips a bit of gentle manipulation with just my fingers in order to soften the stiff, dry skin a little.

I then fitted them to a new bow string the same way I would fit any pelt strip string silencer. After securing one end of the skin strip to the slack bow string by parting the string and threading the end through the gap.

I then re-apply tension to the bow string and begin to wrap the rest of the skin strip around the bow string in the same direction as the bow string has been twisted up.

Once I’m only left with 3/8 inch or so of the skin strip, I will take the tension out of the string again and part the string so that I can pass the tag end of the skin strip through the gap I’ve created, securing it in place once the string tension is re-applied.

At this point I will typically push the two end of the skin strip towards each other with hand pressure. This causes the skin strip to bunch up nicely which in turn helps to flair out the hair more evenly.

If need be, the last thing to do now that the string is taught again is to trim off any tag ends of the skin with a pair of scissors.

I think they look pretty cool and they seem to hold up to the wear and tear as well as any other pelt strip silencers. The only criticism I have is that they do look a little dishevelled the moment they receive a soaking. But then don’t most fur silencers!?

Give then a try and see what you think.

Elder Character Longbow Hollow Limb Design. 40# 28″ Bow No.5

This bow started out life as a very simple 60lb flatbow which was made from a stave which had been given to me by my neighbour who was grubbing out a patch of wasteland on his farm. Whilst the log was fairly straight (for Elder) the twist was the best part of 80 degrees!

I almost binned the log but thought that I’d use it to test how well a roughed out green Elder stave could be trained to conform to a better shape by using a form and clamps throughout the initial air drying phase.

After a few weeks on the drying form the clamps were removed to reveal a nice straight and twist free stave which I moved indoors to hang above the wood burner to speed dry for another couple of weeks.

A one inch long drying check behind one of the larger knot clusters was the only fault which I was a bit surprise by since Elder can check quite badly when force dried too hard.

Elder is strong in compression so I felt safe in keeping the limb width down to around 1″ 3/8ths. I’d never do this for a wood like Ash or Hazel but Elder is a fantastically springy wood which can cope with way more of a narrow limb profile so long as the length is not compromised too much.

I kept the length long at 66″ nock to nock and opted for a straight rigid handle and simple self nocks. I tillered the bow to 60lbs at 28″ and shot this bow like that for about a year. She performed well and was a powerful fast and efficient bow but 60lbs was too heavy for my likings so back in the late autumn of last year I decided to either get rid of this bow or drop the weight.

At around the same time my brother’s eldest son was asking if I could make him a bow. Whilst happy to oblige, (great excuse to make another bow) the reality was that I was short of time so instead of making him a bow from scratch I opted to re-tiller this Elder bow for him.

Long story short, I dropped the weight down to a more comfortable draw weight for my nephew at his draw length which is 26″. And instead of just removing wood from the previously flat belly I decided to hollow out the limbs to match the crown on the back by using the curved scrapper to re-tiller.

The bow had taken about an inch of set whilst in its previous 60lb straight limbed flat bellied form, so after reducing the weight I decided to see if I could reduce that set a little by heat treating the belly whilst fixed to a slightly reflexed form.

But before heat treating the limbs I also decided to lightly flick the tips to try and reduce the stack which it had suffered a little from previously. The recurved tips where steamed in, then once they had settled, I heated the recurves a bit more thoroughly with the stove top in order to ensure that they would never pull out.

After heat treating the flicked tips and the hollowed out limbs I finished the re-tillering and quit at 42lb at 26″ with a 1/8″ inch positive tiller. Shooting in and re-sanding shaved off another couple of pounds so I finally ended up at 40lbs at 26″.

The previous finish on this bow had been urethane varnish which I was keen to strip of so I could stain the revamped bow a darker colour. After stripping I hit the bare wood with a dark Jacobean oil based stain then sealed her up with 8 coats of Truoil.

A simple leather handle cover and piece of leather as the arrow pass finished the job. The bow is now a light in the hand (460grams) snappy and pointable bow and my nephew was delighted the the end result. I’ve paired this bow up with some 35-40 spine arrows and she is sending a 400 grain arrow over the chronograph at an average of 141ft sec which isn’t anything special but sure is fun to point at stumps!

Here are the pics. Hope you like!

1/2″ of set immediately after unstringing. Returns to 1/8th inch after resting.

Bow No.4 – Sinew Backed Character Yew Flatbow 50lb at 28″

I built this bow about this time last year after coming across a knarley 2 1/2″ thick yew branch which had been kicking around in my yew stash for a few years. It was one of those branch wood staves which no conventional bowyer would have used for anything other than firewood. And I must admit, I nearly added it to my own firewood stack!

The branch was relatively straight across the cleanest face but had several bumps, knots and wiggles distributed between 8 sections of reflex and 7 sections of opposing deflex. The sap wood to heartwood ratio was about 2-1 with sapwood clearly forming the majority of the branches volume.

I decided to give it a chop about with the axe to see what the belly would look like with most of the waste wood chopped away. To be honest, it looked like it might just about make a bow.

My main concern was that the pith centre looked like it might not come out without reducing the thickness to a point where the bow would end up very light. But after long string tillering it looked like the limb thickness would be clear of the pith whilst leaving behind enough wood to make a light to moderate weight bow. But the pith would run through the handle along with a drying check which looked unsightly.

My original plan was to produce a stiff handled flat bow with a high crowned D section cross section. But I just couldn’t put up with leaving that horrible crack running right along the length of the handle and fades. So I decided to gouge all that split wood out from the handle and the fades leaving me with just enough wood to function as a handle albeit a bendy character handle!

I made the limbs symmetrical and a max width of 1″ 5/8ths. Tiller was 1/4″ positive. Fades about 2″. Antler tip overlays were fitted after sinew backing so that the overlays could sit on top of the sinew. Nock to nock the finished bow measures 64″.

The single layer of deer leg sinew backing was a hedge against the knots but in hind sight was completely unnecessary. That said the sinew has kept the set to absolute zero. In fact before I sinew backed the bow I tillered it as a self bow to 28″ and was content with the 44lbs draw weight and the 1″ of permanent set after shooting in over a hundred arrows.

But I had a small pile of sinew to do something with so decided to stick it on the back of this bow to see what effect it would have on such an undulating and knarly high crowned back. The results were better than expected!

After sticking 2oz of sinew on with sinew glue the bow was wrapped up and shelved until Nov 2022 so it had about 10 months of curing time. During this time the bow had straightened out and the permanent set had disappeared and didn’t reappear even after retillering and significant shooting in. The weight had jumped up too so I ended up with 50lbs at 28″ with no set at all.

With no skins to cover up the sinew I decided to just leave it bare. I gave the whole back a coat of Titebond III to help smooth down the rough sinew before finishing the whole bow with Trueoil. I refrained from wrapping the handle so that the gouged out handle could feature as part of the overall character of the bow.

An attractive knot is in just the right spot to function as an arrow pass so I didn’t bother with an inlay. The final look is certainly rustic but to be honest, I quite like it!

The handle contours naturally in such a way that the crook acts as a locator dish which feels quite comfortable in the hand, even with the handle bending upon drawing. That said, unless I hold this bow lightly I do notice a bit of hand shock. I think that this is down to the mass of the tips which is probably not helped by the presence of the sinew. In fact, this bow is a little bit on the heavy side thanks to the backing. The total weight of this bow is 760grams! Yikes!

I actually like shooting this bow and it gets quite a bit of attention from others who often see it and comment with questions like “What the heck is that!?” Once they’ve shot it though they usually ask if I can make one for them!

Anyway, here are the pics. Hope you like!

This larger knot acts as a natural arrow pass.

Bow No. 3 – Elm Deflex Reflex Selfbow Flatbow 48#@26”

I built this bow from a totally green 4” diameter English Elm log which came my way back in the spring of 2022. The bark slipped off perfectly which was good in that it was easy to remove, but meant that the bow finished out lacking the wonderful cambium camo effect which I absolutely love to see on white wood selfbows.

As with most Elm logs above 3” in diameter, this log had some beetle damage which resulted in this log only producing one stave in the end. This was a shame as the log was clean, straight and carrying little twist. If it wasn’t for the beetle damage then I’d have got two nice staves from this log.

The damage free stave was slightly reflexed in the handle area but had a nice straight face profile with tips almost in alignment with the handle centre. After recurving I chose the top limb so that the string would favour the left side of the riser section since I’m a righty. I laid out the staves with symmetrical limbs and a handle section which would accommodate a 4” grip with 3” fades.

Both limb sections had a tiny amount of deflex mid limb so I could see the potential for a deflex reflex riser/limb profile. Since the stave was 66”, long I laid out the bow to finish 64” nock to nock. This is ample length to safely accommodate light recurves on a nice and wide limbed Elm flatbow.

I planned to finish with a solid and safe selfbow around 50lb at 26”. Flicking the tips on a bow this length shouldn’t stress the limbs, but as a back up against chrysling the belly, I kept the limbs around 1” 7/8ths wide for the first 2 thirds tapering rapidly down to ½” wide static flicked tips in the final thirds of the limb.

This staves back had some crowning to it but not really enough to warrant hollowing out the belly although in hind sight I probably should have. That said the flat belly/low crown cross section profile appears to have retained adequate compression strength and has withstood any fretting, even after much shooting with a held anchor. The deflex/reflex profile probably helped here too and certainly made the tillering process easy. The draw of this bow is also very smooth with very little stack.

This stave was simple and quick to tiller given the very even natural profile and in no time I was left with a snappy, low volume, low mass flatbow (570 grams) which is very pointable and is an absolute pleasure to shoot. Brace height is 5 1/2” and the tiller is 1/8” positive. This is one of those bows which when braced plays a note with one of those wonderful high frequency resonances when the string is plucked. Dinnnnnnnnnng!

I could have produced a heavier draw weight from this stave but I like bows around the 50lb mark at my draw length of 26” so I aimed for that and got it. There is no hand shock since the tips are low in mass and the grip is very comfortable to hold with a loose grip. The bow shoots hard at 26” and shooting a 9gn/lb arrow (450gn) over the chronograph produced average speeds around 156ft/sec.

The stave was fairly plain with no wiggle to speak of. Nor were there many significant quirks like knots etc so I decided to stain the bow so as to draw out the main feature which was the beautiful grain on the belly. A contoured grip and arrow shelf made a bit more of a feature out of the handle section and antler tip overlays helped to pimp up the limb tips a bit.

The arrow rest is not cut to centre but the paradox isn’t a problem anyway. An arrow in the 45-50lb spine range shoots well in this bow.

The handle received a light tan leather covering which was also used in reverse to serve the arrow pass. The stain is an oil based Dark Oak colour finished with many coats of truoil.

Here are the Pics. Enjoy!:

Bow No.2 – Character Primitive Ash Selfbow 48#@27”

The stave for this bow came from a 4” diameter Ash tree which produced two staves. One stave was pretty straight and featureless and I used that stave to make a plain but functional rawhide backed recurved flatbow for a friend of mine. The other stave had a nice bit of wiggle in one half and a few other little features so I decided to use it to make this unbacked character flatbow.

The tree was felled back in the late summer of 2022 so it had a bit of cambium left on after taking the bark off. I roughed the stave out whilst totally green and force dried it on a slightly reflexed form in order to fix some slight tip/handle misalignment. The form also evened out some slight but uneven and mixed deflex/reflex in both limbs and corrected the very small amount of limb twist which was apparent in the bottom limb.

After a month of drying whilst clamped to the form positioned indoors on my sun baked windowsill, I was left with a nicely aligned stave with an inch of evenly distributed reflex and just the right amount of wiggle left to make this flatbow worthy of the title “character bow”.

The small to moderate crown on this stave was worth considering. I find that a higher than average crown on tension strong woods like ash can sometimes be advantageous. As I’m sure many bowyers will attest to, Ash wood bows are quite susceptible to compression fractures on the belly. This is because Ash is far stronger in tension than in compression.

The small to moderate crown on this stave could allow most of the back of this bow to work in tension. Too much tension could chrysal the belly if not considered carefully in the design process. A high crown would allow less of the backs width to work in tension therefore reducing the crushing force imposed on the fairly flat belly.

Bearing in mind that the growth rings on this stave were a bit on the thin side, and that the early wood in the growth rings made up a reasonable amount of the bows volume, I decided to round the corners on the back quite heavily in order to create an artificial high crown and reduce the tension strength of the bows back.

I’ve used this little trick many times before to help protect the bellies of bows made from compression weak woods such as Ash, Hazel and Elm which are all very strong in tension. The result is a D shaped limb cross section with the curved portion of the D representing the bows back and the flat portion of the D representing the bows belly. The complete opposite to a classic English Longbow design which works very well with high quality Yew.

The down side to this approach is that much of the edge wood is taken out of commission. The up side however is that the full width of the flat belly is still able to function by providing compression resistance which will oppose the crushing forces of the tension strong back as the belly relates to the now tension weakened artificial high crown.

The artificial high crown imposed in the design of this bow worked well at preventing fretting on the belly, as did additional mitigation measures such as forgoing recurves, minimising the length of the stiff handle section, and maintaining adequate limb length and width. For this reason the bow was kept long at 66” nock to nock and has 1″ 15/16 wide limbs for the first two thirds of the working sections. The riser section is approx 10” long including 3″ fades and is stiff.

Previous experience of Ash staves from this particular area have reinforced the idea that extra precautions need to be taken to avoid excessive tension forces on staves like these which clearly have limited compression strength. For this reason I opted to keep the weight down to 50lb at 26″ or less which is around my favourite draw weight anyway. Much heavier than this and fretting might occur without increasing limb width or length, which I couldn’t really do with this stave anyway given the dimensions I had to work with.

The bow was very easy to tiller, even with the wiggle in the first third of the top limb. The tiller is elliptical ¼” positive and shoots well with split fingers with both limbs timing together very well. When unstrung after shooting a few rounds this bow shows about half an inch of sett which quickly returns to dead straight after resting.

Since the bow was for me to use I opted for simple but small self nocks. If I’d built it for someone else then I’d probably have put overlays on it. The arrow shelf was a last minute addition whilst contemplating the final handle design.

I like to shoot of the knuckle personally but figured my wife might shoot it so I used the significant width of the staves handle section to produce an arrow shelf which is certainly not cut to centre, but is not far from being in perfect alignment with the string which clearly favours the left side of the riser. This bow isn’t very arrow fussy but definitely favours an arrow in the 45-55# range.

The lightly fluted 3” fades were an afterthought and were an attempt to create a little more feature to the otherwise plain bottom limb. In hind sight this was a risky manoeuvre on a timber like Ash which is very prone to delaminating between the growth rings at the fades. That said, so far so good. No sign of any splitting yet and I’ve been shooting this bow quite a lot.

The finish on this bow is an oil based dark oak stain followed by many coats of Trueoil. The small amount of cambium left on the back picked up the stain differently to the exposed wood on the back which created a nice camo effect. This particular stain really grabs hold of the grain on Ash and produces a beautiful high definition wood grain on the belly.

The handle is contoured to my favourite grip pattern and is covered with a scrap of leather from an old jacket which I rubbed some earth pigments into in order to produce a more mat/antique appearance. The arrow pass is covered in the same leather only rough side up.

This bow shoots well. Not the fastest longbow by any stretch (450gn arrow at 27” 148ft/sec) but nice and comfortable to hold back at full draw without stacking much if at all. No hand shock due to the balanced tiller, comfortable grip and moderate tip mass.

I really like this bow and it has been my favourite stump shooting bow throughout the autumn of 2022. That said I have loads more just like it and might have to find a new home for it since I’m fast running out of space for more bows. Well, at least that’s what the wife keeps telling me! If you like the look of this bow then keep an eye out on Ebay as it might end up being listed there some time after Christmas. If I do list it then I’ll edit in a link to the listing at the top of this post.

Here are the pics: