Tag Archives: Arrow Shelf

Bog Yew Sinew backed  Longbow 42# @ 28” (Bow no: 26)

A friend of mine is a digger operator. He often ends up getting involved with projects like pond clearance/restoration type works. Whilst digging and dredging these kinds of places he often unearths all kinds of stuff. Much of my local part of North Devon is boggy wet ground. And whilst we don’t have those classic preservative peat bogs found elsewhere in the UK and Ireland, the bogs we have here are still sufficiently acidic and anaerobic enough to preserve certain types of organic mater which become submerged or buried within these often forgotten and neglected wild places.

Ages ago I asked this bloke to keep an eye out for any submerged oak he might come across, knowing that such a find would likely yield some very nice black ancient bog oak which would make for great carving or wood turning projects. So I was pleased to pick up a message from this chap last summer in which he detailed a find which he thought may be of interest to me.

He’d been working on an old estate property dating back to the early 1800s which had an overgrown cider apple orchard adjacent to a large silted up pond which he was in the process of reinstating on behalf of the estate. The pond was fed from a bog below the orchard which had a large earth hedge bank along one edge. And up on top of this hedge bank was a large, solitary, and likely very ancient yew tree.

At some point many years, if not decades ago, a large section of this ancient Yew had broke away from the rest of the tree and had fallen into the bog. And after decades sitting there this lump of yew had been completely consumed by the bog which had enveloped it with several feet of silt and clay.

Whilst digging out the bog this chap caught hold of this buried lump of yew and raised it up and out of the bog. Initially he assumed that it was just a big old piece of willow which had caved in from the edge of the bog. But once he’d pushed it up out the way he could feel how solid this particular timber was in comparison to other woods which would be well rotten and fragile by now.

He could also see from the broken ends of the tangled mass of wood that the preserved timber inside the muddy mess was a deep, bright orange colour, as opposed to a dull brown grey which you would have seen with most other species of rotten bog submerged tree.

Once he’d noticed the large yew tree standing up on the bank above the bog, he realised immediately that this buried timber was actually yew. And since he knew that woods like yew and oak will preserve in bogs, he thought he’d give me a shout in case I could make use of any of it. Trouble was he’d been distracted by other work and had forgotten about it for several weeks before telling me. Needless to say though, once he told me where it was, and that I could help myself to it, I was round there like a shot!

Upon first inspection of the mass of stinky mud and timber, I wasn’t very hopeful of salvaging much other than a few nice bits for making spoons and bowls etc. But after a bit of digging around, I was excited to find a fairly straight looking section of timber which was about 6 feet long, 5 “ in diameter and looked to have been undamaged by the digger.

With my silky saw I was able to cut the section of timber out from the rest of the fairly useless tangled mess of smashed branches and cord wood. And after wrestling this piece of timber out from the rest of it, whilst covered head to toe in mud and stink, I finally got a chance to inspect the log in more detail.

This log (like the rest of the wood) was completely free from even a hint of sapwood. The sapwood being free from tannins had rotted off decades ago. When a wood like oak or yew sits in a bog environment for any length of time, the sapwood simply rots off like any other wood would do. This is because most sapwoods including yew don’t contain the tannins critical for the preservation of the timber.

But due to the very high tannin content present within the heartwood of timbers like oak, chestnut and yew, the heartwood stays intact for decades, if not centuries, so long as conditions are suitably acidic and anaerobic enough to prevent decomposition.

And in addition to the anaerobic/acidic preservation of this tannin rich heartwood, there is another wonderful feature that our local bogs can bring about in tannin rich timber – and that is the unique colour change that takes place to the heartwood after many years saturated in our local ground water. This unique colour change is only attainable through this longwinded natural preservation process.

Due to our local underlying geology consisting of carboniferous sandstone, we are fortunate to have a large geological reserve of iron pan deposit within the sandstone bedrock endemic to our local landscape. This iron rich bedrock both surrounds and sits below our local bogs. And when these iron oxide deposits come into contact with our typically acidic ground water, the iron is dissolved into the water which in turn supplies high levels of dissolved iron rich water to these ancient saturated bog sites.

Given enough time submerged in such a iron saturated bog, the dissolved iron in the water reacts with the tannic acid in the heartwood of timbers like yew and oak. Slowly over time this turns the preserved heartwood a wonderful dark antique colour, which penetrates right through the entire log. Oak will often go almost jet black in this process. Oak preserved this way (“bog oak”) is typically prized and sort after by wood turners and carvers alike.

This salvaged pure heartwood yew log was clearly preserved and coloured right through as could be seen by looking at the end grain on the freshly cut log. I was blown away by the stunning bright rose gold colour which had penetrated the entire log. And from what I could see of the end grain so far, I couldn’t see any checking radiating in from the outside of the log either. Nice!

Drying checks in bog timbers is a common issue when wood is pulled out of its saturated boggy situation and suddenly exposed to air and sunshine for several weeks. Which unfortunately was the case with this particular find. But this log appeared to be free from checks and looked like I could potentially produce a bow stave. So once home it got hosed and scrubbed down so I could see what I had.

One side of the log was full of large knots and other problems, but the other side looked clean except for several whirls of pins situated with varying gaps between the pin whirls. I didnt dare to try and split this very precious stave, so I cheated and ran the saw through the middle of it splitting it into two halves. Inside was dreamy looking and also free from drying checks, mainly due to the stave still being saturated.

Keen to minimise the risk of drying checks developing, I decided there and then to get this stave roughed out to as close to final dimensions as possible so as to get way past the inner pith and reduce the mass to a point where I could feel confident that the stave wouldn’t start splitting as it rapidly dried out.

Once roughed out I used steam and a form to put a small amount of deflex in the middle of the riser. I also wanted to use this opportunity of having saturated wood to add a little gentle sweeping reflex into the entire length of the limbs to counter the deflex and reduce any potential stack felt at full draw.

Even whilst fully saturated this stave felt very stiff so I didn’t want to push my luck with the heat bending. So after heating, and once I was happy with the shape and approximate string alignment, I clamped her tight to the form and parked her up to dry out fully. After a couple of months the stave came off the form for inspection. No cracks visible and the light R&D shape had held tight. The stave felt a fraction of its former weight too indicating that it was now dry.

I’ve never before worked with bog yew so I was unsure of its ability to make a safe bow. Especially as it felt quite stiff. So to make absolutely sure this stave wouldn’t explode during tillering, or worse still, explode during use, I decided to sinew back it with 3oz of wild English red deer leg tendon sinew. Once the backing was completed and wrapped up on a drying form to retain the staves shape, the stave was put away again for another 8 months of curing time.

Once fully cured and cleaned up she tillered out to 45lbs at 28”. After tweaks, shooting in and sanding she finished up at 42Lb at 28”. She’s been a cracker to shoot and I had great fun putting a couple hundred arrows through her on my stump shooting forays. She’s sending 400 grain arrows over the chrono at 145fps at my draw length of 26” so I’m guessing at 28” she’ll be pushing 150+fps. She doesn’t stack and she doesn’t kick so she’s a real pleasure to shoot.

After refining the tips to minimise mass I fitted Wild English red deer antler tip overlays. I’ve also decorated the sinew backing in the exact same way as I’d described in my previous blog post which you can find here: Snakey Sinew backed Yew R&D Flatty (Zombie Killer) Bow No: 25 – Southmoor Bows

This time though I used a local Devon culm clay earth pigment as the underlying yellow/cream base colour. This contrasted wonderfully with the jet black sinew stands creating the mycelia look amongst the sinew backing. The tan wash to finish the look of the backing is once again concentrated spruce bark tanning painted on top of the creamy yellow clay pigment, then sanded/scraped through to expose the yellow/cream and dyed black sinew below. The tannin wash created a wonderful almost camo bark like affect on top of the creamy yellow, which almost looks like a natural creamy yew sapwood colour. This creamy yellow colour is fitting given the complete absence of any actual sapwood!

After sealing her up with many coats of shellac she got the polish and bees wax paste treatment leaving her with a wonderful satin sheen which realy make the rose gold almost translucent heartwood grain really pop. Especially beautiful are the pin whirls which I left nice a thick to remove any risk of pinching. The wood is a absolutely stunning even if I do say so myself!

For the handle wrap and lacing I used some of my home produced spruce bark tanned red deer leather. And for the arrow shelf/pass I used my own produced bark tanned red deer hair on shin leather. I love this material for arrow passes as its both silent to shoot across and really hard wearing.

The string is 12 stands of B55 fitted with double loops and my own produced bark tanned wild brown hare fur puffs for silencers making this bow whisper quiet to shoot.

So here she is. I hope you enjoy the look as much as I do, and please feel free to leave a comment below telling me what you think. This bow is now available to purchase in my ETSY shop here: Yew Longbow: Sinew Backed, Reflex/deflex 42#@28″ – Etsy UK

Alternatively you can contact me directly through the Southmoor Bows contact page here: https://southmoorbows.com/contact/

Specifics are as follows:

Draw Weight: 42lbs at 28”

Mass: 970 grams

Length NTN: 65”

Width: 1 -5/16” at widest part

Tips: 6” static 3/8” wide at the nocks.

Back: lightly crowned with with a pyramidal face profile.

Belly Profile: Working limb sections D shaped, transitioning at the tips to ridged shaped cross section.

Tiller: Eliptical. 1/8” positive

Brace height: 5.5″

Snakey Sinew backed Yew R&D Flatty (Zombie Killer) Bow No: 25

This bow was built from a really nice clean English yew stave which had been put up in my barn rafters to season back in 2020. It measured 68″ in length and had about 8 inches of almost perfectly symmetrical distributed natural reflex running from end to end. This was obviously way too much reflex to be used as it was, but with some tweaking, I figured most of that reflex could be retained and put to great use.

The cleanest face on this stave was going to make the back of this bow and it only had a couple of tiny pins showing through the sap wood/bark. If it wasn’t for the fact that the sapwood was so thick, I could have just popped the bark off and called the back done. But I clearly needed to get the sapwood down from around 1/2″ thick to something more like 3/16″. This would maximise the potential to incorporate all the lovely heartwood this stave had to offer. Plus I intended to sinew back this bow so in all honesty sapwood retention wasn’t even necessary.

Knowing that the back of this bow was going the be backed with 3oz of Red deer leg tendon sinew, I didn’t have to worry about chasing a ring on the back. The sinew would make the back of this bow totally bomb proof so I just hogged off nearly all the sapwood leaving just a bit around the sides as an aesthetic compliment. I do like some sapwood on a yew bow, even if just to contrast against the heartwood in that classic “coffee with cream” composition. So I left enough sapwood around the edges so as to please the eye, but in truth this bow is comprised of mainly heartwood.

After flattening the back out evenly I laid out the bows face and thickness profiles so I could get the overall dimensions roughed out. For this build I planned on making a R&D pyramidal flatty but not too wide and with a slightly thicker rounded belly. So once the stave was roughly bow shaped I steamed the handle section and put the stave onto one of my R&D forms so I could bend a good bit of deflex into the handle. This was to reduce the overall reflex to something more manageable so it would be easy to string and less stressed at full draw.

Whilst the stave was on the form I used the heat gun to straightened out a slight issue with the string alignment. And I also took the opportunity to even up the reflex in both limbs so that they were as close to matching as possible. After a couple weeks for the handle section to dry out post steaming, I took the blank off the form and was happy with the overall shape and alignment.

With the deflex now added to the handle the blank was now carrying around 3″ of overall backset/reflex, which was far more realistic and functional. Next the blank was sinew backed, wrapped up and put away fixed to a drying form to retain the wonderful new shape and to allow the sinew to fully cure for 6 months.

After the sinew had cured out completely, the stave was inspected then very quickly tillered out to 26″. I find that blanks which have been shaped optimally prior to tillering are so much quicker and easier to tiller to full draw due to the even shape and profile achieved before the bow is asked to bend.

Once tillered to a point where the bow could be shot, I used it as my “stumping bow” for a couple of weeks of stump shooting out in the woods. The reflex held solid, as did the positive tiller and string alignment. Shot in she was registering 45 pounds of draw weight at 28″, which was exactly my intended target draw weight, so it was time to move onto finishing touches.

This stave was a very dense, high mass stave, and was noticeably heavier in the hand than other bows I’ve made of similar dimensions. So in order to minimise any kick that high mass limbs can produce upon string release, I opted to reduce the width of the limbs outer thirds as much as I dared in order to reduce the mass in the tips as much as possible and tame any kick felt in the hand.

This new narrower face profile in the outer thirds was achieved without running the risk of losing the static nature of the tips as I’d left the tips plenty deep enough in thickness to resist any bending. And fine tips of course need overlays to protect them adequately, so I opted to fit some lovely red deer antler overlays shaped to compliment the now adjusted and refined grace and flow of the outer limbs.

To decorate the bows back I fancied trying something a bit different. I’d been inspired recently by a pile of old beech logs which were full of that beautiful “spelted” black creeping web like fungal mycelia. I wanted to re create this creeping black fungal “mycelial” pattern and texture on one of my sinew backed bows, but using sinew threads dyed black to represent the mycelial component, set amongst a background of contrasting colour to represent the “growing medium”.

The primary colour I’d chosen to compliment the black of the sinew mycelia was a really nice dark red which I could create using a mix of my local iron oxide and carboniferous earth pigment. This combination of earth pigments creates that dark red blood colour, akin to what you’d find dried onto your sword after a busy day slaying a bunch of zombies! 🤣Perfect!

So I added a thin surface layer of new sinew threads to the already cured, established sinew backing. These new sinew threads however had previously been soaked in spruce bark tannin solution rather than plain water in order to hydrate them. And once fully hydrated with tannin they were then added to a little iron chloride solution which I make myself from wire wool and white vinegar. The chemical reaction which takes place between the tannin and the iron chloride resulted in the sinew threads instantly turning a stunning jet black colour.

These jet black sinew threads could then be glued onto the plain established sinew backing layer in a web like weaving pattern, just like those black fungal mycelia veins weave through a hunk of spelted beech wood.

Once these black weaving sinew threads were fully dry, I then painted the whole back with my dark red earth pigment paint mix. This dark red layer was then followed by a coating of concentrated spruce bark tannin solution to provide a slight chestnut brown overlay to the dark red paint below it.

Once it was all dry I then scraped through the chestnut tannin stain, and the dark red paint below that to expose the jet black sinew threads on all the high spots. This left the low spots red and tan coloured, and all the high sinew spots presenting as inky black veins weaving up and down the entire length of the the limbs. I was really pleased with how it came out and I intend to finish several more sinew back bow this same way, but with a variety of different colours and shades.

Once the back was all finished and the overlays/wood was all sanded up, I sealed her up with shellac. And after polishing her up she was treated to a nice satin beeswax/linseed paste wax finish. For the handle I fitted a lovely piece of my own home produced bark tanned roe deer leather stitched up with the same leather cut thin for lacing. And the arrow pass/shelf were both fitted with a couple of pieces of my bark tanned hair on roe deer shin leather.

I love the shape and finish of this bow and really enjoyed shooting her. She does not stack one bit, and despite all that reflex she is easy to string and silky smooth to draw. There is a slight kick upon release due to the high limb mass previously mentioned, but I got used to it after a couple of arrows and didn’t even notice it once I’d altered my grip a bit.

I found this bow very comfortable to hold at full draw, so was able to take a little more time shooting my full shot cycle. Subsequently I was able to shoot this bow with great accuracy over and over again. Across the chrono she was also performing how I’d expect too, sending a 400 grain arrow at around 150 FPS, which is what I’d expect from a 45lb primitive bow.

So here she is. I hope you enjoy the look as much as I do, and please feel free to leave a comment below telling me what you think. This bow is now available to purchase in my ETSY shop here:

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/4375183128/yew-longbow-sinew-backed-reflexdeflex

Alternatively you can contact me directly through the Southmoor Bows contact page here: https://southmoorbows.com/contact/

Specifics are as follows:
Draw Weight: 45lbs at 28”
Mass: 995 grams
Length NTN: ” (symmetrical limb layout)
Width: 1 9/16″” at widest part
Tips: last 8” static reflexed, 1/2” wide
Back: Flat: Pyramidal face profile
Belly Profile: Working limb sections rounded D shaped, transitioning at the tips to a ridged cross section.
Tiller: Elliptical. 1/4” positive
Brace height: 5.5″

Osage R&D sinew backed longbow 52#@27″ (bow no. 22)

Trying to get your hands on osage staves in the UK is hard these days, which is a real shame as osage is one of my favourite bow woods, second only to yew (due to sentimental value mainly). I bought this particular osage stave from Anthony Hickman over in Texas who has an Etsy shop which can be found here: HickmanCreationsShop – Etsy UK

Anthony sometimes has some nice osage staves in his shop for a reasonable price (by todays standards anyway!) And the stave which this bow was built from caught my eye as being worth the near $100 price tag. I could see from the photos from this staves shop listing that the growth ring thickness (and the composition of late wood to early wood) was very good, and that this stave carried no propeller twist or potentially problematic knots/splits etc.

At 62″ long, this stave was a little shorter than I’d ideally have liked, however I would struggle to get a longer stave shipped out to the UK without incurring a massive increase in shipping costs. So after a bit of consultation with Anthony, he managed to secure a not too absurd shipping price, so I decided to pull the trigger on this stave feeling pretty sure it would make for a very nice bow. And I’m glad I did!

So total cost including shipping, this stave came in just a whisker under $200, which is an awful lot of money for a hunk of timber, but unfortunately this is just the going rate nowadays for osage shipped to the UK!

The stave arrived on my door step in only 12 days which was bloody good these days. And after a thorough inspection of it, I was happy with what I’d received. Since the stave had the felling date written on the end grain, I knew that this stave was still fairly green. So I was a little worried that drying checks might have formed during transit from the states.

But I couldn’t see any signs of drying checks, other than what was obviously already present on the sapwood. And Anthony had made me aware of these sapwood cracks before I bought it. Since all the sap was destined to come off, the sapwood checking didn’t concern me at all, as more often than not, the cracks rarely ever continues deep into the heartwood.

Osage heartwood can check quite badly if dried too fast though, so I immediately painted the staves ends and the sapwood surface with TBiii, before putting it aside in my spare room to dry out for another 6 months. I kept weighing it each week so I could see when the weight loss would plateau and finally cease altogether. That way I would know when the stave was dry enough to start working on.

And by the early part of the summer of 2024, the weight lost had completely stopped, and I finally felt confident that I could begin sapwood removal and general roughing out, without running the risk of incurring drying checks from the rapid loss of any remaining moisture.

The sapwood came off nice and easy and chasing a decent latewood ring on the back was made simple by the fact that the first ring directly under the sapwood was perfect in it’s composition by being nice and thick, so I chased this faultless first ring and made that ring the back of the bow.

Now I had to think about design. This bow was destined to finish out at 60″ nock to nock, so being a bit on the short side, I needed to consider incorporating some design features to maximise draw length potential, without over stressing the limbs. Ideally this bow would go back to 27″, but I’d have to wait and see.

A 60″ bow drawn beyond 24″ will experience some “stacking” towards the end of the draw cycle unless some reflex is incorporated into the tips. So I planned to flick the tips on this stave, but not enough to be able to call it a recurve.

But flicking the tips alone would add at least 3-4″ of overall back set to this stave since the back of this stave was essentially dead straight. That much overall back set would definitely create the potential for overstressing the limbs of a bow this short, since the working sections of the limbs would only incorporate a max of 20-22″ of each limb.

So to counter the back set created by flicking the tips, I decided to deflex the 3″ fades either side of the 4″ stiff handle. Ordinarily I would have steamed the desired deflex into the centre of the handle, but I could see a couple of tiny drying checks on the belly side of the roughed out handle section, which would most likely have opened out considerably if I had attempted to steam bend the deflex into the handle.

The fades however appeared free of drying checks, so with the help of the heat gun, a shaping form, and a pile of G clamps, I pulled enough deflex into both fades to cancel out most (but not all) of the reflex, which I had now steamed into the last 8″ of the tips. After subtracting the deflex in the fades from the reflex in the tips, I was now left with around 1-2″ of overall back set. Much more realistic!

I opted for a simple slender pyramidal face profile on this bow, as this design works very well for woods like osage and yew. Since osage (like yew) is so strong in compression, I didn’t feel the need to go super wide with the limbs, so opted for limbs around 1 1/2″ wide at the widest section just outside of the fades, tapering down to 1/2″ tips (which I would leave static for the last 4″ in order to resist the reflex being pulled out of the tips over time with heavy use).

The handle section in the roughed out state was nice and deep, even once the bulk of the splintery rubbish had been removed from the belly side. So at 2″ thick, I decided to keep the handle a little deeper than I normally do. This would also enable me to retain nice deep fades too, so I fancied shaping them up to a nice crisp sharp ridge to create a nice aesthetic leading into the handle section.

In terms of character, this stave had one simple clean and featureless limb, and one limb featuring a small hollow knot (which I pegged), plus four small pin knots aranged in pairs in two different locations. This limb also had a small amount of lateral wave to the grain, which presented some nice edge contour to the face profile of this particular limb.

This limb also had the remnants of an old impact scar which must have occurred whilst the tree was still living. This old scar presented throughout the entire width and thickness of the stave, including the sapwood, and appeared as a pretty cool looking lighter coloured diagonal line of grain about 4mm wide running across and through the entire width and thickness of the outer third of the top limb.

This kind of impact injury to a living tree is usually as a result of another tree falling, or being felled into it. The tree heals rapidly by reinforcing the cells within the injured section with additional lignin and other strengthening compounds.

This healing process creates dense and interesting grain changes, which not only look nice, but are also denser and therefore stronger in both compression and tension than when compared to the surrounding uninjured wood. As such, these healed wound scars can be left within the working sections of a bow limb without any fear of weakness. In fact these sections are stronger than the rest of the limb.

As this limb clearly held all the character, I opted to make it the top limb which places most of the character closer to eye level. And since this bow was going to be asymmetrical, this more characterful limb was going to be 2″ longer than the more plain (but likely stronger overall) bottom limb. Since bottom limbs tend to take more stress over the years of shooting and stringing, they benefit from any additional design decisions which ensure optimal strength in this limb.

Since this bow was a little shorter than I’d have preferred, I decided to sinew back it. This would add significant durability to the bow, and it would also significantly reduce the amount of set which such a short bow would ordinarily take when being drawn back beyond 26″. I also consistently find that sinew backed bows retain their zip much better as the years roll by too, (so long as they are stored and cared for properly!)

So once the shape was roughed out and the back was suitably prepared, roughed up and sized ready for sinew backing, I added 3oz of processed wild English Red deer leg tendon sinew to the back of the stave with my own home produced hide glue made from cooked down red deer rawhide and sinew scraps. After sinew backing was complete, I then wrapping the stave up with bandages and put it away in a cool dry spot to cure for another 6 months.

By the beginning of this year (2025) the stave was dug out of hibernation for an inspection and I was pleased to see that the sinew was now fully cured. An additional 1″ of backset had been drawn into the stave as the sinew had shrunk down, so the overall backset was now almost back to where it was before I deflexed the fades.

This is very normal for sinew backed staves and I felt confident that after tillering, this extra 1″ of back set would likely fall out leaving something close to a more suitable1-2″ backset. And sure enough, after tillering to 27″, the stave was now back to around 2″ overall backset. Perfect!

After a good bit of early shooting in and a little fine tuning of the tiller, the bow seemed to settle into and hold the 1/8″ positive tiller really well. She was turning out to be a nice quiet snappy shooter, and a very enjoyable bow to accompany me about the woods stump shooting for a few weeks. not only did she not kick at all, but pound for pound, I recon this bow is possibly one of the fastest shooting bows I’d ever made.

Now to finish her up I decided to cut an arrow shelf into the handle as I personally love an arrow shelf and knew it would enhance the pointability of this bow significantly. And for the tips I went for wild red deer antler overlays.

Whilst the sinew backing on this bow provided great functionality, it did look a bit plain, so I decided to cover up the rather bland looking sinew with a couple of nice dark brown/purple cobra skins I’d had lying around for ages. The edges of the skins where then sealed and decorated with white dots made from ground deer bone dust mixed with glue and applied with a sharpened stick. I find that this edge work really helps to make the skins pop.

For the handle I ended up contouring the back of the grip to create a very slight pistol grip with the dip pulled up nice and tight to the arrow shelf so as to keep the arrow as close as possible to the top of the index finger of the bow hand. I really find that this little detail allows me to shoot a bow instinctively with considerably more accuracy through enhanced pointability.

After sanding I sealed her up with 8 coats of danish oil. Then the final extra fine sand and pumice polish was finished off with my favourite home constructed linseed oil/bees wax paste wax polish, setting her up for a nice deep satin look to compliment those snake skins and the wonderful golden yellow of the osage heartwood.

For the grip I found a nice rustic piece of home produced bark tanned red deer leather laced up with some roe deer leather thong. And for the arrow pass/shelf I fitted a couple of nice pieces of natural coloured hair on bark tanned red deer shin leather. Which is a better looking wild and rustic version of the commercially available “calf hair” leather the archery suppliers sell!

Fitted with a custom built ultra low diameter fast flight sting, I put a dozen or so 50# 550grain doug fir arrows over the chrono to see how she performed. The chrono recorded an average arrow speed of 168 FPS, which is about what I’d expected given how spicy she felt when first shooting her it. Easily capable of being classified as a “hunting bow” and very accurate and enjoyable to shoot split fingers and instinctive.

This bow is now available to purchase through the Southmoor Bows Etsy Shop, listing available here:

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me either here, or through the shop!

Here are her stats, hope you like the photos and video!

Draw Weight: 52lbs at 27”
Mass: 650 grams
Length NTN: 60” (asymmetrical limb layout)
Width: 1 7/16″” at widest part
Tips: last 4” static reflexed, 1/2” wide
Back: Crowned with undulations. : Pyramidal face profile
Belly Profile: Working limb sections rounded D shaped, transitioning at the tips to a ridged cross section.
Tiller: Eliptical. 1/8” positive
Brace height: 5.5″

Yew Sinew Backed R&D Primitive for Ben 30#@22″ (Bow no: 21)

About a year ago I came across a short piece of round yew log which I’d kept with the intention of using as a billet. It measured 52″ long and about 3″ in diameter and was really nice and clean. After a bit of contemplation I wondered if I could get away with splitting it straight down the middle and getting two short staves out of it. So I thought I’d give splitting it in half a go.

For once it worked! Normally yew never plays ball when trying to split it, so ordinarily I would have taken it to the table saw, but in this instance I couldn’t be bothered, so I just set to it with an axe and wedges instead! Well low and behold it split just perfect! And no propeller twist evident either!

So now I had two nice clean straight, short and relatively thin staves. Should I splice them together and make a light weight full sized bow? Or, should I finally get around to making my kids a pair of proper character primitives, like I’d been promising them for ages. Of course, the kids won!! So this bow is the first of two bows which I made back in 2024. This one in particular is for my 10 year old son, and the other bow (which also came out great) I’ll blog about another time.

My son Ben has been wanting a heavier bow for some time. He’s really grown out of his first bow, a junior recurve which I bought for him when he was only 5. At 15#@ 20″, his recurve is now quite under weight for him and he’s probably drawing more like 22″ now anyway. So in the interest of keeping him excited about archery, I planned on making him something primitive and characterful, with enough punch to get him enthusiastic about flinging arrows again. And hopefully, if it didnt come out too light, it would be a bow that he can properly grow into over the next few years.

I wanted this bow to be a surprise for him, but at the same time, I also wanted to be sure that I built him something which he’d like the appearance and feel of. So in the interests of getting it right first time, I asked him to go through my collection of primitive bows and point out which style of primitive bow he liked the most. He chose the R&D sinew backed elm bow which I blogged about here:

He told me that he liked the shape (R&D pyramidal) and that he loved the rustic sinew backing effect that I’d created with that particular bow. He also made it clear that he wanted antler tip overlays, an arrow shelf cutting into a static handle, and a rustic leather grip. So now I knew what he liked, I set to work on one of the two yew staves with a plan to build a similar looking bow to the one he’d picked out of my collection, only made from yew and way more suited to a small, but rapidly growing young man!

After roughing the stave out to something close to final dimensions, I spent a bit of time heating a nice even Reflex/Deflex side profile into it using a mixture of steam and dry heat applied whilst using a shaping form I built a while back specifically for kids bows.

The sapwood was only about 1/4 – 5/16″ in thickness so I just left the back of the stave as it was directly under the bark. Ben had already made it clear that he wanted his bow to be sinew backed “like the Indians did”, so after I had the bows shape and profile locked in, I sinew backed it with red deer leg tendon sinew applied with TBIII, and parked it in a dry, cool place to cure for 6 months.

After waiting through the entire summer and autumn of 2024, the stave was finally ready to dig out of slumber so I cut some temporary nocks into and got it on the tillering tree. Within a couple of hours I had the tiller pretty much done but was a little concerned the weight was still too heavy. And at 40lbs at 18″, I was right!

By reducing the limb width a bit I managed to shift about 5lbs of draw weight without moving the tiller off, but I still had at least another 8lbs to get rid of before I could close the gap on the target draw weight of around 30Lbs at 22″. So I carefully scraped away at both limbs checking constantly for tiller change until I reached around 30lbs at 20″

Happy that the rest would probably fall off through shooting in and final sanding, I shaped the handle, cut in an arrow shelf and took it out for a spin in the woods with a hand full of 350 grain 35# stumping arrows which I’d built to accompany the bow when I gift it to Ben. They were a little stiff so I ended up keeping them a tad longer than I normally would so as Ben’s draw length increased with his age, his arrows should still be safe for him to use. Hopefully I’d just reduce the point weight as his draw length increased to keep them flying true.

I had a wail of a time over the next few day trying to shoot a 22″ draw without an anchor, and have to say, I actually got half decent at snap shooting from the hip like the Comanche did in the archery videos Ben’s been watching lately on YouTube ! After a couple hundred arrow and a good bit of fun the tiller seemed to be holding just fine, well for split fingers at least, (pinch grip not really being my thing!) So I decided to move on to finishing touches.

Tip overlays from red deer antler went on easy enough and once I had them shaped up, I could envisage going really fine with the tips so as to create a really sharp but elegant look to what is after all a rather petite bow. And of course by minimising the mass in the tips, I would also help to ensure that this little bow was maximising energy transfer to those nice light arrows.

Whilst I had the rasp out thinning down the tip tappers, I also saw fit to do a bit more handle shaping which brought the grip into a nice comfortable shape. Ben is a bit finicky about bow grips and hates bulky handles! This handle now had a slim profile and a slightly dished out belly side to it, which felt really natural in the hand. I figured he’d like that. I certainly did!

Ben had said that he wanted the same textured sinew effect on his bow that I’d done with the Elm primitive he’d selected from my bow collection. So Instead of filling and smoothing out the rough sinew on the back like I often do before adding snake skins etc, I simply gave it a light sand to knock off the snaggy raised ends of of the sinew stands. Then after sanding the whole bow, I masked off the belly and edges of the bow, and painted the whole sinew backing jet black with a paint made up of shelac and my local Bideblack earth pigment.

As a bit of a edge decoration I painted a row of red earth pigment dots along both edges of the sinew backing to give a buffer to where the black met the light coloured sapwood along the edge. And after writing on the draw weight/length and adding my bowyer’s motive, I sealed her up with Danish oil, topped off after polishing with my favourite paste wax.

For the grip I fitted a nice rustic natural bark tanned piece of roe deer leather sticked up with a thinner piece of the same material cut into thin leather lace. The cut leather edges of the grip and lace where then “aged” with Iron chloride to create that natural patina look that old worn leather gets on its edges. A coat of the same paste wax I used on the wood was applied to the leather grip and polished up to give a nice low gloss/satin water proof finish. The arrow shelf/pass was then treated to a couple of pieces of bark tanned “hair on” red deer shin leather to add a nice rustic, primitive look whilst maintaining functionality and durability.

Ben was absolutely over the moon when I presented the bow to him. Of course he wanted to take it out right away and shoot it, but since it was dark outside, I managed to get him to wait until the next day! He had a great time zipping his arrows off at stumps situated off in the next county, and proceeded to loose two of his new arrows in the process! Doh!! But never the less he had a blast, and has shot his new bow many times since with a newly rejuvenated enthusiasm for archery!

Despite Ben not quite yet being able to get the bow all the way back to his normal 22″ draw length, he is definitely getting it back to around 19-20″ now more often than not. So he’s probably drawing something like 25 ish lbs from his new bow at the moment. Which is still a lot more than his usual 15lbs! And he could immediately see how much more speed and power his new bow had in comparison to his little old recurve.

Anyway, I hope you like the photos below. If you like the look of this bow and think that your child might like something similar built for them, feel free to get in touch as I will consider commissions for unique pieces of work like Ben’s bow. Either message me through the contact page on this website or contact me through the Southmoor Bows Etsy shop and we can discuss designs/materials/prices etc.

Here are the stats for Ben’s bow. Keep an eye out for the sister bow to this one, which I’ll post about very shortly! Until then, may your arrows fly true!!

Design: Reflex Deflex, Symetrical Pyramidal longbow

Draw Weight: 30lbs at 22″
Mass: 440 grams
Length NTN: 49”
Width: 1 3/16” at widest part
Tips: 4” static 3/8” wide
Back: Crowned with sinew. Pyramidal face profile
Belly Profile: Working limb sections D shaped, transitioning at the tips to ridged cross section.
Tiller: Elliptical. 1/8” positive
Brace height: 5″

Sinew Backed Primitive Elm R&D Longbow 48# @ 27″(bow: 20)

It’s been ages since I made myself a bow. So when I uncovered a forgotten Elm stave which I’d had up in the barn rafters for a couple of years, I rather fancied turning it into my next favourite stumping primitive.

Whilst the stave was fairly clean, it did have a knarly looking end section which looked more trouble than worth the effort to work around. So I opted to cut this end off. This only left me with 61″ to play with. That’s not much for a white wood bow.

A white wood bow this short, intended to be drawn back to my 26″ draw length, would stack unless the tips were flicked. But flicking the tips on an otherwise short and straight stave would probably overstress the limbs.

As the added reflex was only to reduce stack, not add speed, I opted to deflex the handle section/fades so that it would cancel out the added stress from the recurve induced throughout both outer thirds. This is something that I tend to do routinely now, as even just a whisper of R&D makes for a much smoother, less stacky draw.

And as this white wood bow was always going to be a tad on the short side of ideal, to make sure that there would be no risk of his bow blowing up on me in a few years time, I decided to sinew back it with 3oz of Red Deer leg tendon sinew. Whilst it’s always a hassle and a massive faff to sinew back a bow, in addition to the extra durability sinew backing brings, it don’t half add some resistance to set, not to mention a fair bit of extra zip!

The stain on the wood is iron chloride, and the light dark effect on the sinew was achieved by painting the rough sinew backing jet black using my local “bideblack” earth pigment mixed with TBIII, which was then sanded along all the high spots to reveal the underlying natural sinew colour standing proud above the black sinew valley bottoms.

Edge work was done with the same black paint and the white dots are deer leg bone dust mixed with glue. I personally really like this kind of edging as it really makes the face profile pop.

Tip overlays are wild Red deer antler, and the handle/ arrow pass is covered with my home produced traditional spruce bark tanned wild roe deer leather. The wood was finished and sealed with shellac.

Given the sinew component, this bow took a full year to build from start to finish, but I’m really happy with how she came out. She is fast and light in the hand, and produces zero hand shock. Quiet as a feather and very pointable too. Whilst I’ve yet to put more than a couple of hundred arrows through her, she is already rapidly becoming one of my favourite woodland bows.

Here are the stats:

Draw Weight: 48lbs at 26”
Mass: 660 grams
Length NTN: 59.5”
Width: 1 3/4” at widest part
Tips: 5” semi static 3/8” wide at the nocks.
Back: Moderately crowned with a pyramidal face profile.
Belly Profile: Working limb sections flat with rounded corners, transitioning at the tips to ridged shaped cross section.
Tiller: Elliptical. 1/4” positive
Brace height: 5 1/2″

Here are the photos/video.

Sinew Backed Ladies R&D Yew Primitive (38#@26″) Bow no. 18

This bow was built from a short, thin but nice straight English yew stave which had been propped up in the corner of the barn for at least three years. It was too short to make a bow fit for a 28″ draw, and it was also a bit too narrow to produce a draw weight much above 30lbs.

After a bit of thought I decided to see if I could turn it into a short ladies or teens bow. The stave was pretty straight and without much wiggle. The sapwood was about 10mm thick so I reduced it down to about 6mm. The growth rings were a couple of mm thick so staying true to one growth ring on the back was quite easy.

Since the stave was so short, I wanted to reflex the outer thirds of both limbs in order to reduce any stack experienced at full draw. In an attempt to avoid over stressing the bow with too much overall reflex, I also wanted to deflex the handle as a means to minimise the risk of the limbs taking on excessive set. This was a fairly short stave after all.

After roughing out, the R&D shape was achieved by using a mixture of both steam and the heat gun to persuade the stave to conform to the shape of one of my wooden R&D forms. After the desired shape was achieved, the stave was sinew backed using wild Red Deer leg sinew and hide glue.

After being put away to cure out for 6 months, I finally got around to digging the stave back out for tillering. As is often the case with pre shaped staves, this one tillered out very quick and came off the tillering tree roughed out at around 42# at 26″.

After a good bit of shooting in, and a quick retiller to let off the top limb a bit more, she was finally pulling around 38# at full draw. And after a bit more shooting in and with the tiller now holding fast, I was ready to think about decorations, overlays and general finishing.

For tip overlays I laminated a couple of pieces of deer leg bone onto some buffalo horn. As a decorative backing, I chose to use a couple of nice wild sea bass skins which came from a cracking lure caught open reef fish which I’d been very fortunate to catch on the north Devon coast last summer (photo of the fish at the bottom). The reef bass often take on a nice dark colour around this part of the world and I’d been itching to use some as bow backing material for ages, so was keen to make this my first attempt.

The skins were fitted with TBiii and were edged with a black paint made from a mixture of hide glue and a locally produced earth pigment called “Bideblack”, which I’d collected from the cliffs directly behind the reef beach where the bass was caught. The white dots where made from mixing deer bone dust with hide glue and were applied with a pointed stick.

The handle cover is my own home made spruce bark tanned wild red deer leather, died with some Iron Chloride which I’d earlier made from wire wool mixed with vinegar. The Iron chloride reacts with the tannins bound within bark tanned leather, turning the leather dark black.

The lacing is done with my own bark tanned roe deer hide, and the arrow shelf/pass is bark tanned red deer shin leather cut from an edge piece which still had some hair on it. After staining the leather black I thought the natural golden brown colour of the hair stood out great, giving a pretty cool unique look. Deer shin leather makes for great arrow pass/shelf material as it is very dense. This makes it super tough and durable whilst still being nice and thin.

As you’ll see from the photos, there were three knots in this stave, I wanted to incorporate all three knots into the bow’s character so I deliberately left them nice and thick and wide to avoid any likelihood of them producing a weakness, or an unsightly pinch.

Two of the knots were unsound and needed to be dug out and refilled, so rather than dowel them like most do, I decided to improve their aesthetic appeal by filling them both full of with a mixture or epoxy and natural/stained yew dust. This gave both knots significant extra strength, as well as a much more natural knot like appearance. I think they look far better that the customary heartwood dowel and glue approach which most bowyers use to fill knot voids.

After sanding buffing and burnishing she was treated to 8 coats of danish oil and a buffing down with fine pumice and oil. Then a final application of paste wax to leave a nice satin finish.

I was really pleased with how this one turned out. She’s a smooth drawing, whisper quite little thing and the sinew helps send a 380 grain arrow out there at an impressive 145ft/sec. Not bad for a R&D primitive with only a 26″ draw!

This bow is currently available to purchase and can be found in the Southmoor Bows Etsy shop listed here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/4314834182/yew-longbow-3826-sinew-backed-primitive

Specifics are as follows:
Draw Weight: 38lbs at 26”
Mass: 532 grams
Length NTN: 55”
Width: 1 1/4” at widest part
Tips: 5” static 3/8” wide at the nocks.
Back: Moderately crowned with undulations with a pyramidal face profile.
Belly Profile: Working limb sections D shaped, transitioning at the tips to ridged shaped cross section.
Tiller: Eliptical. 1/8” positive
Brace height: 5″

Hope you like her!

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This was the Bass from which I used the skins in the build. The black sooty looking pigment on the shale rocks behind is what I used mixed with hide glue to make the black paint which edged the skins.

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”

Elm HLD Heat Treated Rawhide Backed Longbow 58#@28″ (Bow No. 11)

This bow came from a nice clean, straight, undamaged English Elm stave which I cut back in the winter. I roughed it out green and clamped it to a slightly reflexed form to force dry it over the wood burner for a week. I then took the roughed out stave off the form and left it hanging up in the ceiling above the wood burner for a month to dry to the point of no further weight loss.

Once the stave was good and dry I chose a shape and profile (HLD pyramidal longbow with static tips) which suited the length and width of the stave (6ft X 3”). I then cleaned it up close to final dimensions and then floor tillered it. The shape looked good so I continued to tiller to brace then carried on down to 22”. I was gunning for a nice positive elliptical tiller and a final draw weight in the upper 50s as this bow was for someone who wanted a nice clean, simple, hunting weight primitive longbow.

All looked good except for a little bit of propeller twist which was making its presence known, so I opted to straighten that out whilst heat treating the slightly dug out belly. So after fixing the stave to the form again and using clamps to pull out the propeller twist I set to cooking the belly.

Half an hour with the blow torch got the belly nice and dark but without any cracks. I’ve learned over the years that properly dried whitewood staves wont check as easily when heat treated as those which are still holding 10% or more moisture. This stave was down to about 6% moisture content so I could get away with using the heavy heat application which comes with using a blow torch to heat treat the belly of a bow. Give it a try and you’ll see what I mean.

After a day to cool and reacclimatise, I checked the tiller again. The heat treating had banged on some weight and gotten rid of the propeller twist nicely. The stave was now holding about an inch and a half of reflex too. After tillering down to 26” I was getting 63ish lbs so I decided to shoot in the last 2 inches and see if the positive tiller would stick.

A few days slinging stump heads in the woods gave me chance to really shoot her in. All looked good however the tiller was now looking a bit too neutral and since this bow is symmetrical and the guy this bow is going to shoots split fingers, I opted to take some more wood off the top limb to regain that positive tiller.

With everything looking nice, I set about rawhide backing this bow to add some extra durability. As much as I love self bows, the simple reality is that one ding in the wrong place, (especially on the back and sides, or worse still back corners) and a bow could easily be compromised. I like the protection that properly made and fitted deer rawhide gives to the back of a stave bow.

I back many of the bows which are going to end up in the hands of other people as I know how rough others can be with bows.  On this particular bow I opted to use some really nice thin wild red deer rawhide which I produce from deer that I’ve hunted over the winter. I process this rawhide the traditional way which ensures that it remains good and thin but incredibly strong. I sell this rawhide for a very reasonable price in my ETSY shop: Southmoorbows – Etsy UK. You can buy it here: One Matching Pair of Wild Deer Rawhide Strips – Etsy UK

After a couple of days for the titebond III  and rawhide to dry thoroughly, I set about trimming the rawhide and fitting some really nice Red Deer antler tip overlay (which you can buy here: Wild English Red Deer Antler Whole Coronets 3.5 Long – Etsy UK)

After sanding the whole bow down and polishing her up with wire wool, I stained the wood with an alcohol based black wood stain. The rawhide got treated to a coat of leather dye which once dry was wire wool scrubbed in the mid limb section to give it an aged and worn appearance.

 All the final scrapping and sanding to finish brought the weigh down to 59lbs at 28”. A further few shooting in sessions saw the weight settle in to 58lb at 28”. This was about perfect.

On went a piece of my own home produced, lovely, thick wild red deer neck rawhide for a handle covering (which you can buy here: 5 X 6 Wild Red Deer Rawhide Piece 0.4 1mm Thick – Etsy UK). This rawhide handle covering got a coat of leather stain too. The handle and the bow itself were then both treated to half a dozen coats of tung oil over the next couple of weeks to seal her up good and tight.

Whilst this bow is a bit on the heavy side for me personally, the guy who received this bow loved it. It is indeed a punchy bow with no noticeable hand shock, and very quiet too. It would make a really great hunting bow.

Here are the stats and pics. Hope you like!

Mass: 678 grams

Length NTN: 67”

Width: 1 7/8” at widest

Tips: 5” static 3/8” wide

Back: Marginally crowned with minimal undulation. Face profile pyramidal.

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

Tiller: Elliptical 1/8” positive.

Draw Weight: 58lbs at 28”

5 X 6 Wild Red Deer Rawhide Piece 0.4 1mm Thick – Etsy UK
Wild English Red Deer Antler Whole Coronets 3.5 Long – Etsy UK
One Matching Pair of Wild Deer Rawhide Strips – Etsy UK
1 X Pair of Beaver Fur Bow String Silencers beaver – Etsy UK

Holly Heat Treated Self Bow 40#@28″ (Bow No. 10)

I’ve had the stave this bow came from hanging in the rafters for at least three years and to be honest, I can’t for the life of me remember where it came from. Every time I moved it out the way to get to a different stave it would catch my attention. I love making bows from holly as it is excellent bow wood (if you can find a clean straight bit that is!) But every time I inspected this particular stave I’d be reminded of the bloody great chainsaw cut which was three parts of the way through the belly of what would end up being one of the limbs outer 1/3 sections. (Bloody tree surgeons!) And that is why this particular stave kept getting put  back in the rafters!

There was little intact belly wood remaining usable at this cut point, which led me to believe that the likelihood of this stave making a bow over 20lbs was low. So with those thoughts in my head I decided to quickly chop down to the bottom of the saw cut to see exactly how much wood remained intact. If there wasn’t enough I’d just scrap the stave and make space in the rafters.

But after 10 mins with the axe I was able to see that there was actually a little bit more wood left behind than I first thought, although definitely not enough to make a hunting weight bow. Enthused by this discovery I roughed out a basic profile and limb thickness to see exactly what I was able to play with. About 8mm of wood was all of what remained just outside of where the static tip fade would end and the working part of the outer limb would start. Not Ideal!

After completing the roughing out of both limbs, I set to tillering the stave to brace height. At this point I could see that some fairly minor propeller twist and string alignment issues would need resolving before taking the tiller much further. At this point it was already apparent that the weight was going to end up pretty low so I thought I’d have a go at fixing all the bending and twisting issues whilst at the same time adding a few more pounds of draw weight through heat treating the belly of the stave. The heat treatment took place whilst the stave was clamped strategically into an optimal position on a form with a touch of reflex. And it worked out pretty well! After taking a blow torch to the entire belly for half an hour, nearly all of the propeller twist came out, and the string alignment was resolved to. And all whilst adding a good 5 or 6lbs of well received draw weight too! Bonus!!

After tillering down to 26” on the tree I was now getting about 40lbs ish on the scale. So with a slightly whippy positive tiller I decided to shoot in the last couple of inches rather than pulling her down to 28” on the tillering tree. I often find that I’m best doing this towards the end of the tillering process as lets face it, the way we pull on a bow when actually shooting it is really quite different to how the bow is stressed on a tillering tree.

After a couple of hundred arrows I checked the tiller and all looked good so I finished sanding her down which knocked a pound or so off and left her pulling 40lbs at 28”. The positive tiller held good and I was pleased to have managed to pull off a sweet shooting light weight selfy, which actually looks quite good. I really like the contrast between the light and dark of the back and belly. Buffalow horn tip overlays also contrast sharply with the light wood of the back.

I finished the handle with some really nice thick wild red deer rawhide which I processed myself from a neck cape which came from a stag I shot back in the autumn. After re-wetting the rawhide and forming it around the contoured grip I let it dry for a couple of days. Once dry it got trimmed, punched, stained and glued/sewn back on. I dyed the rawhide dark tan with an impressive product which is new to me, Leather Dye WB – Furniture Clinic. I’ll certainly be using this product again as it works extremely well on rawhide. It’s a water based leather stain and soaks into both dry and wet rawhide amazingly. It penetrates really deep and dries quickly too and once dry it doesn’t rub off either unlike many other leather stains I’ve used before. And as it is a water based stain, you can oil over the stain to leave the whole thing totally water proof and looking like traditionally tanned leather. After a single coating of the leather stain I gave this particular handle covering along with the rest of the bow 6 coats of tung oil. Each coat being left a couple of days between coats to soak right in. I love the satin finish tung oil gives and I think that it sometimes suits certain bows better than the usual glossy Truoil type finishes. The handle covering is glued in situ with Titebond III.

The string is 12 strands of B55 and the silencers are Wild Beaver fur.

This bow would make a great ladies/tennagers primitive longbow and will be listed for sale on my ETSY Shop very soon. My Shop can be found here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Southmoorbows?ref=l2-about-shopname

Stats are as follows:

Mass: 554 grams

Length NTN: 62”

Width: 1 ¾” at widest part

Tips: 4” static 3/8” wide

Back: Moderately crowned with valleys. : Pyramidal face profile

Belly Profile: Undulating between flat and concaved to mirror the bows back.

Tiller: Lightly whipped. 1/8” positive

Brace height: 5 1/2″

Draw Weight: 40lbs at 28”

Here are the pics. Hope you like her!