This bow was built from a Yew stave which I salvaged from a pile of yew logs cut down by tree surgeons a few years ago. If I’d know in advance that this particular yew tree was scheduled for felling, then I’d have kindly asked the tree surgeons to have left the better logs long and scar free. But unfortunately I got there too late and they had butchered most of the nice clean limbs.
After wiping away the tears and a bit of searching through the carnage I was able to recover was the one stave that was used in this build. Thankfully this one stave was pretty decent. It was almost clean across one face and fairly straight viewed face on. Side on however was a bit less straight.
The stave measured 70″ long and viewed from the side, right smack in the middle was some deflex to the tune of around about an inch and a half overall negative tip to tip. There was a good chance that steam bending could pull that deflex out of the handle but I figured it would be fine left alone so long as the outer thirds of the limbs were flicked a little to compensate for the natural deflex positioned in what would be the handle in the finished bow.
So after taking the bark off and chasing off a few rings of sapwood, I reduced the edges and the belly material enough so that I could heat some reflex into the last 10 inches of the limbs outer thirds. This added reflex was able to bring the overall deflex to reflex ration back to a level playing field. Which is always where I prefer to start from.
After a good bit of cooling off time I roughed out the face profile so I could inspect the string alignment and was pleased to see that there was no need for any other heat corrections. And after a bit of whitling here and there I was happy with the overall shape and size of the bow.
Given the shear amount of material I had to work with on this stave, I felt confident in being able to produce a bow which would be a bit heavier than what I usually aim for. And given that I intended to sell this bow, I wanted to maximise it’s longevity, durability and performance by sinew backing it thus increasing its potential draw weight even further.
After sinew backing and a 6 month curing process I finished this bow and shot it in over a couple of weeks. The 1/4″ positive tiller held good and she performed with great power and cast. Over the chrono she consistently recorded arrow speeds of around 165 fps with a 550 grain arrow. And with no noticeable hand shock or kick, she was a pleaser to shoot in, despite the heavier than personally preferred draw weight of 65lbs.
To finish and decorate I covered the bland sinew backing with two King Rat Snake skins embellished with some earth pigment edge work to make the transition from wood to snake skin pop. Tip overlays of red deer antler were fitted and the top nock was cut to receive a stringer since this bow was a little too heavy to safely string via push pull or step through method.
The handle covering/arrow pass is all wild red deer bark tanned leather and the finish is Danish oil buffed and polished with paste wax. For a string she was fitted with a custom built 12 strand B50 flemish twist string fitted with wild fox fur silencers to make this already quiet bow whisper quiet.
This bow is now available for sale and can be purchased in our Southmoor Bows Etsy shop found here:
Here are the details.
Draw Weight: 68lbs at 28” Mass: 925 grams Length NTN: 67” (asymmetrical limb layout) Width: 1 11/16″” at widest part Tips: last 6” semi 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. 1/4” positive Brace height: 6″
Hope you enjoy the photos and video below. Please feel free to comment or contact me with any questions!
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!!
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:
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.
