#backyardbowyer

Brilliant.

I totally meant to respond to this much, much sooner.  Sorry.

Ok, so I’ve had a lot of success and fun with making bows out of PVC.  It’s cheaper, easier, faster doesn’t require a lot to get started.  I’ve made more than 30 bows out of PVC.

I got started watching the videos of Nicholas “The Backyard Bowyer” Tomihama over on Youtube.  He’s got hundreds of videos up in multi-part series going into great detail on how to make all kinds of different styles of bow, arrows, releases, quivers, crossbows- it’s frankly amazing the breadth of tutorials he’s just put out there.  I’ve also purchased and gotten good use out of his books:

The Impossible Bow: Building Archery Bows Out of PVC Pipe

Simple PVC Pipe Bows: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Forming PVC Pipe into Effective and Compact Archery Bows

Take-Down Archery: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Building PVC Take-Down Bows, Take-Down Arrows, Strings and More

There are numerous other builders providing guides throughout the web and on Youtube as well, but for my money Nick’s stuff is the best place to look.  That said, Tim Piatek is another great builder- he’s also got a really excellent youtube channel and collection of tutorials and experiments- who started the near 800 member strong Google+ PVC Archery and Crafting group- Nick is also a member ;-).  Go there, ask questions, talk, it’s an amazing community and great resource for beginners and experts alike.

Now, more traditional materials… wood.

To be perfectly frank, I haven’t made a successful wooden bow yet.  They require far more time and wood is infinitely less forgiving than plastic.  I made the mistake of trying to dive in too deep on my first one, which you can read about here.

I suppose “board bows” would be the beginneriest of it all (which I’m totally going to do this summer, promise), requiring the least research and work and time.  A board bow is one made from hardware store lumber- any hardwood will do, really, and you’ll find fair oak at any Home Depot or Hechingers.  Nick’s actually got a pretty good book on making board bows, and there are plenty of video tutorials on Youtube regarding board bows.

Now, when you’ve decided to just dive all the way in- though it’s good to have as a reference no matter your level, great stuff- you have to get The Bowyers Bible Vol 1-4- in fact, I probably should’ve mentioned it earlier.  Those books are an amazing collection of essays, guides, histories, details, lore and everything you could possibly need for making traditional bows.

Finally, I don’t know a thing about making compounds :-P  But some people on Youtube have demo’d them and there are probably some tutorials too- PVC’s really versatile and easy to work with, people have made some cool stuff out of it.

There are a good many excellent tutorials out there on making bamboo arrows.  I got important info from one on instructables, one on paleoplanet, tenbrookarchery (he makes gorgeous bows and arrows) and first and most importantly in Nicholas Tomihama’s book Simple PVC Pipe Bows there is an excellent chapter on making arrows from garden stakes.

Garden stakes from the local hardware store are my go to.  I can buy a bag of 25 green, 4’ bamboo garden stakes of approximately the correct diameter for a few dollars.  I’ve found that after testing for damage (cracks, brittleness, softness) about half a bag of 25 will make for good arrows- comparatively dirt cheap shafting.  Harvesting your own bambo should be EXTRA cheap ;-)

Take an open 7-10mm or roughly 3/8” wrench with you to check the diameter of the bamboo you select.  Don’t take anything cracked or tgo far dried out.  To test a shoot for suitability, simply grip a section in two hands that’s roughly the length of your arrow, flex it to test the spine a bit- the tutorials I link to demonstrate this for you-, if it doesn’t break or make any cracking or snapping noises it is good to go.

You will have to use a heat source and straighten the arrows.  Part of an arrow flying true is that it is good and straight, other parts being proper balance and, yes, most definitely the vanes, fletching.

There are guides to making arrows from hardware store dowel rods, but bamboo is easier and more importantly safer.  Start out with bamboo ;-)

You can make field points out of duplex nails, blunts out of spent bullet casings and hot glue (just glue a 9mm case on the end of your arrow, viola instant rough and ready blunt), glass (I wouldn’t), flint, bone, you can cut them out of sheets of steel like I do- 16ga welding steel from Amazon. 

Hi, my name is Nick! I’m an avid archer and bowyer and absolutely love archery in all its forms. One of my dreams is to teach everyone the value of archery and the lessons that can be learned. It’s a lofty goal, but I try my best in my own little way to make archery more accessible to people who may not have the resources or opportunities otherwise.