#deadlystick

My mobile bow making set up 😊 Otherwise know as the mess in the back of my vehicle. I often need to get a potential bow quickly roughed out immediately after harvesting so it will dry properly without cracking. I use the drawknife for big pieces, then the spokeshave for around knots. I'll clamp this stave to a board for a week and then finish the rest of the bow with rasps and cabinet scrapers. Look how pretty this piece of vine maple is. Took me hours to find it, but there's no knots and this sapling told me it really wants to be a bow! #bowyer #longbow #deadlystick #primitivearchery #traditionalarchery #archery

These next 2 pics show the profile and the belly side of the bow at the handle. I'm going to have a bit of a bend in the handle to get as much of a working limb as possible since this will be a shortish bow and have as much draw weight as I can get out of the narrow profile sapling I started with. I left on some of the brownish inner bark. I find it helps with keeping track of where I've removed wood as well as making it easier to photograph. #bowyer #selfbows #archery #selfbows #traditionalarchery #deadlystick #primitivearchery #longbow

Ive got my vine maple stave roughed out to close to its final profile. It's a little over 1 1/4 inches at its widest dimension 5/8 ths at the nocks and 64 inches long. I want to end up with a #50 weight at a 27 inch draw length. This would be adequate for hunting large game. This will be pushing this wood to its limits but I'm hoping that my experiment of using a smaller diameter sapling will work because this high quality bow wood is easy to find in straight knot free lengths and would be ideal for teaching others how to make their own! #bowyer #longbow #archery #selfbows #traditionalarchery #deadlystick #primitivearchery

Here's a profile view of the handle section of my maple bow showing the fades. I've decrowned the back and taken off 90% of the belly wood so the limb thickness is about 3/4 of an inch. It's now ready to begin the tillering process. But since this wood was a tree 3 days ago I need to let it dry before bending it or it will take a huge "set". Removing as much wood as possible drastically speeds up the process and is possible with "white" woods such as maple, other woods might check (small splits) if not fully seasoned before working.Now I'm going to clamp it to rigid structure (to prevent twisting)it should be ready in about a week. When I clamp it I'm also going to bend it backwards (recurve) a bit. This will also help prevent a set in the limbs as I begin the bending and final shaping (tillering). #archery #selfbows #traditionalarchery #bowyer #longbow #deadlystick