Making A Longbow Out Of Laminate

Equally silent stealthy simple and utterly lethal.

Making a longbow out of laminate.

Whoever created the bow and arrow surely had no idea how they were carving out the future of humanity. The hunting longbow was the most advanced and innovative invention of its day. Bows used in archery and hunting are created from different woods and additional materials depending on the type of bow you plan to make. Tapers can be pricey and i don t have a belt sander planer or table saw so i wanted a way to make tapered strips with my simple tools.

Boards laminates allow you to get straight into the profile and tiller actually making a bow while at least half the battle with felling your own timber or buying it off someone else is in turning the stave into something you can make a bow out of. This next video shows me tillering a triple laminate longbow it has a yew core. This is a short guide on how to make a very simple laminate longbow. My long bow kit came from bingham projects out of utah.

The kit includes the hardware for the mold and dvd instructions for building the laminating oven mold and bow. Most bows are made with yew but other woods are an option as well. If at the end of this tutorial you have any questions that are not answered or you would like more detailed instructions on how to make a longbow check out www makingtraditiona. The following is the procedure i worked out for making a jig to produce tapered strips.

The full scale templates are also included. I figured a rather simple way to make tapered strips for bow laminations using a hand plane. Part of our bow making series of videos we take a quick look at the basic process of laminating a longbow and using a former to give the stave some set bac. Making a simple laminate longbow.

For me this was the most difficult part of making a fiberglass bow. The good and proper way to do it is get your shape a difficulty in itself tracing the shape onto a thin piece of plywood cutting it out with a band saw then using a drum sander to perfect it. Other materials include fibers from trees and animal by products like horns or sinews. You have to be able to see the bow in the rough timber and it takes a while to develop that knack.