vine maple selfbow project

[GBoyd]

This is my first attempt at a self bow from a stave. It's for my girlfriend who is just learning to shoot a bow, so I made it 35 pounds at 28 inches. If you know traditional gear, you'll notice that it's very poorly made. I made the brace extremely low because I was afraid to break it and there's a large hinge just past the fades on each limb. But, it shoots ok and I think it's a looker, so I'm posting it!

I made it out of a piece of vine maple I cut from private land I have access to. I seasoned it for about 10 months and used a bandsaw to rough it out.

[Whitpirate]

Always fun to build stuff with your own hands.  I took my boy to a class with Jay St. Charles at Pacific Yew and we made a couple of stick bows.  Fun to learn and shoot with.  Nice looking work!

[Eli346]

Nice job on that. I'd be proud of it and would definitely stay with it. I can see bigger, better, and prettier in your future but you know your 1st will always be in your head! 

[Bigshooter]

Looks good to me.   

[GBoyd]

Looks good to me.   

I guess you don't really see the hinges until it's at full draw.

I just gave my girl a lesson on shooting and she did pretty good at twenty yards, in the target block at least. We'll need to practice a bit before we take it out for deer.

[carpsniperg2]

Looks nice! Congrats on the first of surely many

[lokidog]

Very nice!

[Tracker0721]

Looks good, couple questions though. Only 10 months to season? I thought yew was one of the slowest drying woods for bows? And second question, how bad is the string slap? Haha but truely for a first attempt I'd say you did amazing! My first attempt was kindling. Followed by the 2nd.

[GBoyd]

Looks good, couple questions though. Only 10 months to season? I thought yew was one of the slowest drying woods for bows? And second question, how bad is the string slap? Haha but truely for a first attempt I'd say you did amazing! My first attempt was kindling. Followed by the 2nd.

I don't know if 10 months is too short to season. I cut down the tree and left it in my car for a couple weeks during the summer to act as a hot box. Then I split it down to rough dimensions and left it for another eight months.

And this isn't my first bow, just my first self bow from stave. I've made lots of board bows with some kind of fiberglass backing. A lot of those did end up as kindling while I was learning to tiller.

Here's the build along for the first one I made. It's a good explanation and uses cheap materials while you're learning.
http://poorfolkbows.com/oak.htm

[Tracker0721]

Yeah I've shot with Sam once. He does good work and knows how to make stuff on the cheap. He's doing knives now that are beautiful! And cost practically nothing. That's where I learned bow making too. Gonna try gathering some of this osage I've found everywhere to bring back to Washington with me.