TIPS FOR BEGINNING BOWYERS For splitting out staves & billets:
When splitting wood, especially "snarly" wood with interlocking fibers such as Osage or elm, you may find yourself running short of wedges. If you have a bandsaw you can quickly fashion a makeshift wedge from scrap wood. These wooden wedges are fairly durable and won't gouge an ax blade as will a steel wedge. — Jim Hamm
On using various woods for bows:
John Strunk, who recently has been building some great shooting bows from Oregon vine maple and Cascara, says: "Experiment with the woods which grow in your particular area. There are lots of good bow woods out there!"
How to get square cuts with narrow billets:
If you're splicing narrow or thin billets which don't have enough surface area to keep them square on the sawing surface, just clamp on a short length of 1" thick wood with C-clamps. This will keep them square and at 90-degrees to the bandsaw blade. — Tim Baker
Advice for preventing limb twist:
When you're roughing out a bow which you suspect might develop limb twist, leave it real wide at the tips. If twist develops, the offending side can be reduced, bringing the string back true to center. — Tim Baker
TIPS FOR USING LESS-THAN-PERFECT WOOD
To lay out your bow straight:
The centerline of a stave which is severely reflexed or set back in the handle can sometimes be hard to determine. To mark out the centerline of such a stave, you can stretch a string between the two ends and then put the stave under a light source (either the sun or an artificial lamp will do) and mark where the shadow of the string bisects the stave down the center. — Jay Massey
For better limb tiller:
If one limb of your bow stave has more natural deflex than the other, and if the limbs are of equal length, make the limb with the greater deflex the bottom limb. Failure to do this could cause the lower limb — which is under greater stress — to bend too much once the bow is broken in. This problem is more pronounced with wide-limbed bows. This is less of a danger with English-style bows, which have longer upper limbs. — Paul Comstock
How to conceal cracks and other imperfections:
Use super glue to seal cracks in the limb, especially any which run off the side of a self bow. Not totally traditional, but it can spell the difference between a functional, durable bow and firewood. — Jim Hamm
Heated epoxy works okay too — it becomes thin at higher temperatures and "flows" into the crack. - Jay Massey
To avoid over-stressing a reflexed stave
A bow made from a stave with a severe reflex (more than 2" of reflex or setback) will be under severe stress when it is first strung. To lessen the chance of breakage, first back it with a thin layer of sinew. The sinew can always be removed later if you want an unbacked bow. — Jay Massey
How to keep the tips straight on a reflexed stave:
Limb twist can be a problem with severely-reflexed staves. On such staves, leave the tips extra-wide when roughing out the bow. The more reflex the stave has, the more a bow will tend to have limb-twist. You can narrow the tips as you work the bow to its final shape. — Jay Massey
Working with staves that have natural string-follow:
A stave with severe string-follow will suffer from a loss of cast. However, the string-follow can be corrected by steam-bending. First reduce the stave to nearly its final dimensions, then steam the to be bent portion for 20-minutes and clamp down to a form. Let dry for several days before attempting to tiller it. — Tim Baker
Tips for working around knots:
"When you're working around a knot in a limb, don't attack it just from one direction, otherwise you'll likely gouge and tear the wood around the knot. Instead, rasp or shave off the wood from the center of the knot, working "downhill" or outward from it." — Tim Baker
Knots can weaken a limb. Some can be strengthened by leaving them "proud," but others should be dug out and filled. Dig the knot out to the healthy wood and then rough up the surface of the wood inside the knot and fill it with bits of chopped sinew and hide glue. That's the way the Turks did it. With extra-large knotholes, you can stuff strands of sinew completely through the hole and smooth it out flat on the back side. This method works much better than putting in a "Dutchman," which can sometimes crack out. — Jay Massey
Another good method of dealing with knots, says John Strunk, is to use wood scrapings, sanding dust and glue to fill the hole. Tamp this material down into the knot hole and then apply some Locktite 420 to make it solid. Let it dry and then sand the area down before finishing.
Strunk sometimes digs out the punky center of a knot and fills it with Locktite 420, one of his favorite glues.
For a number of reasons, Paul Comstock says, a wooden bow may have a small working crack in the wood that seems to have no effect on the bow's performance or durability. Such cracks will flex or open tiny amounts as the bow is used. Examples can include areas around a knot or pin on the back, a fret on the belly, or a small crack on the side of the limb. It is particularly risky when water works its way into such a crack. Bending the bow in such condition can create significant damage where none existed before. The crack can enlarge and threaten to destroy the bow. To fight this danger, the archer can religiously keep such spots heavily waxed or greased when wet conditions are anticipated. Another option could be to use such a bow only in dry weather. Drying checks in the wood usually pose no danger in such circumstances. The wood fibers around a drying check are perfectly intact (as long as the check does not run off the side of the limb). The check was created when the fibers moved. Even though they moved they have not been ruptured, which is the case with a working crack. It is the combination of ruptured fibers, water, and bending that can cause significant damage.
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