On Archery and Bowbuilding

I've always been interested in archery, since I was a little kid in the 50s watching Robin Hood (The Richard Greene version) on TV. My first bow was made by my dad, who took two pieces of 1/4" X 1" moulding and taped them together with electrical tape. The bowstring was a piece of cheap flycasting line, and my arrows came from the local hobby shop, at 50 cents each.
Amazingly, it got so that I could hit things with this...

Eventually, I got a better bow, a solid-fiberglass job that "weighed" about 30 pounds.
Still mostly got my arrows from the same hobby shop; I think they had gone up to about a buck by then.
After I got out of the army, I bought a proper bow. This would have been around 1972. I got a nice full-recurve laminated number from Herters. Herters was at the time a big mail order outdoor supply company, with a catalogue that provided weeks of colorful reading. I understand now these bows were made to spec by some other major archery company, and sold with the Herters name.
Anyway, a nice bow. Pulled 63 pounds (I was young and strong...).
I was shooting pretty regularly at the local field range, and had tried stalking bunnies and such. I had notions of trying for deer; the bow was certainly capable.

Then I ran afoul of one of my other interests, motorcycle racing. During my rather brief racing career, I broke my shoulder. Actually, a rather minor break, just the tip of bone that keeps your arm from raising too high. Anyway, the thing was so painful that I could not draw the bow at all. This condition plagued me for nearly two years; long after the bone itself had healed. During this period, I got married, and the realities of life gave me little time or money. Eventually, I sold all the archery equipment.
Fast forward 30 years.



This is the longbow I've just completed, my first self-made bow. I've had some success building things; a recumbent bicycle, a cigar-box guitar. Fun little projects. Somehow or another, I ran upon a webpage showing how to build a "board" bow. "Looks like something I could do", I thought.
My first attempt was a failure. I used a bad piece of wood, and the wrong kind of wood. (Poplar) Thing broke as it was nearing completion.
So, I bought a nice Red Oak board, and tried again. Had a few moments of panic, and when it was nearly done I became afraid that some of the grain run-outs near the tip would let go. I reinforced the back with fiberglass drywall tape.

As you can see, it didn't turn out badly.



Pull weight is right at 50 pounds at 28" draw. I painted the rather ugly fiberglass prior to applying the final sealer. I took it to the local field range today just for testing, and fired a couple of dozen arrows. Everything hung together, and it looks to be a good shooter. Have to get some proper arrows, however.
In addition to making the bow, I built the bow stringer, the string, and the jig you use to make the string.
The arrow rest design is courtesy of "Ferret" (who's instructions I followed for the bow as well!), and the handle is wrapped with a contribution from my wife; the handle of an old purse made of very nice Italian leather.

Now to build some proper arrows and get back into shooting!