Wood from various woods, such as ash, hickory, cedar, oak, walnut, and birches, was used to make primitive bows and arrows. When antlers and other bones from other animals were accessible, Native Americans used them in some cases. Elk and caribou antlers, bison ribs and horns, and mountain sheep horns were among them.
According to the University of Iowa, common Native American bows included the self bow, which was made of a single stave of wood, the backed bow, which was made of wood and strengthened with sinew, and the composite bow, which had some combination of a horn or antler and a sinew backing.
The sinew was commonly derived from an animal’s back or a leg tendon, although it may also be formed of rawhide or intestines. Some tribes made cords from the necks of snapping turtles, while others made cords from plant fibers.
Fortunately, most of these terrible components are no longer required to make our DIY bow and arrow sets. We chatted with Michael Spink, who began constructing his own bows when a compound bow failed him on a turkey hunt some years ago, and he demonstrated the best way to DIY a bow at home.
Whether you’re an archer or a hunter who likes a hand-forged weapon, this guide will teach you how to make your own bow and arrow set. Spink shows us how to create a 68-inch Native American longbow.
Collect the necessary materials.
When making bows, arrows, and other archery equipment, the first step is to choose the correct materials. You’ll need a strong-yet-flexible wood that will snap back into its original shape after bending for the bow. When making arrows, use woody coppice growth, shoots, and saplings that are robust and near to the ultimate diameter of your arrows. You may build wonderful bows at home with drawknives, rasps, cabinet scrapers, sandpaper, and power equipment, but in the field, a sharp knife should be enough to cut the stave.
Choose a bow stave that is dead and dry but not rotting for same-day shooting. For optimal results, cut some live wood and let it cure for a few months before using it to make a bow. For bows, use hardwood species such as Osage orange, black locust, and hickory (though many other hardwoods can work). Choose a bow stave that is around 2 inches in diameter and is pretty straight and devoid of knots, side branches, and twists. Cut it to approximately 5 or 6 feet in length, but err on the long side. The longer the bow, the less it needs to bend to reach your draw length and, as a result, the less likely it is to break.
As a marker, use charcoal.
Bows appear to have a lot of pieces for a single piece of wood. Even though it may have originated from a tree limb, the bow will have two limbs (upper and lower), a grip, a back, and a belly, among other features. The most important aspect for a bow builder is to understand the back and belly of a flexible stick. Each sapling or branch will bend in its own natural way. This will dictate where you carve and how you build the bow. Bend your potential bow stave in different ways and take notice of how it naturally bends.Mark the inside of the curve with the stick so you know precisely where to cut (I like to use charcoal). This will become the belly of the bow, the side facing the archer (not the side of the bow facing the target).
Make the bow
Begin by cutting wood with a knife from the belly of the limbs where it does not bend much, leaving material in the parts where the limbs bend a lot. Remove wood just from the belly side of the limbs, leaving the back alone. The aim at this stage is for the limbs to bend equally in a curved shape over their whole length. Remove material cautiously and periodically check the bend of the limbs. For a speedier reduction, use basic carving cuts or combine a tiny baton and a knife.The grip region (in the center of the bow) and the limb tips should be quite straight. Thick staves will require extensive carving, but narrow-diameter staves may just require little shaping. Refine each limb such that it bends uniformly over its length, with each limb bending in the opposite direction. This final shaping is known as tillering, and it is a time-consuming process.
Create a string notch.
To fit your string to the bow, carve or file several small notches on both sides of each tip, taking careful not to slice into the bow’s back. They merely need to be deep enough to hold a bow string. Going too deep can weaken the bow and produce a brittle place. Another method that I frequently use is to cut a square tab at the end of the bow. This is a reasonably strong area to loop the string and can be done with a saw. Any notch can be strengthened for added strength.
Each bow limb’s ends can be wrapped in thick cordage or covered by a protective sleeve. Horn tips were once commonplace, but string wrapping will suffice in a modern survival situation. When the bow is halfway finished, string notches can be made, allowing a string to be used for light bend testing (to see which parts of the bow need more carving). Just be careful not to draw back on the string too far while you’re still carving the bow (doing so can break it).
Make your own glue.
A small amount of glue may go a long way in binding an arrowhead to an arrow shaft. There is an alternative if you are out of super glue or did not bring any. Pine sap and the sticky sap from other needle-bearing trees may be gathered and boiled to produce heat-activated glue, which our forefathers utilized for millennia. All you’ll need is some sap (fresh and sticky or dried and crusty) and a container to heat the sap in (an old metal can works great). Fill the container with sap and heat it near the fire to liquefy it.
While the sap is boiling, you may add charcoal powder to enhance the volume and function as an aggregate (like gravel in concrete). If the heated pine sap catches fire, don’t be concerned. Simply covering the container will cause it to leak. It just takes a few minutes to cook, and it may be used right away or left to cool and solidify for later use. It merely has to be warmed and applied hot to prepared surfaces. Heat up the pitch, arrowhead, and arrow shaft, for example. Smear the pitch on the heated arrowhead and insert it into the arrow shaft’s notch. Keep it steady until it cools and solidifies (it won’t be long).
Make some arrows.
Begin by gathering some straight branches or saplings that are at least 30 inches long and with diameters ranging from 38 to 12 inches. These, like bows, operate best when dead and dry, although you may have to deal with “green” wood in a situation. Trim and straighten them as much as you can, and cut a notch at either end of the shaft. The “nock” end should be snug on the bow string, and the arrowhead end should be snug to the projectile tip you’ll be using. These notches should be carved using a saw. Splitting the arrow shaft may weaken it, therefore avoid doing so.Attach your feathers and decide whatever type of arrowhead or tip you’ll use based on the resources you have available.
Never shoot a handcrafted wooden arrow with a contemporary composite bow. A compound bow’s extreme power and speed can cause wooden arrows to essentially burst rather than shoot off the bow, resulting in significant damage.
Make your arrows out of duct tape.
In a survival situation, you won’t always have the right supplies for the job. Those that have duct tape in their toolbox, on the other hand, have a material that may be utilized for a variety of tasks. It may perform wonderfully for fixing existing arrows with ripped fletching or constructing an arrow fletching directly from duct tape. Simply sandwich the end of the shaft between two pieces of duct tape (sticky sides together) and clip off the excess to produce duct tape “feathers” on your arrow shaft. That’s it; you’re finished. Your arrows will not fly as well as they would with feather fletching, but they will fly truer.
Make a bow string out of 550 cable.
550 cord, like duct tape, can handle a variety of difficult tasks. It’s also the perfect thickness for a bow string. It has a bit too much stretch right out of the packaging (bow strings shouldn’t extend since it absorbs some of the bow’s force from each shot). Twisting them might help to remove a lot of the unnecessary stretch. To build your bow string, use bowline knots or a similar fastener to tie loops onto both ends of the 550 cord. The string should be 2 inches shorter than the length of the bow. When the bow is strung, you should have a 5 to 6 inch space between the string and the handhold.
Create a beer bottle arrowheads
For hundreds of years, people have attempted to create many types of arrowheads. There are various instances we may utilize as samples or inspiration, ranging from beautifully flaked stone points to precisely carved bone and antler tips. Simple arrowheads can now be cut from thin metal, chipped from glass or stone, or simply carved on the shaft itself. Consider emphasizing a point if you add one. Insert the arrowhead after applying adhesive to the notch. To increase stability, wrap thread, floss, dried sinew segments, or dogbane fiber around the shaft and arrowhead. You may also use extra glue to secure your wrappings and ensure that the arrowhead and binding stay in place.
Work completion
To protect the bow from the weather, you’ll need to sand everything down and seal it. A good sealant is an important necessity for wood bows. For heavier tool marks, I normally start with a nice 80-grit sandpaper and work my way down to 220. When sanding, especially with coarser grits, take care not to remove too much in one spot. If you do, you can adjust the way the bow bends. A thorough rubdown with 00 steel wool after the 220 will really shine things up. One disadvantage of hickory is that it absorbs a lot of humidity.
This might lead the bow to follow the string (remain bent instead of springing back when unstrung) in an undesirable manner. You should seal it well to protect against this. Seven or eight coats of spar urethane or Tru-Oil are applied.