The hunting bow is one of the oldest human weapons, used by our ancestors. These devices reached the apogee of their development in the Middle Ages - and the most powerful and accurate were not English ones (as was presented in literature for a long time), but oriental bows: Arabic, Korean and Japanese. The target range of their shot, taking into account the simplicity of the design in comparison with modern high-tech products, reached 200–220 meters, the maximum flight range of the arrow was 870–880 meters, and the tension force was up to 80 kg! Hunting bows are still used today, but some models are quite expensive. Therefore, we suggest you make such a tool with your own hands.

What is a hunting bow and its varieties

Initially, hunting bows were made exclusively from wood and had a simple arched shape. Somewhat later, simple models were replaced by composite ones, which first used ends made of bone, and then more complex designs from separately assembled parts: a central handle, a pair of shoulders and ends. Nowadays, block compound (or Olympic) options have been added to them. However, they are not used in hunting.

Collapsible bow design

In general, the current classification of hunting bows is the following division:

1. According to the material of manufacture:
   • traditional (made of wood);
   • composite (from several materials).
2. According to the structure of the main part:
   • classic (D-shaped in a bent form, that is, with one bend);
   • recursive (M-shaped, with several bends).
3. By number of components:
   • simple bows - made from a single piece of material;
   • collapsible models - from several components.

Photo gallery: Modern hunting with industrial bows

Mathews Bow Compound Bow VilingStore Compound Bow Mathews CREED

Principle of operation

The principle of operation of classical bows (both traditional simple and recurve) is based on the creation of a pushing force that is imparted to the bowstring when the shoulders are straightened and provides the arrow with an initial speed that depends on the tension force. Moreover, the initial speed of the boom in a simple design also depends on these factors, while in block models, eccentrics located at the ends, synchronized with each other by a system of separate cables, are responsible for accuracy and speed.

A professional compound bow is made mainly from expensive and high-strength materials (carbon and fiberglass, magnesium and aluminum alloys, etc.) and contains a separate optical sighting system. In this regard, it is extremely difficult to make such a device yourself, and most importantly, very expensive. Therefore, further we will consider the assembly of hunting bows only of the classical type - both simple and complex recurve ones.

Photo gallery: Various designs of simple models

Materials and tools for manufacturing

To make a bow you will need the following tools and materials:

• hacksaw;
• plane;
• strong rope (for the bowstring);
• insulating tape;
• plastic tube (for PVC bows) or wood (for traditional options).

As for wood, yew is considered the best - it was from this wood that the famous English bows were made in the old days. In the absence of this rare species, you can use larch, rowan, ash, hazel, willow, cedar, juniper or elm. In other words, the material must be homogeneous, flexible and beautiful.

Believe it or not, this is a homemade compound bow!

Manufacturing instructions

Simple model

To make a simple PVC hunting bow, you will need a piece of SCH 40 pipe about 2.5 cm thick and a length equal to the distance between the middle of your thigh and the fingertips of an outstretched hand. Measuring 1.5 cm on both sides, make cuts. Insert and fasten the string into them so that the maximum tension is approximately equal to the length of the bow.

The length of a simple bow is longer than a compound bow.

Attach to the string so that the maximum tension is approximately equal to the length of the bow

Unfortunately, a simple plastic bow can hardly be called a full-fledged hunting weapon - this will require a much more complex composite structure, in which 2 short pieces of a thin tube (to strengthen the shoulders) about 10 cm long will be inserted into the main pipe. For the handle, you will need 1 piece of slightly larger diameter.

Homemade bow made from PVC pipe and wood. Bowstring - silk thread

When making a structure from wood, it will be necessary to cut (plane) the main part of the bow, about 5 cm wide in the central part and 1.5 cm in the sides.

Photo gallery: Making onions in the forest from improvised materials

Simple homemade bow design

Video: Homemade bow using PVC pipes

Composite

A real hunting bow should be composite, and in shape as close as possible to modern high-class sports products. As a base, it is better to use flexible and non-layered wood from the lower and dense layers of trees growing in dark areas of the forest. For example, bird cherry, growing in open, dry clearings far from water, is good for “horns.”

The length of all three parts that form the bow (the base plus both horns) should not exceed 1.5 m - otherwise the bow may have greater range, but much less accuracy.

The step-by-step manufacturing technology will be as follows:

1. The cleaned blanks are dried (not in the sun!), all 3 parts are planed and dried again. Then the base and horns are given their final appearance and dried in the bright sun.
2. The kibiti elements are glued together with special store-bought glue or homemade fish glue (from digested bones or swim bladders of large fish).
3. The finished kibit is dipped in melted animal fat (or cedar resin) for impregnation.
4. The joints are additionally tightened with tendons or a dense flexible cord and soaked again, after which the finished bow is processed until smooth with a knife and, if desired, polished.

It is also possible to cover the base with strips of birch bark, and the horns and ends with overlays made of natural horn (or metal). However, such strengthening and creation of multi-layering is only relevant for weapons with a very high (more than 20 kg) tension force, which is hardly meaningful when hunting birds and small animals with a bow - except perhaps in terms of decoration.

Photo gallery: DIY compound bows

Compound bows drying after sizing
Homemade compound bows

Video: How to make a compound bow at home

Accessories

Making all the components of a bow at home is even easier than the main structure.

Bowstring

It can be twisted from nylon cord, although real hunters prefer natural material. Which is usually blood-soaked and dried rawhide rolled into a tube, 3-4 mm wide. Although it is inferior to modern, even inexpensive synthetic materials in terms of performance characteristics. The skin can be replaced with tendons from the vertebral part of large animals - elk, cows, etc. Or a bunch of natural silk threads can be used.

The bowstring is simply put on - first with a loop on one horn, and then, bending the end of the bow resting on the ground, on the second. For a recurve bow, the distance between the string and the handle should be about 15 cm, and the string must be removed when storing the bow.

Video: How to make a bow string

Arrows

The length of the arrows should be proportional to the length of the bow and the maximum tension of the bowstring. In practice, this means that when the bow is drawn, the arrow tip should protrude at least a few centimeters beyond the bow.

The diameter is approximately 6 mm, and the entire axis of the arrow must be perfectly flat. For small game and poultry, light wood is used - spruce, pine, birch. For larger animals - heavy and dense species (ash, hornbeam, oak). Arrows, like a splinter, are split from logs, after which they are shaped into long and thin round cylinders.

I've been planning to make a homemade bow for a while now and I finally made it!

The handle is based on my design and consists of three types of wood that look great together. I used skis as bow arms, because they bend well and are accessible - using them made the task much easier, because I didn’t have to come up with something myself.

Each step is equipped with detailed pictures that will make it easier for you to understand how to make a bow with your own hands. I would like to note that this project was not too difficult.

To assemble a bow at home, you will need materials from the following lists.

For the handle:

• A single piece of hardwood 8*61*6.5 cm (I created mine by gluing together three different types of wood)
• Pencil and paper to create a handle design
• Jigsaw (for cutting out the handle)
• Wood glue
• Lots of clamps
• Sandpaper and belt sander
• Wood rasp
• Epoxy
• Wood stains and varnishes

For the bow limbs:

• Cross Country Ski Set
• Ruler
• Fine tooth saw for cutting skis
• Drill and its components
• Dye
• Round file for wood

Additional materials:

• Bowstring
• Bow arrows
• Paper targets

Step 1: Create a Handle Design

The first step in making a bow is to create a design for the grip. This will determine the appearance of your bow. I started by looking at bows online and trying to make simple sketches of what I liked. In general, you need to follow a few basic rules, here they are:

• The length of the handle should be from 40 to 61 cm. My handle is approximately 50 cm long.
• The location for the arrow should be exactly in the middle of the handle
• The hand position should be immediately below the boom
• Bow limb angles - most commercially available bows come with limbs at an angle of 15-20 degrees.

Since I was going to use cross country skis for the limbs, I decided to cut the angle down to 10 degrees so my bow limbs would sit more upright. The reason I did this is because the skis are very flexible and I wanted to get the most power out of the bow.

I'm good at Google Sketchup and made a simple 3D model of what the handle would look like before sanding. This is optional, but overall helped with the project.

Step 2: Select wood and glue it together

Show 4 more images

Choosing wood for a bow isn't all that difficult and there's only one main rule (but honestly, a bow will work anyway).

The main rule is to use hardwood. Hardwood will make the bow stronger and more powerful. Also, hardwood usually has a beautiful grain pattern. I picked up 4 pieces of wood:

• Zebra tree - 7.5 * 61 * 4 cm
• Amaranth - 7.5 * 61 * 4 cm
• Paduk - 2 x 7.5 * 61 * 1 cm

Note: I wanted a beautiful and elegant handle, so I bought expensive woods. Any hardwood will work for this project.

I sawed the zebrawood and amaranth in half and glued them together, letting the glue dry overnight.

After that, I leveled the resulting blank with a hand plane and glued Paduk bars to them. After the glue dries, there may be gaps between the rocks. I filled them with clear epoxy. As a result, I ended up with a monolithic piece of glued wood measuring 8*61*6.5 cm.

Step 3: Cut out the handle

Draw your handle design on paper and transfer it onto the wood, first with a pencil, and then trace it with a marker (marker is much brighter and easier to carve).

Using a jigsaw, I made a series of cuts perpendicular to the handle - this simplified the carving process. The resulting workpiece looked angular and had saw marks on it, but this is nothing to worry about, since we will sand it down next.

Step 4: Sanding and Shaping the Handle

Of course, this is not the fastest way to shape wood, but I only had a belt sander on hand, so I turned it upside down and sanded the handle that way.

I just worked on the handle until it started to take on the shape I wanted. Once I was close to my ideal, I took a wood file and went around in those places on the handle that the band saw couldn't reach.

Sanding Tips:

• Always move the handle to avoid removing too much wood from one area
• When working at awkward angles, be careful not to sand down the wood from the part of the handle you are not watching.
• Spend time at work - take breaks, because you have nowhere to rush
• To protect against wood dust, wear a respirator and safety glasses.
• Don't forget about earplugs - polishing will take a lot of time - don't damage your hearing
• Sand until you get the desired shape

Step 5: Creating the Handles

For the handles I took a pair of old skis. I bought them at a local used sporting goods store for R1000. For good bow tension, measure a distance of 50 - 65 cm from the tip of the skis. I cut mine at a distance of 60 cm.

Then I folded the bow and figured out how it would look in the end.

Step 6: Attach the Bow Arms

Attaching the bow limbs is very simple, but the work must be done precisely. For fastening you will need:

• 2 bolts 8 cm
• 2 bolts 5 cm
• 4 washers
• 4 wing nuts

Do everything according to the points:

1. Mark the spot on the skis where on the back of the bow they end in contact with the tree.
2. Mark on the skis exactly in the middle the points where you are going to drill holes. I made marks at 2.5 and 5 cm.
3. Using electrical tape, tape the skis to the wood as tightly as possible and in the place where you want them to be in the finished version.
4. With the wood and skis secured, use a wood and plastic bit to drill a through hole. Select the cue ball according to your bolts.

Using a hole punch, drill holes for the bolt heads on the back of the handle. Make the holes so deep that the bolt heads are slightly recessed into the handle.

Once all the holes are drilled, use a nail and hammer to drive the bolts into the holes (I adjusted the hole so the bolts would stay permanently in the handle), then seat the bow arms onto the handle and tighten them with washers and nuts.

Using a round file, create indentations for the bowstring. Make notches at an angle from the middle of the bow to help hold the string.

Step 7: Check

At this stage I already had a finished bow, but before final painting it needed to be checked.

Here is a short video from the tests.

The video shows shooting from close range - from about 6 meters. I didn't want to hurt anyone. Therefore, I pulled the bow to about 50-75% of the maximum.

Step 8: Final polishing and finishing of the handle

Now that we know the bow shoots well, we can give it a nicer look. I polished the bow and applied stain to it and then left it for 1 day.

Step 9: Painting and Patterning

Making onions is a process that requires precise adherence to technology. Only in this case can you count on a good result. With a well-made bow, you can shoot arrows precisely at the target, and it must be powerful enough to hit the game that will eventually become the hunter's prey.

First of all, those who already have experience in hunting with such weapons should take on making it with their own hands, but with the right approach to the matter, anyone can cope with the task. Let's look at how to make a bow for hunting with your own hands, using materials and tools that are available to everyone.

Varieties of bows

The main parts of such a weapon are the arc and the bowstring. By design, bows can be divided into two main groups:

• simple - for these models the arc is made of one material - wood or PVC;
• compound, or composite - the arches of such bows are made of several materials.

According to the form they are distinguished:

• classic bows - the arc of such a hunting weapon has one bend, when bent it has a D-shape;
• recursive - their arc bends three times and has an M-shape.

Bows can also be divided into simple and collapsible. The arches of the former are made from a single piece of material, while those of the latter consist of several parts.

From natural materials for the manufacture of composite arches, wood can be used for the middle part, horn for the inner part, as well as tendons that are attached to the outer side. This three-part design provides the weapon with good elasticity, flexibility and power.

Today, in the manufacture of industrially produced collapsible bows, high-strength modern materials with optimal properties are used - fiberglass and carbon fiber, aluminum and magnesium alloys, and so on.

The design of such a weapon can be quite complex, but making it yourself at home is a task that requires some experience, as well as a lot of time and effort.

It’s better to make a simple one-piece bow with your own hands. With the right approach to business and adherence to technology, its accuracy and power will be sufficient for hunting.

Tools and materials

To make such a bow you will need a minimum set of tools:

• hacksaw;
• plane;

To give the arc the desired bend, it is better to use a special slipway. You can also make it yourself from a board and several bars.

To make a simple non-separable bow with your own hands you need:

• wood or polyvinyl chloride tube to make an arc;
• strong rope, rawhide tape, wire, thick fishing line for making a bowstring;
• thick rope or other suitable material for the handle.

When drawing the bow, the shoulders should bend, but the bowstring practically does not stretch.. The arrow is sent to the target precisely due to the force of the weapon’s arc, which straightens at the moment of the shot.

How to make a bow from wood?

Let's look at how to make a hunting bow from wood. The best material for this is considered to be yew - it was from it that the best examples of such weapons were made in the Middle Ages. However, it is difficult to obtain such a tree, so other species are usually used instead. It can be:

• hazel;
• juniper;
• Rowan;
• ash;
• larch;
• cedar.

A good bow rod should:

• not have cracks, it is also better to select rods without knots, but the presence of a small amount of them on the surface is not critical, the main thing is not to try to cut them out when processing the rod;
• have a length from a meter to one and a half meters;
• be dry;
• be direct.

To make a bow, you can also use several thin rods of the same length, but they must be securely fastened by tightening them in several places with electrical tape or other suitable material. This option is suitable if you need to quickly make a bow on the go from what you can find on hand.

Wood harvesting

It is better to harvest wood to make a hunting bow with your own hands in winter, at a temperature of -10 degrees or slightly lower. If you look for a suitable rod in the fall, you won’t have to wander through the snowdrifts in search. It is necessary to cut it, the length of the rod should be several tens of centimeters greater than the expected length of the bow. This is necessary, since when drying, the ends of the rod may crack.

Before making a bow, the wood must be dried for a long time, on average three months is enough. A room with room temperature in which the rod needs to be hung is suitable for this.

In this case, there is no need to remove the bark, but it is better to paint or coat the ends with varnish, which will not allow moisture to evaporate, then the future arc will dry evenly along the entire length. A rod that has a slight curvature can be straightened over steam.

In camping conditions, drying can be quickly done using a fire; the main thing is to do it carefully, do not put the wood too close to the fire and not overdry it. Such onions will be more fragile and less durable than those dried at room temperature.

Making a bow from a wooden rod

When the rod is dried, it must be processed with a plane, and the shoulders should become flat, not cylindrical. The bow of a simple takedown bow is not made from a single piece of wood or PVC, but from two separate arms that are attached to the top and bottom of the handle. In this case, the handle is easiest to make from a wooden block or cylinder of suitable thickness. At the same time, in the central part they can be sharpened, making a comfortable grip under the arm.

If you plan to make a simple bow with an arc from a single piece of wood, and not with two separate arms, the rod in the middle should be left round in cross-section.

It is important that the arms have the same length, width and thickness, only in this case the force on them will be distributed evenly, and the bow will hit accurately.

Then the workpiece must be given the desired shape - in the form of a simple arc or M-shaped. To do this, the wood is heated over steam and temporarily fixed in a special slipway, which will fix the desired shape. Such a device can be made from a board by attaching several bars to it. You need to keep the onion in the slipway for about a week.

When the arc is ready, you need to make notches at its end and secure the bowstring. It is also necessary to braid the handle. To obtain a reliable installation, the fixation points of the bowstring and the handle must be glued.

Making a bow from skis

Skis are a material that is excellent for making a bow arc, which often does not even need to be processed. Therefore, if there is a suitable pair available that is unsuitable for use, there is no need to prepare rods or look for another material. You can use both wooden and plastic skis; the second option is preferable.

To make a bow, you need to saw off two ends of the skis of suitable length, which will be the shoulders, and attach them to the handle. The handle itself can also be made from skis by fastening scraps of the required length in several layers and processing them so that a comfortable grip is obtained. After this, you just need to attach the string, and the bow is ready for use.

The optimal length of the finished product is about 1.3 m. If a bow made from skis exceeds the length of 1.4-1.5 m, its power will be insufficient, since such a long arc cannot impart sufficient momentum to the arrow. Also, the shoulders should be narrow - so in order to make an arc from wide skis, they must be sharpened on both edges.

Making a composite bow, each limb of which must be made not from one material, but from several different ones, is a more complex process. However, such weapons are made according to the same principles as a simple homemade bow for hunting. If you approach the matter correctly, a bow made with your own hands will hit powerfully and accurately, and it will last for quite a long time.

A hunting bow is the most affordable weapon that is not so difficult to make with your own hands. Its advantage over the purchased one is in cost, and also in the fact that it can be made “for yourself”, taking into account individual characteristics. The only thing that needs to be taken into account when making a bow for shooting with your own hands is that the maximum tension force of the string, established by law, is no more than 40 kg/s. You can learn more about how to make a hunting bow with your own hands.

Homemade bow

Before you make a bow with your own hands, you need to prepare the material. Wood for making archery weapons must have such characteristics as strength, flexibility, and elasticity. The material for the workpiece must be straight, even, without knots or any damage. In principle, any tree is suitable for making a bow: birch, oak, apple, juniper, maple, hazel, ash, elm, yew or teak.

The branch for harvesting must be cut down in winter, at sub-zero temperatures, so that the tree sap is preserved inside. The length of the workpiece should be the required length of the future onion, plus 30 cm for cracks during drying at each end, the occurrence of which is very likely. The bark is not removed from a cut branch. Its ends are coated with oil paint to avoid internal defects in the wood when it dries, which should occur evenly.

After this, the workpiece is left to dry for up to five months in an upright position at room temperature. In this case, the surrounding air should not be too dry, otherwise the workpiece will be deformed.

How to make a hunting bow with your own hands

After making the initial blank, you need to determine the natural bend of the wooden bow. This is necessary in order to make it convenient to use the weapon in the future. To determine this bend, you need to press one end to the ground while holding the other end with your hand. The frame will turn to its natural side.

Make a bow with your own hands, diagram

It is necessary to make a future hunting bow from a round blank. The width of the bow frame is usually 3 cm. It is better to cut off excess wood with a knife, while simultaneously checking for knots and other defects.

Since a simple bow consists of a solid frame, it is worth shaping its bends while processing it with a knife. Using a knife and a plane, its side and front parts are formed. The ratio of the width of the frame and the width of the shoulders should be 3/2. The size of the shoulders should be the same so that they are not inferior in elasticity to each other. At this stage of work, do not bend the bow to prevent its deformation.

Next you need to form the bend of the bow. For this, the water steaming method is used. In particular, the arms of the bow are steamed to give them the desired bend shape. To do this, the bow is fixed with special stocks (wooden blocks) in the desired position of the arms and treated with hot water steam. In this fixed position, the weapon dries for about one week. After this, the stocks are removed, and places for the bowstring are cut out at the ends of the arms.

It should be noted that all this time the bark was not removed from the onion. After steaming it begins to peel off. It must be carefully removed without damaging the wood fibers. The remaining bark is removed with sandpaper, and the surface is covered with fat, hot wax, varnish or paint.

There is another option for how to bend a bow:

• It is necessary to make a special board with cuts, which is attached perpendicular to the center of the frame.
• Both ends of the bow are connected with a thread.
• The thread clings to one of the cuts on the board to bend it according to the required radius.

Manipulations should be carried out slowly, because sharp bending may damage the wood fibers.

Making a bowstring

It is better to make a bowstring from multi-layered rope. The bowstring for hunting must be durable, made from several threads of Kevlar, nylon, lavsan, fishing cord in reels, and other artificial threads. A thin strip of rawhide, 3mm thick, will also work. The main requirement for a bowstring thread is strength, resistance to abrasion and stretching. It should be shorter than the length between the limbs of the bow to keep it in a tight position at all times. First, it is attached to one notch of the shoulder, tightened with a knot to the bow, then stretched to the other end and tightened there. A correctly tensioned bowstring should be 15 cm from the middle of the frame of the hunting bow.

Making arrows

Arrows should be of such length that it is proportional to the length of the bow and the maximum tension of the bowstring. In practice, this means that when the bowstring is taut, the arrow tip should protrude several centimeters beyond the frame of the weapon. The diameter of the arrow should be approximately 6mm, the shaft should be perfectly straight. The materials for making arrows are spruce, pine, birch - for hunting small game and birds, as well as ash, hornbeam, oak, and other heavy and dense species for hunting wild animals. You can chop them from logs, use boards, glazing beads, or wooden square slats. Then they need to be shaped into cylinders and sanded so that the surface is smooth. The smoother the surface of the arrow, the more accurate its flight will be. In the end part you need to make a small slot for the bowstring in accordance with its diameter.

The shape of the arrowhead is made depending on the type of prey. If hunting is intended for a bird, the tip is made pointed. If you plan to hunt larger game, the tip is made of stone or triangular metal.

The arrow will also need to be fletched. The simplest one is from bird feathers, but it can be made from other materials - plastic, paper, etc.

Compound bow

A hunting bow may have a composite design, i.e. consist of two or three parts. It is easier to find material for such a workpiece than for a simple one. Typically, a composite structure consists of a central frame to which are attached two arms (“horns”) that end in string mounts. For normal shooting, they are made the same size, but for shooting from the knee, the lower shoulder should be made shorter than the upper one.

To make the arms of a composite bow, you should choose bird cherry that grows near a pond. The blanks are cleaned of bark and dried in a dark place, or even better, in the fresh air. After cutting out the main parts, the workpiece can be dried in the sun.

The component parts are glued together; in camping conditions this can be done using fish glue (made from crushed fish bones). The frame is impregnated with resin and fat, and the joints with the shoulders are tightened with animal tendons (you can use fishing line, strong rope), and again soaked in fat. When all the parts are glued into a single structure, the onion is processed with a sharp knife. To give even greater strength and durability, the surface of the onion is covered with boiled birch bark, glued along the fibers.

I previously wrote about making a bow with my own hands http://www.sense-life.com/hands/lyk.php from a solid piece of wood, but the disadvantage of such a bow was the complexity of manufacturing and the long process of drying the wood. Now I want to tell you how to make a collapsible bow, which is free of these disadvantages, and besides, it fits in a small case, which is very convenient for transportation.

Let's start by making a bow handle. Let me make a reservation right away that the materials used depend on the tension of the bowstring. If the tension force is up to 10 kg, then the handle can be made from a solid wooden block 60x40x400, beech or birch (pine is not suitable for these purposes).

An excellent handle is made from a pair of 20 mm plywood plates glued together with epoxy. After coating the surface with epoxy, compress the plates in clamps. And the thickness is 40 mm.

You just need to use bakelite (waterproof) plywood. It is glued with something like epoxy and it is reliable. Simple plywood is not very suitable for these purposes (it cracks).

After that, we proceed to a rough selection of shapes with a semicircular, sharp chisel (I corrected it 2 times, the epoxy “sits” the tool a lot).

A very good assistant in this matter is a flat, semicircular rasp for rough processing of the surface, giving it a rough shape.

Then the handle is treated with coarse sandpaper, then with fine sandpaper and at the final stage with zero sandpaper.

Don't forget to drill holes for the M6 ​​bolts to attach the bow arms.

It is advisable to place a leather pad (from old women's boots or jackets) under the bolts between the handle and the arms of the bow.

When the handle is finished, it can be covered with stain and ship varnish. Plywood, as you know, consists of layers, which, when the material is removed, play on the handle. Quite a funny effect.

So that you don’t have any questions about how to make a handle for a collapsible bow, I will provide a drawing (the drawing shows a 10x10 mm grid). You can redraw it on graph paper.

I would like to remind you that these materials for making the handle are applicable in the case of making a bow with a string tension force of up to 10 kg. If you use such a handle on more powerful bows, then there is a risk that the handle will not just break, but will explode into splinters, which can injure you.

Therefore, for more powerful bows, it is necessary to make reinforced handles from a set of woods according to the sandwich principle, as for example in this option - the base is beech, the “filling” is maple, walnut and mahogany (for grace). You can use any other dense wood, and the thickness of the filling does not play a special role, the main thing is that there is gluing.

All layers are coated with epoxy and clamped with clamps until completely dry. Clamps must be placed every 5-10 cm so that no voids form between the layers.

The result is blanks that in the future will be handles for a collapsible bow with a stronger string tension.

And lovers of beauty, with straight hands and good carpentry tools, can make not only a strong but also a beautiful handle.

Now let's start making the bow arms. Alternatively, you can use old skis as bow arms (see the master class on making a collapsible bow from skis http://www.sense-life.com/hands/lyk_razborniy_2.php). But the most suitable for these purposes are the “elastic elements” that are used to make sofas and beds. It is plywood, where all layers run lengthwise, dimensions: 1200x50x12 mm, but there are lamellas 8 mm thick. and length 700mm.

The dimensions of the arms are 700 mm long, 30 mm near the handle, 20 mm near the string mount, while the total length of the bow will be 1600 mm. It is not worth making the bow shorter, as the risk of breaking the arms increases. The best option is when the length of the bow matches the height of the shooter.

If you got slats with a thickness of 12 mm. then it is enough to saw them lengthwise obliquely, then attach them to each other and process them so that they are symmetrical to each other. The tension force of such a bow will be about 10-12 kg.

If you have lamellas 8 mm thick, then their use for a bow will be rather weak, so they will have to be strengthened.

To do this, take two lamellas and glue them together with epoxy (add a little less hardener so that the shoulders do not crack). But the best results are obtained by PVA glue “Moment” D-2, in red bottles, from the manufacturer Pritt Henkel (sold in hardware stores and construction markets).

Be sure to tighten it with clamps along the entire length and wait for it to dry. As a result, we get lamellas with a thickness of 16mm. It may seem to many that the shoulders are made of 16mm. The lamella will be very rigid because you simply cannot bend it in your hands. But when you assemble the bow completely, your doubts about the flexibility of the slats will disappear. Just keep in mind that with such stiff shoulders, it is advisable to use a reinforced handle.

We saw the glued lamellas obliquely and get future shoulders.

Let's put it on the handle and see how it all will look.

From scraps of lamellas we make a shelf for the bowstring. We cut out a couple of plates slightly wider than the shoulders (to allow further processing), apply the plate to the shoulder and drill two through holes, after which we generously coat everything with glue, and insert dowels into the holes on the glue. We compress it with clamps and leave it to dry for a day. It is best to remove the remaining glue with a rag in advance, so that when it dries you don’t have to worry about removing it.

We give symmetry to both shoulders. For precision, we squeeze the shoulders together with clamps and process the sides.

We outline the shape of the shelf for the bowstring. The shape can be any, as your imagination allows.

Cut off the excess with a jigsaw. Then we do the final treatment with sandpaper.

We make cuts in the shelf for a bowstring diameter of 3 mm. and to a depth of 7-8 mm.

We open the shoulders with stain and ship varnish.

For such a reinforced bow, you will need a string of at least 3.5 mm. If you don’t want to make a bowstring yourself http://www.sense-life.com/hands/lyk2.php then a Kevlar climbing sling is quite suitable (sold in tourist and mountaineering stores and in this thickness).

Now you can go outdoors for testing.

For the convenience of transporting a collapsible bow, you can make a small case.

Now you know how to make a collapsible bow with your own hands. Just don’t forget that a bow, like any weapon, requires a responsible attitude and compliance with all safety measures when shooting. And the amount of pleasure directly depends on how the bow is made.

Download the “video” https://yadi.sk/d/Iw7YdbIRmCawR on making a solid bow from laminated veneer. Using this principle, you can make bow limbs.

Download the book "History of Weapons. Bows and Crossbows" https://yadi.sk/d/FhahZYtHmCasp - all about bows and crossbows of all times and peoples.

Download the book "Armor and Weapons" https://yadi.sk/d/WybrS5dAmCauY This book reveals the fascinating thousand-year history of ancient weapons. Unique photographs show armor of gladiators, knights and samurai, daggers, crossbows and pistols!