Hey fellas,

I'm wanting to take a crack at building a longbow. I'm not lookin for fancy or crazy performance. I've seen some pretty simple, cheap, straightforward board bows on YouTube. They never have a shelf cut, though (at least the ones I've seen). Is there something wrong with cutting a shelf in? if anyone has any links or advice I would appreciate it! This will be my first build so I'm trying to keep material price as low as possible because I'm sure I will have my share of mistakes along the way.

I guess what i have in mind is a simple, straight board bow, with a shelf cut in it. I thought I could maybe make it from red cedar and hickory backing (or maybe I'm ahead of myself) but make the handle in such a way that is reinforced to handle the material loss of the shelf?

A shelf is no problem at all. You just need to adjust accordingly. I'll have more time to explain in better detail and find pictures later this evening. But shelf's aren't the problem many make them out to be. Just don't cut them deeper than necessary to hold the arrow, no sharp angles, all curves, and make the handle atleast 1.5" deep there

Kyle

Well that's great news to hear! I would love to see details and more info on what to look out for!

My only experience with bowyer work at all is reworking a black hunter longbow. Filing down the shelf to center shot, making the grip fit me better, and getting the limbs to the right tiller. So I'm familiar with keeping curves and making sure no sharp corners. However I'm ignorant as to how deep is too deep and if I can make a grip angle and things like that.

As Kyle says, a shelf is not a problem as long as there is enough material in the grip area to carry the loads. All of my bows have had shelves and arrow rests because my arrows all have vanes and I haven't bothered getting any with feathered fletching.

Since you are new at this, I would suggest not starting with a laminated design and instead buy a couple red oak or hard maple boards from a local lumber yard or big box store and hack away at those first. I would also suggest your first attempts use a pyramid design as those are the easiest to tiller, which will be your biggest challenge. Keeping the draw weight fairly low (40lb or less) also helps with getting a shooting bow out of it for your first couple tries.

Once you have tried a couple of bows and have gained some experience, then try your hickory backed design and see if you can get it working. Realize it takes time and practice to get a handle on tillering and you won't be making just one bow, you need to do a number of them to start getting it right.


Mark

Here are some photos of one I did a while back. I like to carve in the shelf with a 3/8" round rasp and carve in about 3/16" about my knuckle. Use the file as your depth guide as it's slightly larger but about the same size as an arrow. So one it's just full depth, it's enough to hold an arrow. Using the file makes the cut rounded and no share corners to concentrate stress that can cause splitting. Now blend this grove into your fades, making it look like you made fades for a narrow handle. Once that's done curve everything so that the arrow is only contacting one point on the bottom and one point on the side of the shelf. This leads to having a ramp for the fletchings to ride and more cleanly glide over. You can move this point towards the back for a longer smoother ramp or towards the belly to allow for slightly shorter arrows that are shorter than the draw length to back of bow. You can see where the handle is deepest around where the shelf is cut in furthest, this puts a bit more strength into that section. It doesn't need to be anything crazy, 1.5" deep is enough to get you into the 60# draw area no problem.

I'm not sure why the pictures aren't adding, I'll figure that out in a but

I hope this helps some.

Kyle

Very helpful guys, I appreciate it. I think I'll do just that, with the box store boards. Any preference between maple and red oak? I'll do some research about pyramid shaped bows.

Between the two I would go hard maple but oak makes a good bow when done well

Kyle

I'm with Kyle, the maple is the better choice if you can find good pieces. Red oak just seems more common up here in our bow wood desert. I would also suggest buying 1x3 boards instead of 1x2, it gives you more leeway when working around funky grain and you can start wider to minimize the chance of set causing problems.

Don't look to optimize the first ones, just try to make them functional and plain. Once you have tillered a couple of successful bows you can start trying for more performance and/or fancier details.

Here is a maple bow I did a few years ago. This is the kind of thing to start with, simple and straightforward in design and easy to succeed with.

https://www.tradgang.com/tgsmf/index.php?topic=174615.msg2946290#msg2946290


Mark

This has been crazy helpful guys. Thank you, and I'll keep everybody updated when I get started! I'm gonna just go with whatever board I find between the two that fits the bill!