Flat bow pattern

[Radford]

Gonna take a stab at a flat bow and first self made bow after wanting to do it for a long time. I have good wood to work with. Will try hickory first I have some dried but will branch out to other woods. We have a good species diversity here. Wondering if anyone has a good pattern for one? I like the thicker looking ones maybe two inches thick and around 60 inches. I have a 27 inch draw. Thanks.

[Radford]

Reading more some of the old topics here. Sounds like I need to do a pyramid design instead of a flat bow.

[Pat B]

If you are determined to do a 60" bow of hickory I'd suggest an overbuilt style starting at 1 3/4" to 2" at the fades out most of length then taper the last 6" to the tips. In your relatively humid climate the hickory will take on too much set without enough width to support it. If you go to 62" to 64" a pyramid style should be fine, starting at 2" at the fades.
 I assume by saying 2" thick you are referring to the width and not the thickness. A 60" by 2" thick stave of hickory would be way too strong, strong enough to lift a car.

[Radford]

That all sounds good. I would like to keep it as short as possible so will try the taper you suggested. And yeah I guess I meant two inches wide for the limbs if that was confusing. Want to be able to use the bow after all.

[Mo_coon-catcher]

If you want short as possible and like the wide look. Look into a paddle bow. Not nexcessarily a beginner friendly design, but neither is going short for draw length in any style. For that overall length you want and your draw length, do a bendy handle of some kind. If you want a stiff handle you'll need to deflex it at the handle to take some stress off the limbs allowing a further draw, then recurve the tips to bring the string tension back up. With non Osage bows I don't like to go below 1" limb to 1" draw ratio. That's from end of fades to nock. Then add the 4" for the handle and I like to use 1.5x limb width for fade length. So a 2" wide limb would be 3" fade. So an extra 10" for the handle and fade area. Then add 3/4" past each nock for damage buffer. And your at about 66" for a stiff handle flatbow from hickory.

With a bendy handle you can subtract the non working length. So 56" overall with no issue.

I hope that rambling all makes sense

 Kyle