Selfbow Buildalong

[George Tsoukalas]

During the summer Brad Smith sent me a beautiful, recurved, sinew backed vine maple bow. As some of you know Brad is a great bowyer and a wonderful person. I built him a bow and it is called One Knot. i would like to share this pictorial buildalong with you. It is at the very bottom of the menu. There are also other buildalongs on my site and it would be my honor if you looked. Thanks Jawge
http://mysite.verizon.net/georgeandjoni/archer.html

[thisbucks4u]

Awesome! I really admire all the patience it takes to do make a selfbow. Someday when my wife has fine tuned my attention span I'd like to tackle one of those.

[Cato]

Some really cool stuff there. I admire your patience and skill.

Unfortunately, I had a great deal of trouble building the shoebox in the 7th grade shop class, and it hasn't gotten any better since then. But it must be very gratifying to be able to build it from scratch, and then hunt with it.

[George Tsoukalas]

Good for you. Boards area good way to start. Jawge

[mjhall]

Jawge--you are an amazing craftsman, and I've learned a lot from your web page. Thanks for posting this.
Mike

[George Tsoukalas]

Thanks, Mike and Cato. Now if I can get some people shaving wood. I'll be happy. :) Jawge

[Esquire]

I have a couple of board bows under way. I have taken much instruction from George's website. If they shoot, he will be greatly to thank. If they fail, I alone will be to blame!!

[George Tsoukalas]

Mike, make sure the edge grain is as straight as it can be. See my site for more. Above all-have fun. Jawge

[swampy]

Thanks George !! It,s awesome to see the many faces of archery. I,m not to the selfbow stage as of yet but it has crossed my mind a few times.

[Stagmitis]

Jawge glad to have you here!

I would LOVE to build and actually SHOOT a selfbow.

However I have had some questionable experiences in the past that maybe you can shed some light on.

Bows are made to shoot right? Everytime I have been around selfbow shooters they NEVER ask if I would like to try their bows even though I hint.

So, I would have to ask. Each time I felt like I was walking on eggshells!.

Umm...Ok.....Well, here you go...

BUT,

Whatever you do DONT draw it past 27" ok?

OK!

Even so, the scrutinous tension in the air was as thick as mollasses with every draw. I even had one guy want to take shelter because it started to drizzle and he was afraid of having his bow get wet!

Huh?

I would just like to tune some arrows for a selfbow and shoot the bejeezes out of it!!


Any words of wisdom from a master?

Yiasou!

[Papabull]

I shaved on a HUGE hunk of hickory for quite a few hours and I really enjoyed it. Except for missing weight by a whole bunch, the bow came out great. It was around 34# at 28" and wasn't exactly a speed demon, but shot very well. I gave it and a dozen nice cedars I made up to a fellow at our club who had only ever shot compounds. We hunted with stickbows together for the first time this fall, although he wisely chose a bow with a little more horsepower to hunt with.

I'd have probably fared a lot more poorly in my first effort if I hadn't been able to make it to the Stockton Shoot and have George give it an examination and evaluation before getting any happier with the shaving spoke.

[James Wrenn]

Good to see you George. :) Stag I just got a laminated bamboo bow to play with.I took it out in thick fog and drizzel last weekend and shot the devil out of it for 4 hours.I wanted to either break it in or break it up right to start with. :lol: It took some set and is settled in now and I am not afraid to pull it back and hold it. :) You can shoot mine and I want bother you.

[Esquire]

George,

I'm not sure I understand about the edge grain so I will go back to your site.

I followed the instructions on stickbow for making a hickory backed hickory bow for kids. I looked long and hard for a hickory board that you would have been happy with. I cut it up as directed and laminated several blanks.

Now I am narrowing it along the sides and tillering it on the belly to remove weight. I hope to get one of them light enough for my 3 year old (seen holding it in the photo album). I feel like I'm closing in on the end, but it's all sort of mysterious right now. I haven't really used a tillering stick because I figured that this design was supposed to be fairly idiot proof. But I am ready to make a tillering stick for this little bow and put the finishing scrapes on it.

Mike

[George Tsoukalas]

Stagmitis, selfbows are durable for sure but typically made for a certain draw and well you know after spending a week or more on a bow people get a bit touchy regarding theirs. PB, that was a nice bow and you did well. Mike, the edge grain is important. Look at the smaller edge not the back or the front to be sure about a board's suitability. It's always been my desire to motivate others to try making selfbows. Thanks, everyone. Jawge

[Esquire]

George,

Sorry. I do understand about the edge grain. That was in fact why it took me so long to find a suitable board. I was toting around your pictures of edge grain. I just had a mental block a moment ago when I typed my message. It has been awhile since I worked on the bow and I forgot my terms.

Mike

[Stagmitis]

Jawge,

Are you going to be at Denton Hill?

[George Tsoukalas]

Go to it, Mike. Have fun. I'm not planning on Denton, Stagmitis, but one never knows. Jawge