Cold Day Tasks: Making my FIRST LONGBOW (Part 1)

When it first started getting cold outside, I asked what many of you fellow homesteaders did when it was really really cold outside. People gave many different indoor options: reading, cooking, baking, or doing some sort of hobby. Certainly the most unique idea was making tomahawks out of jaw bones (thanks @therightsideofup!). Well, this inspired me to do something that I had been wanting to do for a long time: make a bow.

This past summer, I cut down a few trees. Some of those trees were hickory trees. Before I had fallen a single one, I knew that I would be making some bows out of that wood. So when I cut them down, I cut the trees into sections of appropriate length and then used my wedges to split it up into staves. I painted the ends to prevent checking, and then put them in the garage to dry out.

Fast forward many months, and here we are. Today the weather was too cold to do anything outside, and I needed something to do. So, I went out to my garage and picked out a stave. Here it is as I got it:

You can see that the bark was still attached, and I needed to get that off. I started off with a draw knife, but that turned out to be way too difficult, so I ended up just using my hatchet for the initial debarking. After the thick outer bark was removed, I picked back up my draw knife to get the inner bark removed. Now, the draw knife was king.

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Since I was in my house and not in my garage where my shavehorse is, I had to come up with other ways to hold the stave as I shaved off the bark. You can see here that I used my knees to hold it face-up and I had a wall right behind me to give me something to resist the backwards pushing of the draw knife.

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After a good bit of time, and a lot of elbow grease, I finally had a nice smooth back for my bow. It is really important to note that when making a self bow like I am, you cannot violate a growth ring on the back. I took off just the outer and inner bark. The back is now one continuous growth ring.

Now that the back was ready, I returned to my axe to do the rough shaping. It really made quick work of turning this stave of wood into what actually resembled a bow.

When you are making the cuts, it really helps to draw some lines on the bow itself to help you know how far in you need to cut.

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At the end of the day, I ended up with something that actually looks quite respectable and is able to be bent (ever so slightly).

But this is where I had to end for the day. I do not have a tillering stick, so I need to make one of those before I can go any further and actually do the fine tuning. However, this really is a dream that is beginning to be realized. Michelle knows how much I have been wanting to learn how to do this, and she can attest to my great excitement over this. What a wonderful skill to learn!

What about you all? Is there any hobby or task that you have been putting off for just a time as this (super cold days where you are cooped up inside)? Let me know in the comments below.