LEGIONNAIRE ARCHERY

It can be a real nightmare trying to figure out the proper diameter when making arrow shafts from cane and or bamboo. In contrast making arrows from shoots or shafts all you have to do is reduce your shafts to a certain diameter and you are set to go. Cane and bamboo is not quite the same. With rivercane (especially with the one we have here in Cali) you can't really take much material from the shaft without weakening the outer wall of the shaft and possibly ruin it. Bamboo is also a type of cane, which you can take material of its outer wall especially if the hole in the center is rather small and the outer walls are rather thick. This technique of taking of material from the outer wall of boo shafts is used amongts Japanese arrow makers and it seems not to affect the arrow. You can actually lowe the wight and reduce your diameter.

This article however is more concentrated on Cane shafts. Usually cane can be found growing in areas where the soil is constantly wet and humid. The more water there is the larger the cane grows and the faster it does. For this reason cane growing in areas that are to wet is not suitable for making arrow shafts. Usually they will outgrow arrow diameter in a few days or weeks. You must find an area that has sufficient water to foster the cane growth but not so much that it will overgrow the maximum diameter. The maximum diameter on cane arrows, and probably the ideal diameter is 3/8 on the thicker end and 5/16 on the smaller end. Sometimes you will have canes growing 3/8 almost all the way through your shaft without tapering. You must remember to put the weight foward, which means that on cane and bamboo arrows the thicker end goes in the front. There are also a multitude of other factors that you must take into consideration when matching arrow shafts, these include weight, stiffness, and balance point. If you want your arrows to match fairly well for 15-20 yard shots make sure that atleast your weight and stiffness is similar. Stiffness for some reason does not affect cane shaft as much as it does regular wooden arrow shafts. you can group your shafts into 3 groups, weak, medium and strong and have fairly well matched shafts if your weight is the same, no real need to spine them. So to reiterade the point, the diameter of cane shafts must be between 5/16 to maximum 3/8 inch in diameter.

So you got yourself a stave or a board and need to layout the pattern of your bow. This is a fairly easy task that we tend to complicate at times. Laying out the bow is actually pretty simple, the only thing you must remember is to keep with the grain of the wood as much as possible. It doesnt necessarily mean that it should be perfect, especially with lower weight bows. The following items are what you need to layout your bow

• Yourself
• Pencil
• Tape Measure
• string

After getting your materials together mark the center of the bow with a horizontal line

Proceed to draw another 3 lines. one in the center horizontally and two more, one above your first and the other below. These lines will be where your limbs start widening or tapering depending on your design. In this case since I'm making this bow with the widest point at its handle I will begin tapering ther until I get to the tips. Make sure the distance is comfortable for your hand so that your handle will be large enough to grasp.

Next draw 2 more lines on the ends of the stave that are centered.

You then need to connect the lines in both ends and the center. to do this I have taken a picture of the two methods. The first picture below is if you have a straight stave simply tie the string in one end and then in the other and your center line is layed out for you. The second example is going free hand by placing one of your fingers as a guide and simply running the pencil from one end to the other following the grain and going through the lines.

Because my stave was crooked I used the second method. After drawing the center line everything else is very simple. Measure your handle thickness by measuring half of the width to one side and half to the other. For example if your handle will be 1 inch measure 1/2 to one side of your center line and 1/2 to the other and mark it. Then mark the width of your limbs in the same manner. After you mark everything conect the marks and you should end up with your layout. In this example I use a very simple design so I was able to free hand it.

The Cherokee bow, beautiful in its simplicity. According to various sources as well as exhibits the bows were generally around 61-72 inches in length. These bows where used for hunting and for war, according to the traditional bowyers bible the longer bows were heavier in draw weight and were probably the weapons of choice for war. The width of the bows at the handle was about 1 1/4 inch and tapered at the nocks to about 7/8. The most notable feature of this style is the rectangular nocks as seen below.

The bows had a perfect rectangular cross section and very crisp edges as you may see from the picture as well. The woods of choice included hickory, osage and black locust amongts others.

From my experience in crafting these wonderful pieces of history I fell in love with the simplicity of this bow. Its easily made when the proper wood is on hand, and a very accurate weapon. There are some drawback I observed, since this bows where bend in the handle bows and the nocks are realtively wide there is some hand shock that can be felt when its shot. With proper cane arrows its a pleasure to shoot.

This was just a quick run down of the main attributes of this type of bow. if you would like more information or would like to order one of these please feel free to contact me with your questions and inquiries.

      If you are interested in primitive archery you have probably heard of the sudbury bow found in Peabody Mass. during the 17th century. This bow has been mentioned in many publications and has fueled the curiosity of many bowyers who often try to replicate it. In the Traditional Bowyers bible Vol 2  page 65 we can find a drawing of the bow and a few measurements. The Measurements include a length of 67 1/8 inches and a handle width of 15/16. The widest part of the limb according to the Drawing is 1 7/8 in one limb and 1 3/4 in another limb. The bow is made from hiclory. In another publication by Patrick M. Malone called "The Skulking way of war: Technology and Tactics amongts new england indians" page 18, Malone mentions that the bow is only 66 3/4 inches as oppose to the 67 1/8 observed in the TBB vol 2. These descrepencies Lead us to beleive that perhaps the bow has not been thoroughly examined. One thing both sources agree on is that the grip is narrow and that the limbs are wide and flat with with a convex face. To a bowmaker such as myself the bow has the characteristics of beign made from a branch or perhaps a sapling. The difference between the limb width between both limbs suggests that the stave narrowed. The convex face hints at the use of a small diameter sapling or branch. Even though it is entierly possible to acheive the same results using a larger diameter tree the trouble the maker would have to go through to attain the same shape multiplies so it is very likely the bow was made from a sapling, especially if made with stone tools.

From a picture of the peabody museum we can reasonably say a few more things about the bow. Here is the picture below.

If we take a look at the thickness and keep in mind the width of the bow we can see that the handle is the thickest place, however the thickness is relatively the same until the mid-limb. This indicates given the thickness and width that the bow had a whip tiller, meaning that it bent more from the fades or where its starts thining out, very much like a modern traditional 1950's bow. This type of tiller gives the bowyer a very stable shot and very little hand shock, factors that affect accuracy.

    These observations are only that, observations, in order to get an idea of exactly what this bow did and how it functioned the best route is to replicate the bow. The next stage for myself as a bowyer is to attempt a bow with the very same design. first I will make one out of a board using modern tools, then I will trade my modern tools in for primitive tools and attempt the same bow using stone tools and a green hickory sapling. After this I will post the differences and simmilarities of the bows.

This question is perhaps one of the toughest questions to answer when making bows. The reason why it is so difficult, specially for the beginner is because you are uncertain of the characteristics of the wood to know whether it will hold and not blow up once you almost finish your bow.

There are different types of backings. I refer to two types of backing as working backing, and non-working backing (note: these are terms I use) the working backing adds draw weight to the bow and may add speed. The non working backings just function to hold the integrity of the bow and add a level of protection that takes some of the stress the back of the bow is under. Non working backings will not add draw weight or speed. Examples of working backings are sinew, wood, fiberglass, and to some extent if glued properly rawhide. Examples of non working backings include linen, hemp, rawhide and silk.

Now one of the first reasons why you would decide to back a bow is to add draw weight or speed. If this is what you are after then it is not difficult to determine wether or not you need a backing, simply use a working backing.

On the other hand if you are concerned with adding protection to your bow so it will not break you use the non working backing. The way to determine if you need it or not, or atleast the way I do it takes into consideration a few factors. These factors include knots, grain, length, draw weight, wood and width. If im using a stave I try to avoid having knots in the center of the limb. I also take into consideration the length of the stave or board, if Im making a 65 inch or longer bow with a drawlength of 30 or under with a draw weight of 40lbs or less and width of 2 inches; this would indicate the stress is pretty evenly spread and despite it having a knot all I would have to do is leave a little extra wood around the knot and not worry about backing the bow. Width matters especially with white woods, a good rule of thumb is to make white woods around 2 inches wide to spread the stress evenly.

With boards you must first select the proper board, for that look at my other article on selecting boards. If you have the proper board theres not much to worry about when making a bow similar to the one described above. if you are going for something with similar dimensions and a higher draw weight 50-80lbs then it would make sense to back it. Or if you are attempting a shorter bow, for example a 52 inch bow with a 26 inch draw with a few knots would be a bow that you may want to back to take some of the stress.

So to back or not to back? ultimately this depends on the piece of wood you choose, but if you take the factors above into consideration length, width, wood,grain, draw weight and knots you will atleast have some idea as to what to do. Ultimately it just comes from expirience from breaking a few bows and knowing the limits of the wood you are working with. So get out there and start making or breaking!

good luck and thanks to my friend Rick who encouraged me to write this. hope this helps out some.

A couple of the site members asked me to post this, so here it is.

First you need to get your feathers, goose, turkey or any large bird will do. In this case Im using a wild turky feather. Processing tail feathers is the same as wing feathers.

Materials

• Feathers
• razor blade
• 36 grit sandpaper
• feather holder (very simple to make with tape and two pieces of wood)

You want to start by scraping the inner part of the feathers quill.

Then start cutting the feather from the bottom to the top at the center

Then remove the excess from the front and back if necessary. Get as close to the vane as possible, but take it slow so as not to cut through to the vane.

Then put the feather into the feather holder

Then sand the quill qith 36 grit paper to thin it out

after you sand the quill make sure the other side is thin. And you are done.

A couple of people in the Stick and strings forum asked me to show how I fletched some of my primitive arrows. In this case I will fletch a shaft that had one feather damaged so what I did was repair the fletch by refletching the arrow in the same way I fletched my primitive arrows.

Materials

• shaft
• feathers
• artificial sinew
• Pliers
• water

Prepare the feathers by removing 1/4 of the feather up top and about half from the bottom.

Start by putting the feathers on top of the shaft equally spaced out. In this case I did not use crazy glue but you can use it to hold the feathers in place.

start tying the feathers one then the other and then the last one with artificial sinew. To make sure you get a thin fletch split the artificial sinew into 4-5 thinner fibers.

Once you almost have the fletching completly tied get another piece of sinew and make a loop, put the loop facing the way where the sinew is going and continue tying. Once you are staisfied with the amount of string tying the feathers put your string through the loop and pull.

after you do this comes a very important step in the process. You need to wet the inside of your feathers, or the vane. with your fingers apply plenty of water. This is done so that the feather wil soften and will tie easier at the bottom and also so that once it dries it can shrink and pull tight.

now you can begin tying the bottom portion of the feathers. Make sure your feathers are straight if you are doing a straight fletch, or are helical if you are doing a helical fletch. also be sure they are equally spaced. If this is not the case untie the top and make sure they are as equal as possible.

once you are half way, get your pliers and pull the feather so that it stretches and straightens out. then finish tying.

You may now trim your feathers to your desire pattern. Make sure you burn the end of the artificial sinew. You can also apply super glue to the art sinew and you are Done. happy shooting.

Perhaps the pinnacle of ancient archery and "primitive" materials as sometimes reffered to, the hornbow has no doubt left its mark on the great warrior cultures. From the mongolian steppes to the north american rocky mountains many designs for horsebows exist. This is my humble attempt to replicate something similar to what these ancient bowyers made. The design of choice is the turkish composite bow, my materials are water buffalo horn, red oak wood, and cow leg sinew.

My attempt begins by researching the turkish composite bow design to have in mind what I will make (below).I also decided to use only hand tools to get a feel for the materials and to really appreciate what Im doing. Using power tools is an option that I felt unnecessary to take because it can easily ruin the bow if not careful, even though it will take longer to use only hand tools for such a treasure the wait is well worth it.

I begin by gathering my materials. I started with

• Pair of horns
• unprocessed sinew. (10-15 pieces)
• oak board with very straight grain

My tools thus far are (will add to the list as I progress)

• Hack saw
• rasp, or ferriers rasp
• workbench

I marked the bottom side of the horn and began cutting from the top because that is the solid part of the horn. This took me about 3 hours per horn.

the horns had some valleys that must be removed befor you can begin cutting, so I decided to use a rasp with that and to my surpeise it was not to difficult.

So now I cut the second piece of horn. this one was not as difficult as the other one I thought and didt take as long either. Next step is to steam these to straighten them out.

Heres a photo along of how I make my arrow blunts. Someone asked me about how they could do it so here it is.

First thing is first these are the tools you will need.

• File
• sandpaper 80 grit and 150 grit
• 3 inch block plane (lowes has these for $8)
• coping saw
• block of wood with two holes one 3/8 the other 5/16
• straightened shafts

I taper the ends of the shaft to 3/8 using the block blane. If you need a larger blunt make the end of the shaft larger.

Then I measure 3/4 of an inch from the end. Note: use the thichest end for your blunt.

Cut all arounf the shaft slightly at the 3/4 mark with the coping saw

I then use the file to reduce one side of the shaft to 5/16 and leave the blunt 3/8

After this you want to reduce the remainder of your shaft to 5/16 then fine tune the blunt with the 80 grit sandpaper and the file. this is how it ended up.