Hey Steemers!
For the past 2 weeks I've been working on a new project. A takedown longbow is a bow that can be taken apart for travel or even to swap out the limbs.
I started with drawing out how I wanted my handle/riser to look. I picked some nice hard woods and began to cut them to size and glue them together.
I'm using Walnut and Patagonia Rosewood to make a 16" riser block.
Once I had my wood glued together, I traced my template to the riser block and started cutting out the rough shape.
Using my jigsaw, I cut the curves, then gave it a good sanding. Now its starting to take shape.
I don't have any specialty tools so I use what I have. I made a "spindle sander" by using a wooden closet pole cut to 6 inches with sandpaper glued on. Worked great and allowed me to get closer to my template shape.
After a lot more sanding and rasping and shaping, I got the riser and grip exactly how I wanted. Fits my hand perfectly.
Now I'll sand it with 150grit, 220, 400, and 1000 sandpapers to get a glass-smooth finish. Now I can put about 8 coats of Danish oil on it to give it some luster.
With the riser done, I wanted to add screw in inserts snd an alignment pin that will make sure I have a strong and straight connection for my limbs.
With the inserts and pins epoxied in place, I gave the riser 3 coats of spray on polyurethane, lightly sanding with 0000 steel wool between each coat.
While the riser block dried, I started working on the limbs. I don't have the equipment to do laminated limbs yet, so I made the limbs the ssme way I did the last 3 bows I made. That particular style is called a "selfbow" or "board bow" made from 1 stick or 1 board.
So I used (2) 28" × 1.5" × .75" boarde for my limbs. Cut them, tapered them, and shaped them accordingly. Check out any of the Bow Build posts I've made for detailed instructions on how these are made.
Painted..
Stained...
Limb tips added (Redheart wood)
Red Oak Veneer accents added...
After quite a bit of tillering and working the limbs, I was able to finally brace to bow/string it up.
Satisfied with the limbs, I sprayed them with a few coats of poly to seal them up and make em shine!
Here's what the bow finally looks like.
I learned a lot on this build. I researched and I made mistakes, but I kept going. Its really rewarding to finally shoot the finished bow. Here's some footage I shot while fine tuning...
Thanks for taking the time and following along! Any questions? Hit me! I'll answer them to the best of my ability!
Peace!!
Another great bow! I love that you are able to do such beautiful bows without using any specialized equipment. Do you have any experience with wood or have you learn everything you know just to make your bows?
I like to see your progress photos as I can imagine how you made it. There are so many that it feels like I was there with you while you were making it.
And that video at the end is great! It must be an amazing feeling for you to shoot it for the first time and see that it's working the way you hoped for :)
Thank you for sharing!
Thank you so much for following along!! I do have some woodworking experience but it's all from helping my Mom or building a bookshelf for a friend, etc. I love to DIY. (^_^)
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That is a beautiful bow. I love how the danish oil makes the wood look. You are truly a craftsman.
Thank you! That's my favorite part! When I can put the oil on the wood and see how it POPs! (^_^)
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Awesome!! Thank you!! (^_^)
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👍
Wow...o my God!!!
Looks really good.
I love woodworking too .
I follow you. ^^
It's my work.
Wow!! Those are really nice too!! #Skills
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Wow!! Those are really nice too!! #Skills
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Howdy from Texas sir beatking! Hey I remember you made another long bow and did posts about that a few months ago. So this is another great design and obviously it worked very well!
The design plans and step-by-step photos of the progress is really interesting to see as the bow takes shape so great job!
Have you ever thought about making a crossbow?
Thank you so much for following along! I started making bows with PVC pipe and I've made a "crossbow" using different materials. Now I'm focused on making really good quality wood bows. (^_^)
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sir beatking! what? bows made out of PVC pipe? how is that possible? are they any good?
They sure are! LOL. When heat is applied, PVC becomes moldable. Taper those ends and curve the tips and you're done!! Great for a quick survival bow.
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oh I get it. thank you beatking13!
Here's one I made from PVC
And another...
dang sir beatking13, those look great, they sure don't look like PVC either, you painted them right?
This is beautiful. It's amazing how you make this up out of what you have at hand. I am wondering if the wood is expensive.
I already subbed from your last curied post and today I watched and liked this video at yt. If you cross post your short videos to dtube and use dtubesnap as your tag, you will be a hit. This is just the type of thing they like over there.
Awesome! Thanks for following and for the great advice!! I'll look at dtube closer for the next time! (^_^)
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I'm having good luck with uploading videos less than 2 minutes. After that - not so good :(
Really? I will check it out today and see if I have any problems. To answer your first question, the red oak for the limbs is about $10 at Home Depot, the Walnut was about $20 (and I have some left over) and the Rosewood was on sale for about $8 for the piece I used.
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Hi beatking13,
Visit curiesteem.com or join the Curie Discord community to learn more.
Awesome! Thank you so much!! (^_^)
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Oh man...wow! How much time did it take you alltogehter? I know u said 2 weeks but I'm wondering the exact amount of hours..And what would be the range of the bow cca? The crucial step for me were those 3 coats of spray haha :D that piece of wood looked immediately soo much better!
This is amazing work dude, conratz on ur well deserved curie upvote :)
Thanks a bunch! I appreciate that! I'm not quite sure how many work hours I put in but it rained quite a bit during that time period and there were several days that I couldn't work on it at all. Working straight through would take a little over a week so everything can dry properly. As far as range, the arrows fly at about 140-150 feet per second. Fast enough to hunt in North America. (^_^)
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SO you'll use it for hunting??? wow man...I follow Chad Mendez (MMA fighter) cuz of his hunting videos...it's totally inspiring, hunt your own meat!
I've seen a couple of his vids as well! Yes you CAN hunt with it, but I rarely get a chance to go out into the woods. But lots of guys hunt with bows just like this one.
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Whoa! Amazing! I'm very impressed! I "bow" to you!
LOL. Thank you! I appreciate what you do as well! (^_^)
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I love the fact that you have tried so hard to give it a good finish in the wood (I have also sanded wood, mostly mahogany which is what I use in my sculptures, and requires a lot of patience). That says that you not only care about the utility, you also care about its aesthetics.
Question: what type of rope do you use? Do you need some special type of rope? I mean, in the picture it seems to be a common rope, am I right?
Hi, thank you! A "real" bow string is made of B50 or B55 Dacron string. Made in a continuous loop or a Flemish Twist style. In the pics and video I'm using my "tillering string" which is just some regular paracord. I tie knots in it to shorten the string as I work. You can buy bow strings or make them yourself relatively easy. (^_^)
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Fantastic craftsmanship! I really like seeing basic resources being utilized to their fullest extent and making something functional. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
Thank you! I try to look at problems from different angles. How many ways can I solve this? What ways are available to me and what can I make to help me? (^_^)
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This is so cool! The thing is, I dunno how to use it or even when or where to use it. Lol! But I really do love how it turned out. It has a nice finishing, it has a nice shine and I like the design...
I love how resourceful you were in creating your own spindle sanders(i got it right, yeah?).
So, you can easily take this apart when you want it to be portable enough for travels? I love the idea... How long did to take you to get this don3?
That rope (you call it rope too, right?)how does it feel like, is it kind of elastic?
Thank you!! You're right, this bow can be taken apart and travels really easy. The bow string is supposed to have very little elasticity. When I make the actual bow string, it will not stretch. (^_^)
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Ooh... Pretty cool! Have you made other variations of this bow, with different designs?
Not this design, but I have made other bows that are all 1 piece of wood. The latest is called "Big Red" I posted it about 2-3 weeks ago. But I plan to make more limbs for this bow so I can interchange them. (^_^)
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That sounds cool, I will go check that out...or do you mind leaving me a link to it?
Oh I don't mind at all. Here ya go. https://steemit.com/diy/@beatking13/big-red-3rd-time-s-the-charm
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I love the design of that one too, its pretty cool....
I still remember you last one, but in this post I like the way you started from beginning showing us the type of would you drawing and how you worked with wood. I love wood and handmade pieces, especially once you polish and stain them they look so noble. Wonderful work as always, and thank you for such beautiful pictures :)
Thank you so much for following along! I agree, I love seeing the raw wood take shape and then shine when its finished. I think on the next one I'll take a few side by side pics to highlight that difference. (^_^)
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Sweet. Another job well done. That one looks just as cool as the last ones, and maybe even more so. I do like the break down aspect and it added a good bit of character to the look of the bow.
Does it feel different from the others? Also just out of curiosity what is the draw weight?
Thank you! The extra steps were definitely worth it to get this finished product! It shoots really smooth and pulls at about 47# at 28 inches. It actually feels a bit smoother than the first few bows I made but that may just be because with each build, I learn more and get better at making them. (^_^)
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What? Did you really build your own bow? You're a genius, an artist.
you may have made mistakes but let me tell you that this requires a lot of precision, I like how you chose the piece of wood and lowered it to the design you did.
Just genia, the finish and well everything ended in the best way, in the video I could appreciate the power that has that arrow to be shot.
How many arrows do you have?
thank you for sharing, health and freedom
Thank you so much!! It was a lot of work but very worth it! I learned a lot from this build and it's a powerful bow. I have 12 arrows that are just alike, another 12 that are mismatched, and about 5 or 6 that I've made myself from wood. (^_^)
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Dude! this bow is fantastic, @jackdub and myself have a podcast every Saturday from 5-7pm UTC that features makers like yourself and would love to have you on sometime to talk about this project. If you're interested let me know and I'd love to schedule a time to get you on the show.
Awesome!! Count me in!! (^_^)
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Wow! I'd love to and would be honored to be on the show! Let me know what I need to do to make it happen! Thanks!!
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Hey @beatking13 Awesome! I'll need you to download discord from here https://discordapp.com/ if you don't have it and send me a Direct Message there to start. My username is makinstuff #0201
I have Discord. I'm not quite sure how to send a DM there. My username is beatking13 #1775
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