Vine Maple Bow Section Instructions

How it’s done

Find the halfway or center of your bow stave and make a centerline mark. Decide which limb you would like to be top or bottom. From your marked centerline measure up on the top limb one inch and down from your centerline three inches. That will make your four inch handle.

From the top of your handle measure four inches and mark this for your top fade out. Then do the same from the bottom of the handle for your bottom fade out. From the tip of your top limb measure towards your handle seven inches. Do the same with the bottom limb. This seven inches will be your non bending tip of your limb. Between this non bending part of your tip and the fadeout is where the tillering will be made to make your bow bend.

Now shape your bow how narrow you want it. I would make it I 3/4 wide at the beginning of the fade out and narrow it towards the limb tip from there. If you are wanting a rounded belly like an ELB, leave enough wood on the belly to make the sides rounded up with a peak or crown at the center of the belly. Tillering a bow to bend correctly is as simple as “taking off wood in the right places allows the wood to bend correctly”. Easier said than done I know but keep that in mind it’s just taking off wood.

Using your draw knife is how to ruff in the shape of your bow if you don’t have access to a bandsaw. Be careful with your draw knife that when you are pulling it towards you that you also use a slicing motion across the belly. So it is a slicing and pulling motion. Otherwise your draw knife may dig in too deep and alot more wood can come off that you expect. What we want to accomplish at this stage is to have a ruffed out shape of your bow and a bow that is called “floor tillered”. That means when you put one hand on the handle and the tip of one limb on the floor you can push the bow at the handle and watch it bend and more important where it is bending and not bending at.

Having a way of tillering with a tillering rack is necessary to continue bending your bow. Some use a tillering tree which is a 2x4 with notches for the string every 2” apart and with a place to hold the bow handle on top while you are watching the bending of the bow. I use a pulley set up. With my pulley set up I put the bow in a secured holder (at the handle) on a wall and place a big game scale that has a hook on one end and place the hook on the bow string. On the other end of the scale hook I tie a rope that goes through a pulley close to floor level to my hand so I can stand back from the wall and have a better look. As I pull on the rope in my hand I can watch the bow bending and see where to take off the wood. Never pull the bow beyond 50# if you making a 50# bow.

So pull the bow to 25-50# and watch it bend. When you see it not bending, where it is straight, take the bow off the wall and file or cabint scrape some wood off. Put it back up on the tillering rack and keep doing this until the bow is bending 50# at 28”. You will have all kinds of file marks in the belly of the bow so some sand paper will be needed to take out the tool marks. Never cut into the wood on the back of your bow stave. Hopefully as the bow is bending on the tillering rack some or most of the bark will just pop off because it is dry wood. If not, scraping with pocket knife or use some kind of scraper to get the bark off. There is a light, tan, cambium layer under the bark that also has to come off. Then after it is sanded, paint it, stain it, put camo tape on it. Whatever your creative mind allows you to do. I know the first time is alot of unknowns but ask away and we’ll make this happen…okay? Good books:

• The Bent Stick
• Hunting the Osage Bow by Dean Torges
• The Flatbow
• Traditional Bowyers Bibles vol. 1,2,3

List of tools:

3riversarchery.com or kustomkingarchery.com are good places to order from and they have good prices.

• Bench vise and work bench
• Fine and course rasp
• Cabinet scraper
• No spoke shaves or planes
• Draw knife
• Tillering string
• Bandsaw would make things easier

Tillering rack that you can make:

The tillering rack is a necessity because of the need to make your bow bend in the proper places. Here’s what you need to do. I put on an empty wall in my shop a bracket six feet high from the floor that I can set the bow into and the bracket will hold the bow. The bow will have a tillering string on it which is a string you can buy that will have a leather boot on both ends of the string. Since you won’t have your string nocks cut into the end of your limb tips yet the boot goes over the end so you can bend your limbs.

With the tillering string on your bow stave and the stave is in your bow holder place a game scale on the tillering string by the hook on the game scale resting the game scale on the tillering string. There will be another hook on the bottom of the game scale tie a rope onto that hook. Put a eye bolt in the base of the wall close to the floor under the bow holder and run the rope through the eye bolt. You may put a pulley to this eye bolt or just pull the rope through the eye bolt which causes the spring scale to pull on the tillering string when you pull on the end of the rope.

Now you can stand back pulling on your rope and look at your bow stave to see as you are pulling on the end of the rope where the bow stave is bending or not bending. Never pull you bow beyond your desired draw weight.

Example, if I’m wanting a desired 55@28” draw weight I should never pull the bow beyond that 55#. Collasping the wood cells on the belly of the bow with compression is unecessay and could cause string follow. String follow is with the bow unstrung in a relaxed state the limb tips will follow the string direction that you would be pulling in. There are alot of good books out there to study and learn the language and techniques used in making a good durable selfbow.

I’ll be glad to help with any questions you have by email or by a visit. Keep those chips a flyin’…God bless, Curt