bow buildalong manual

[Nezwin]

Preston,

Which part of India are you from? I trained in kalaripayattu in Kerala a few years ago, part of which involved use of bows. During my time there we built bows from tamarind timber, although this can be difficult to get due to the commercial cropping and/or religious association of the tree. My guru was of the understanding that mango timber had been used in the past too, although he was of the opinion tamarind was a better choice. In Nepal I worked with some archers who built self-bows from local bamboo, which was easy to source & easy to work with. This might be an option too.

If you're happy to move away from timber bows, I found it easy to source fibreglass & resin pretty much anywhere in the country, even smaller villages - this can be used to seal the back on poorly grained boards or can be used to layer up limbs altogether.

Hope this helps in some way,

Neil

[Preston]

Hello Neil,
What a surprise!!....you trained in that ancient art!!....you are well informed...I didn't know that tamrind was used in the past or mango too could be used. When I was a kid I played on Tamrind trees and I remember now that the branches were really flexible and never broke no matter how we swung on them...Thanks for the information...I'll try to get hold of some when I go home, but I will have to season it myself.... I live in bangalore its a bit far from kerala.

Fiber Glass.... from where can I get fiber glass which is suitble for bows? I actually have no clue what thickness i would need and how do they sell it etc...I would be glad if you could give me more details...for backing bows it may be good. I wonder how can I get some Rawhide for backing.....
Regards.
Preston

[Nezwin]

you trained in that ancient art!!

To be fair, I was terrible at it! And I was only at the kalari for just under a month, but it was a phenomenal experience I won't ever forget.

I live in bangalore its a bit far from kerala.

Funnily enough, I broke my Tamarind bow in a motorcycle accident halfway between Bengaluru & Chennai. I regret throwing the pieces away, but I still have the Nepali bamboo bow somewhere at my parents place in the UK.

I remember amazing uttapam in Bengaluru, and pretty good thali too. Although there's not a lot of bad thali about in India...

Fiber Glass.... from where can I get fiber glass which is suitble for bows? I actually have no clue what thickness i would need and how do they sell it etc...I would be glad if you could give me more details...for backing bows it may be good. I wonder how can I get some Rawhide for backing.

There was a video somewhere of a Malaysian guy who built his own three-piece takedown recurve using only hand tools & easily obtained materials. He used chopped mat fibreglass & (what I assume was) polyester resin for the limbs, layered up on a simple timber form. I can't find the link but I'm sure someone else will know which post I'm referring to.

Using fibreglass solely for your limbs detracts from the nature of this traditional forum, so I won't go too much into it. For backing timber boards though it would be good, one or two layers should suffice. Any more than that and it begins performing work, which can cause problems in itself. Unidirectional fibreglass is optimal but woven cloth can also be used - there's some threads discussing use of these elsewhere in the forum. Similarly, epoxy resin is optimal but, in a pinch, polyester resin can be used, but it won't bond as well to the wood as epoxy, so you need to be very careful. Application would be very similar to the drywall tape & glue that Sam Harper uses on his Red Oak Board Bow at http://www.poorfolkbows.com. To be honest, you don't really need to use fibreglass if you're backing boards - silk or linen cloth applied with a wood glue would do a similar job. The backing is only there to stop a splinter lifting on the limb, so I would say what you really need is good timber.

You should be able to find everything you need for fibreglass in the part of town with all the garages & motorcycle repair shops. Every city, town & small village in India seems to have one, so head on down to that area and start asking questions about where you can find fibreglass & resin, or any other materials you might need. We picked up a small amount of chopped mat & polyester resin in Jaipur for about $4 to do some body repair work to a my mates Karizma 220, so it shouldn't be overly expensive.

Rawhide is fairly easy to get too, or at least it was for us. We worked at a blacksmiths in Nepal for a few weeks and they used rawhide for wrapping the kukri sheaths - find a shop that sells knives & traditional items like that, find out where their local production area is, and ask them where they get their rawhide.

As far as actually using all this stuff though, there's much more informed & practical people on this board who can help with making a bow - I just have some knowledge of sourcing materials. To qualify my experience on the Tamarind bow, it had hinges on each limb & would've been 25lb-30lb @28", maximum. When it broke I wasn't sad to throw the pieces away. A tillering stick and proper tools can make a huge difference. I don't think I ever took any pictures of it to show you but I do somewhere have a picture of the Nepali bamboo bow... Do you have access to bamboo? You can make a great bow from that.

[Preston]

Sounds like you had a lot of fun overhere and moved around a lot too!.....if you ever visit again maybe we could meet over a beer or two....
I can always buy bamboo that's no problem...but I would like to make a bow out of some suitable wood. I like the challenge of working with wood... a bamboo bow seems easy enough to make I think....I'm actually not interested in fiber glass bows I like more primitive bows and want to be able to make one, and learn to handle it well (shoot straight!!) I mean... There is a lot of great information on how to build bows here and i'm thankfull to everyone who took the time to put it up on this forum...
when I go home I'll try to source some Tamrind wood and build a bow....i'll let you know how it turns out... Yeoman wrote a great amount of detailed information on making pyramid bows it should help me in the design part of the process as for the skill to practically make one lets see