Some projects burrow into your mind and refuse to leave. For me, that was building a longbow from scratch. For years, I’d watched videos and read posts about bowmaking, always telling myself I’d find time one winter. But it was a sunny Saturday in March, with the backyard waking up and my old recurve starting to delaminate, when I finally ordered a hickory stave and committed.
Gathering Tools (and Nerves)
I decided on hickory for its forgiving nature. My only prior woodworking experience was hacking at 2x4s in my garage, so I wanted wood that would tolerate rookie mistakes. I ordered a 68-inch hickory stave from 3 Rivers Archery. For tools, I limited myself to what you might find in a typical garage: a drawknife, a four-in-hand rasp, a spokeshave, clamps, and a block plane. No bandsaw, no tillering tree, just a home-built tillering stick and a lot of trial-and-error.
Every resource warned me not to rush the layout. I traced an English longbow handle profile, marked 1¾ inches at the grip tapering to half an inch at the tips, and double-checked every measurement. It felt more like surgery than DIY, especially knowing a bad cut meant starting over.
Shaping the Stave: Blisters and Surprises
Roughing out the bow took two long afternoons. Hickory is tough, and my drawknife felt like a butter knife at times. My biggest surprise came when I uncovered a hidden knot about a third of the way up the upper limb. Panic set in. I remembered reading that knots aren’t always fatal if you work around them. I eased material carefully, then left the area slightly wider. The rest of the process was a slow dance of rasping, checking, and sanding. Early on, I accidentally took too much wood off one mid-limb section. To compensate, I left the opposite limb a hair thicker. This would come back to haunt me.
DIY Tillering: The Ugly and the Honest
I set up a crude tillering station using a sawhorse, a scrap board, and a loop of paracord for a pulley. My initial tiller looked more like a question mark than a bow. The upper limb bent much more easily than the lower. That area with the knot? Stiff as a fence post. Most advice says to scrape only from the stiff sections, but the urge to "even it out" tempted me constantly. The tillering process became a daily after-work routine: scrape, string, draw, squint, repeat.
After about ten sessions, the limbs started to move more in harmony. I stopped at a 26-inch draw for fear of pushing the knot too far. The final tiller wasn’t textbook but felt balanced enough to risk a string-up. My homemade Flemish twist string looked rough but held. The first few draws filled the air with nervous silence, but the stave held together.
Shooting Results: The Good, the Bad, and the Ouch
The first arrows launched with a satisfying thump. The bow pulled about 48 pounds at 26 inches, heavier than I’d planned, but manageable. My groups at 15 yards were wider than with my recurve, thanks to a handle that felt square and a shelf that barely existed. The lower limb, thicker as a result of my earlier mistake, kicked more on release, sending the nock end of arrows to the left if my grip strayed.
After fifty shots, I noticed some minor splintering near the knot. I sanded and sealed the limbs, but decided not to tempt fate by drawing past 26 inches. The bow never broke, but it developed a habit of buzzing on release. I chalked it up to uneven tiller and my impatient scraping in the early stages. Arrow speed, measured with my phone’s slow-motion app, came in at about 145 fps with 500-grain cedar shafts, slower than my old Samick Sage but not embarrassing for a first build.
What I’d Change Next Time (and What I’d Repeat)
If I could start over, patience would top the list. My biggest regret is rushing the thickness in a few spots, especially near that knot. Next time, I’d spring for a proper tillering string and a digital scale, rather than trusting my arm and a rusty bathroom scale. I’d also use a cabinet scraper instead of relying so much on the rasp, which left the surface rough and made it hard to judge thickness.
On the plus side, building outside in the spring meant I could work slowly, use natural light, and keep dust out of the house. The satisfaction of launching an arrow off a bow I shaped by hand is second to none. Even with the flaws, maybe especially because of them, the bow feels like an extension of my months-long experiment. If you’re on the fence about building your own, gather a forgiving wood, clear a corner of your backyard, and learn to love your mistakes. They’ll teach you more than any perfect store-bought bow ever could.