The bow and arrow represent one of the most revolutionary inventions of ancient people. Points of view differ regarding the complexity of manufacturing this device. According to one of them, presented, for example, in the film “Predator”, to make a bow it is enough to find a stick and be Schwarzenegger. According to another, the production of bows was a secret of ancient masters passed down from generation to generation, now, of course, lost...
In fact, both points of view are quite far from the truth. Making a bow is not easy, but it is not so difficult that anyone (given the time and materials) cannot cope with the task.
Simple bows
Making even the simplest bow was a rather complicated procedure. The difficulty was the need to find a straight, branchless branch in the forest yew, ash, juniper, maple, elm, acacia, hickory, walnut or red cedar. The side of the branch facing the main trunk was further considered as the outer surface, or " back » onion. The cut workpiece had to be kept in a damp, warm place with its back facing up.
The outer and inner sides of the bending stick are exposed to different conditions and must have different properties. On the inside, or " stomach » The wood fibers will shrink. Here, maximum hardness is required from the material, otherwise delamination will begin. The fibers of the back of the bow stretch. The softer the wood, the less danger there will be of them tearing. Proper selection and conditioning of the workpiece provided the bow with power and durability.
Bows made using this technique were usually short - only 100-140 centimeters. American Indians and European medieval hunters did not require anything else. With a longbow it is difficult to sneak up on game through the bush. But military shooters needed more powerful weapons.
Longbows - such as the famous English longbow , - were cut from a fragment of a yew log split along the length. The trick was to make the workpiece include two layers of wood equal in thickness - soft core and the surrounding solid sapwood .
Despite the extensive list of wood species suitable for making bows, in many regions of the planet it was impossible to find anything suitable. In view of this, in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia, vast areas remained where bows, although they were known, did not gain noticeable popularity.
But even in the British Isles, rich in deciduous forests (in the Middle Ages, of course), the situation with raw materials for archery production was not at all easy. The English kings charged the peasants with the duty of planting yew, but there was still a constant shortage of it. After all, only a very small part of the trunk of a felled tree was used for harvesting, and besides, not every trunk was suitable for use.
A huge number of onions were required. Simple bows are short-lived: the fragile wood fibers gradually break and become deformed. Military wooden bows quickly failed because they were used “barbarously.” In battle, the archer, shooting arrows with a canopy at the maximum distance, pulled the bowstring to the limit and very often.
As a result, during Hundred Years' War the convoys carried behind the British troops not only bundles of arrows, but also a large supply of blanks, from which new ones were planed right on the spot longbow to replace those used in the previous battle. The British did not have enough yew of their own, and they bought wood from Spain. Spanish yew, by the way, was considered the best, and Arab countries also bought it.
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The materials used to make the bowstring were very diverse. Used hemp, nettle and hemp fiber, wool, women's hair, silk, linen string, rawhide, sinew and twisted intestines. Nowadays, leather and silk can serve as an analogue lavsan And Kevlar, but for weak bows a tow of ordinary linen threads is also suitable. A small leather bag was sometimes attached to the middle of the string of Mongolian and Siberian bows. The purpose of this device was the most trivial - it served for archery with a clay ball or a small stone. But why use a stone if the arrow flies further and much more accurately? Very simple - to save money. For example, if a hunter was sorry to lose an arrow if he missed a small wading bird. |
Compound bows
Something had to be done about the shortage of raw materials. If in Europe the problem of its shortage was still solvable, then the steppe nomads had access to not so many types of trees to be able to look for something special among them.
The most obvious - literally lying on the surface - was the decision to use two wooden parts with different hardnesses. As examples of the implementation of such an idea, we can mention Siberian and Novgorod bows with birch shell and core made of juniper , pine trees or ate .
Glue obtained by cooking for many days was used to connect the parts. hooves or tendons animals, or skin and bones of sturgeon fish. Fish glue was the best, but its production required an unrealistic amount of sturgeon by modern standards. Nowadays, it can be used to glue onion parts epoxy resin, which has two major advantages. Firstly, it is easier to get, and secondly, it is much stronger than fish glue.
The use of two types of wood made it possible to produce bows from cheap and accessible material. Replacing hard wood in the core with inserts of 2-3 mm thick plates of steamed and straightened horn (or whalebone) gave a more noticeable effect. The tension force of the bow increased significantly due to the greater strength of the horn. Such a bow could rightly be called strengthened .
From the enhanced bow there was only one step left to the bow composite , the back of which was covered with tendons. The tendons were taken from the legs or spine of cattle, cleaned, broken into individual fibers with a hammer, thoroughly washed and degreased. The bundles of the resulting fibers were fixed with fish glue in 3-4 layers, each about a millimeter thick.
The composite bow gave the shooter a number of very significant advantages. The most important of them, undoubtedly, can be considered the durability of the weapon. The horn retains elasticity at four times greater deformation than wood, and the tendons are 8-10 times more tensile than wood. In practice, this gave the archer the invaluable opportunity to carry his weapon equipped, with the bowstring installed.
The British kept the bowstring in a bag and began to draw their bows as soon as they saw the enemy. Even a relatively short stay in a tense state significantly and irreversibly reduced the fighting qualities of a wooden bow. The design of the most powerful Turkish or Chinese bows, on the contrary, did not at all provide for the possibility of removing the string “in the field.” This required a special machine.
It was very difficult to string a composite bow. The high extensibility of the tendons made it possible to attach them not to a straight wooden plank, but to a pre-bent one (by steaming and drying in a special form). The Turkish bow with the bowstring removed did not straighten, but bent forward into a complete ring.
Another important advantage of composite bows was their 40% higher efficiency. With equal tension force and equal shot energy, it could be made the same 40% shorter. This is how tiny Scythian bows with a span of only 65-80 centimeters, very convenient for riders, appeared, corresponding in effectiveness to simple bows of 90-110 centimeters in length.
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To make a light hunting arrow, a thin and straight branch apple, cedar, cypress, birch, ash or poplar steamed and dried inside a straight hollow bone. Very good arrows were made from bamboo, although out of 100 sprouts only one had the necessary straightness. For the lightest arrows you could also use reed or reed. But in the latter case, the tip and eye for the bowstring were attached to wooden or bone bushings. In Europe, arrows were usually equipped with two-leaf fletching parchment. In Asia, they preferred a three-way stabilizer made of feathers birds.
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Design features of the most powerful bows
One of the most important improvements in bow design was the addition of its limbs. ends ", or " ears » - strips bent forward at an angle of 120 degrees, to which the bowstring was attached. The “ears” of the bow were reinforced with bone, and sometimes metal, and were equipped with grooves in which the bowstring lay until the bow was drawn. When tensioned to approximately half, the string came out of the grooves, the ends of the bow “folded out,” and the 120-centimeter long bow convenient for the rider turned into an “infantry” 150-centimeter long bow.
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Bamboo grove. |
Another feature of the most powerful and advanced bows is double curvature. The handle, pressed inward—recessed—made it significantly more difficult to manufacture the wooden base (it had to consist of at least three parts), but it allowed the bowstring to be pulled back far using relatively short arrows. Of course, the question arises: what prevented you from simply taking a longer arrow? But the whole point is that the shorter and lighter the arrow, the more accurate and farther the shot will be.
The historical record for archery range was set by the Turkish Sultan Selim III, who in 1798 fired an arrow at a distance of 889 meters. It is less known that in 1794, the secretary of the Turkish embassy in London shot arrows at 430 meters on a bet, and said that the Sultan - the greatest archer of all times - shot as much as 20 meters further. It seems unlikely that Selim would double his tally in just four years. Rather, it can be assumed that when recording records, the august persons had certain “advantages”. The record for firing range from a modern compound bow is only 690 meters.
The energy of the shot depends on the tension and length of the bow. Both have strict natural boundaries. Of course, with equal kinetic energy, a lighter arrow will acquire greater speed and fly further. But the arrow cannot be made shorter - it cannot be less than the draw length. You can’t make it thinner either, because the more powerful the bow, the greater the load it will bear. It was not for nothing that crossbows fired short, thick bolts.
Modern bows have a whole range of differences from historical ones. By using a block that doubles the tension force and better quality materials, the firing range can be increased by more than one and a half times. The accuracy of shots was significantly increased by installing sighting devices, as well as by placing the arrow axis in the plane of movement of the bowstring. In ancient designs, the arrow was deflected to the side with a convex handle, bent when fired, and then “wobbled” in the air for some time.
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The disadvantages of composite bows include, first of all, their increased sensitivity to weather conditions. Sunlight could destroy the glue, and moisture, absorbed into the layer of veins, catastrophically reduced the power of the weapon. The strongest bows created for long-range sports shooting were even supposed to be dried for a week in special conditions before competitions. Special cases were designed to protect bows from overheating and getting wet - lit , or Saadaki . Goritas were open and closed. The closed ones were oblong boxes made of wood and leather, into which the entire short bow was stored. Longer bows were carried in open goritas, into which they entered only halfway. In this case, a morocco cover was pulled over the protruding part of the bow - on beam The protection that the case gave the bow was insufficient. For more reliable insulation from moisture and sun, the onion was equipped with a shell of silk, parchment, snakeskin, morocco or birch bark. Moreover, not ordinary, but boiled birch bark was used. But the best among coatings in the Middle Ages was considered to be invented in China. varnish. |
A hunting bow is the most affordable weapon that is not so difficult to make with your own hands. Its advantage over the purchased one is in cost, and also in the fact that it can be made “for yourself”, taking into account individual characteristics. The only thing that needs to be taken into account when making a bow for shooting with your own hands is that the maximum tension force of the string, established by law, is no more than 40 kg/s. You can learn more about how to make a hunting bow with your own hands.
Homemade bow
Before you make a bow with your own hands, you need to prepare the material. Wood for making archery weapons must have such characteristics as strength, flexibility, and elasticity. The material for the workpiece must be straight, even, without knots or any damage. In principle, any tree is suitable for making a bow: birch, oak, apple, juniper, maple, hazel, ash, elm, yew or teak.
The branch for harvesting must be cut down in winter, at sub-zero temperatures, so that the tree sap is preserved inside. The length of the workpiece should be the required length of the future onion, plus 30 cm for cracks during drying at each end, the occurrence of which is very likely. The bark is not removed from a cut branch. Its ends are coated with oil paint to avoid internal defects in the wood when it dries, which should occur evenly.
After this, the workpiece is left to dry for up to five months in an upright position at room temperature. In this case, the surrounding air should not be too dry, otherwise the workpiece will be deformed.
How to make a hunting bow with your own hands
After making the initial blank, you need to determine the natural bend of the wooden bow. This is necessary in order to make it convenient to use the weapon in the future. To determine this bend, you need to press one end to the ground while holding the other end with your hand. The frame will turn to its natural side.
Make a bow with your own hands, diagram It is necessary to make a future hunting bow from a round blank. The width of the bow frame is usually 3 cm. It is better to cut off excess wood with a knife, while simultaneously checking for knots and other defects.
Since a simple bow consists of a solid frame, it is worth shaping its bends while processing it with a knife. Using a knife and a plane, its side and front parts are formed. The ratio of the width of the frame and the width of the shoulders should be 3/2. The size of the shoulders should be the same so that they are not inferior in elasticity to each other. At this stage of work, the bow should not be bent to prevent its deformation.
Next you need to form the bend of the bow. For this, the water steaming method is used. In particular, the arms of the bow are steamed to give them the desired bend shape. To do this, the bow is fixed with special stocks (wooden blocks) in the desired position of the arms and treated with hot water steam. In this fixed position, the weapon dries for about one week. After this, the stocks are removed, and places for the bowstring are cut out at the ends of the arms.
It should be noted that all this time the bark was not removed from the onion. After steaming it begins to peel off. It must be carefully removed without damaging the wood fibers. The remaining bark is removed with sandpaper, and the surface is covered with fat, hot wax, varnish or paint.
There is another option for how to bend a bow:
- It is necessary to make a special board with cuts, which is attached perpendicular to the center of the frame.
- Both ends of the bow are connected with a thread.
- The thread clings to one of the cuts on the board to bend it according to the required radius.
Manipulations should be carried out slowly, because sharp bending may damage the wood fibers.
Making a bowstring
It is better to make a bowstring from multi-layered rope. The bowstring for hunting must be durable, made from several threads of Kevlar, nylon, lavsan, fishing cord in reels, and other artificial threads. A thin strip of rawhide, 3mm thick, will also work. The main requirement for a bowstring thread is strength, resistance to abrasion and stretching. It should be shorter than the length between the limbs of the bow in order to remain in a tight position at all times. First, it is attached to one notch of the shoulder, tightened with a knot to the bow, then stretched to the other end and tightened there. A correctly tensioned bowstring should be 15 cm from the middle of the frame of the hunting bow.
Making arrows
Arrows should be of such length that it is proportional to the length of the bow and the maximum tension of the bowstring. In practice, this means that when the bowstring is taut, the arrow tip should protrude several centimeters beyond the frame of the weapon. The diameter of the arrow should be approximately 6mm, the shaft should be perfectly straight. The materials for making arrows are spruce, pine, birch - for hunting small game and birds, as well as ash, hornbeam, oak, and other heavy and dense species for hunting wild animals. You can chop them from logs, use boards, glazing beads, or wooden square slats. Then they need to be shaped into cylinders and sanded so that the surface is smooth. The smoother the surface of the arrow, the more accurate its flight will be. In the end part you need to make a small slot for the bowstring in accordance with its diameter.
The shape of the arrowhead is made depending on the type of prey. If hunting is intended for a bird, the tip is made pointed. If you plan to hunt larger game, the tip is made of stone or triangular metal.
The arrow will also need to be fletched. The simplest one is from bird feathers, but it can be made from other materials - plastic, paper, etc.
Compound bow
A hunting bow may have a composite design, i.e. consist of two or three parts. It is easier to find material for such a workpiece than for a simple one. Typically, a composite structure consists of a central frame to which are attached two arms (“horns”) that end in string mounts. For normal shooting, they are made the same size, but for shooting from the knee, the lower shoulder should be made shorter than the upper one.
To make the arms of a composite bow, you should choose bird cherry that grows near a pond. The blanks are cleaned of bark and dried in a dark place, or even better, in the fresh air. After cutting out the main parts, the workpiece can be dried in the sun.
The component parts are glued together; in camping conditions this can be done using fish glue (made from crushed fish bones). The frame is impregnated with resin and fat, and the joints with the shoulders are tightened with animal tendons (you can use fishing line, strong rope), and again soaked in fat. When all the parts are glued into a single structure, the onion is processed with a sharp knife. To give even greater strength and durability, the surface of the onion is covered with boiled birch bark, glued along the fibers.
For ordinary onions, virtually any tree growing in Russia is suitable.
So, bows can be made from maple, juniper, ash, hazel, birch, oak and elm.
The workpiece must be cut down in winter at a frost of 10 to 15 degrees.
The workpiece must be free from thermal and mechanical damage and free from excess build-up.
The length of the bow blank should be 30 cm longer than the length of the bow, as cracks may appear; for this purpose, 15 cm is left on both sides.
There is no need to remove the bark from a cut log.
It is necessary to coat the ends of the workpiece with oil paint. This is done so that drying is uniform and internal defects do not appear in the wood. If you don’t do this, you won’t be able to eat enough for the long life of the onion.
After processing, the workpiece must be dried at room temperature and in a vertical position. At the same time, the air in the apartment should not be very dry, because the wood may dry out and everything that has been done will be in vain. Drying takes from 2 to 5 months, depending on conditions.
First treatment.
So, the existing workpiece is a log.
From it you need to make a board like the one in the following figure.
You can do this using one of the options below:
- Process with an ax
- Cut with a saw
- Split using wedges.
The board should be as thick as the future bow in the handle, approximately 3 cm.
Once the board is of the required thickness, you need to make markings on it.
You also need to carefully inspect the board for defects and cross-layers.
In the following figure, you can see how to correctly make a marking scheme.
Please note that the bark has not yet been removed, so you need to be extremely careful not to damage the outer part of the onion.
All excess must first be separated with an ax, and then continue working with a knife and a plane. Once done, you will have the side profile of the bow in your hands.
Now you can begin to form the front profile.
The ratio between the width of the handle and the width of the end of the shoulder should be approximately 3/2. In the first stages of work you need to be very careful. The uniformity of operation of the bow arms will depend on the precision and accuracy with which everything is done. In the early stages, you should not bend the bow, as this can lead to splitting of the onion blank and ruin it.
The straight section of the bow depends on the existing thickness of the workpiece. It can be lentil-shaped or almost rectangular.
Steam treatment (last stage)
At this stage the bend of the bow will be formed. There are manufacturers who at this stage soak the workpiece in various solutions and infusions. But after treating the workpiece with steam, the wood also acquires all the necessary properties.
So, why do you need to steam onions?
- When the wood dries out during drying (that’s why you can’t bend the onion before steaming)
- In the case when the primary preparation was not straight. This happens often, there is no need to be afraid of it. The front profile of the bow does not need to be straight. This will not affect shooting.
- If you need to make a short bow (for example, one of the Slavic options 1 - 1.3 m).
- When making a bow with a reverse arch.
- When making a “light” bow (for example, a game bow).
- In order to give it an aesthetic appearance.
At the very beginning of production, the workpiece looks like this:
You need to get this bend:
To do this, you will need to steam the onion shoulders (when they are steamed, they become very plastic and can easily be shaped like this)
You need to steam the shoulder until it can be easily bent.
Only the parts shown in white need to be steamed.
It is necessary to steam at the same time so that the onion shoulders dry evenly and at the same time.
After the arms of the bow have been steamed, you need to restrain it in a special, pre-prepared slipway.
The bars are shown in black, between which the “hot” onion should be forced. The shape, quantity, and location of the bars depend on the required shape of the bow.
You can do it another way and steam the onion in the center.
Then place boards under his shoulders and tighten the middle with a clamp.
The bow should dry in the slipway for about a week, after which it should be removed and the ends of the bow should be shaped to tighten the bowstring. You need to prepare a place for the horn/bone tips or simply cut a “step” for the bowstring loop.
The onion is almost ready. For the longevity of its service, it will be necessary to protect it from drying out or moisture. If there is a need for a historical-reconstructive direction in the work, then you can soak the onion with heated wax or melted fat. However, don't overdo it! The impregnation should not be more than 3 mm deep, otherwise the onion will lose its elasticity), otherwise you can use modern paints, varnish or mastics.
The hunting bow is one of the oldest human weapons, used by our ancestors. These devices reached the apogee of their development in the Middle Ages - and the most powerful and accurate were not English ones (as was presented in literature for a long time), but oriental bows: Arabic, Korean and Japanese. The target range of their shot, taking into account the simplicity of the design in comparison with modern high-tech products, reached 200–220 meters, the maximum flight range of the arrow was 870–880 meters, and the tension force was up to 80 kg! Hunting bows are still used today, but some models are quite expensive. Therefore, we suggest you make such a tool with your own hands.
What is a hunting bow and its varieties
Initially, hunting bows were made exclusively from wood and had a simple arched shape. Somewhat later, simple models were replaced by composite ones, which first used ends made of bone, and then more complex designs from separately assembled parts: a central handle, a pair of shoulders and ends. Nowadays, block compound (or Olympic) options have been added to them. However, they are not used in hunting.
Collapsible bow design
In general, the current classification of hunting bows is the following division:
- According to the material of manufacture:
- traditional (made of wood);
- composite (from several materials).
- According to the structure of the main part:
- classic (D-shaped in a bent form, that is, with one bend);
- recursive (M-shaped, with several bends).
- By number of components:
- simple bows - made from a single piece of material;
- collapsible models - from several components.
Photo gallery: Modern hunting with industrial bows
Mathews Bow Compound Bow VilingStore Compound Bow Mathews CREED
Principle of operation
The principle of operation of classical bows (both traditional simple and recurve) is based on the creation of a pushing force that is imparted to the bowstring when the shoulders are straightened and provides the arrow with an initial speed that depends on the tension force. Moreover, the initial speed of the boom in a simple design also depends on these factors, while in block models, eccentrics located at the ends, synchronized with each other by a system of separate cables, are responsible for accuracy and speed.
A professional compound bow is made mainly from expensive and high-strength materials (carbon and fiberglass, magnesium and aluminum alloys, etc.) and contains a separate optical sighting system. In this regard, it is extremely difficult to make such a device yourself, and most importantly, very expensive. Therefore, further we will consider the assembly of hunting bows only of the classical type - both simple and complex recurve ones.
Photo gallery: Various designs of simple models
Materials and tools for manufacturing
To make a bow you will need the following tools and materials:
- hacksaw;
- plane;
- strong rope (for the bowstring);
- insulating tape;
- plastic tube (for PVC bows) or wood (for traditional options).
As for wood, yew is considered the best - it was from this wood that the famous English bows were made in the old days. In the absence of this rare species, you can use larch, rowan, ash, hazel, willow, cedar, juniper or elm. In other words, the material must be homogeneous, flexible and beautiful.
Believe it or not, this is a homemade compound bow!
Manufacturing instructions
Simple model
To make a simple PVC hunting bow, you will need a piece of SCH 40 pipe about 2.5 cm thick and a length equal to the distance between the middle of your thigh and the fingertips of an outstretched hand. Measuring 1.5 cm on both sides, make cuts. Insert and secure the string in them so that the maximum tension is approximately equal to the length of the bow.
The length of a simple bow is longer than a compound bow.
Attach to the string so that the maximum tension is approximately equal to the length of the bow
Unfortunately, a simple plastic bow can hardly be called a full-fledged hunting weapon - this will require a much more complex composite structure, in which 2 short pieces of a thin tube (to strengthen the shoulders) about 10 cm long will be inserted into the main pipe. For the handle, you will need 1 piece of slightly larger diameter.
Homemade bow made from PVC pipe and wood. Bowstring - silk thread
When making a structure from wood, it will be necessary to cut (plane) the main part of the bow, about 5 cm wide in the central part and 1.5 cm in the sides.
Photo gallery: Making onions in the forest from improvised materials
Simple homemade bow design
Video: Homemade bow using PVC pipes
Composite
A real hunting bow should be composite, and in shape as close as possible to modern high-class sports products. As a base, it is better to use flexible and non-layered wood from the lower and dense layers of trees growing in dark areas of the forest. For example, bird cherry, growing in open, dry clearings far from water, is good for “horns.”
The length of all three parts that form the bow (the base plus both horns) should not exceed 1.5 m - otherwise the bow may have greater range, but much less accuracy.
The step-by-step manufacturing technology will be as follows:
- The cleaned blanks are dried (not in the sun!), all 3 parts are planed and dried again. Then the base and horns are given their final appearance and dried in the bright sun.
- The kibiti elements are glued together with special store-bought glue or homemade fish glue (from digested bones or swim bladders of large fish).
- The finished kibit is dipped in melted animal fat (or cedar resin) for impregnation.
- The joints are additionally tightened with tendons or a dense flexible cord and soaked again, after which the finished bow is processed until smooth with a knife and, if desired, polished.
It is also possible to cover the base with strips of birch bark, and the horns and ends with overlays made of natural horn (or metal). However, such strengthening and creation of multi-layering is only relevant for weapons with a very high (more than 20 kg) tension force, which is hardly meaningful when hunting birds and small animals with a bow - except perhaps in terms of decoration.
Photo gallery: DIY compound bows
Compound bows drying after sizing
Homemade Compound Bows
Video: How to make a compound bow at home
Accessories
Making all the components of a bow at home is even easier than the main structure.
Bowstring
It can be twisted from nylon cord, although real hunters prefer natural material. Which is usually blood-soaked and dried rawhide rolled into a tube, 3-4 mm wide. Although it is inferior to modern, even inexpensive synthetic materials in terms of performance characteristics. The skin can be replaced with tendons from the vertebral part of large animals - elk, cows, etc. Or a bunch of natural silk threads can be used.
The bowstring is simply put on - first with a loop on one horn, and then, bending the end of the bow resting on the ground, on the second. For a recurve bow, the distance between the string and the handle should be about 15 cm, and the string must be removed when storing the bow.
Video: How to make a bow string
Arrows
The length of the arrows should be proportional to the length of the bow and the maximum tension of the bowstring. In practice, this means that when the bow is drawn, the arrow tip should protrude at least a few centimeters beyond the bow.
The diameter is approximately 6 mm, and the entire axis of the arrow must be perfectly flat. For small game and poultry, light wood is used - spruce, pine, birch. For larger animals - heavy and dense species (ash, hornbeam, oak). Arrows, like a splinter, are split from logs, after which they are shaped into long and thin round cylinders.
A slot is made in the end part for the bowstring, about 0.5 cm deep and slightly smaller in diameter than the bowstring. This is easy to check - an arrow mounted on a bowstring should not fall out of it, even if it is held vertically down. To do this, the feather is split in half, a 6-8 cm long section is cut out from the middle, the ends of the feathers are trimmed, and at a distance of about 1.5 cm from the edge they are completely cleaned (for tying the feather blanks to the arrow axis). For one arrow, 3 blanks are taken, evenly spaced around the perimeter.
Plastic can also be used as a material for plumage.
In principle, instead of feathers it is allowed to use plastic, thick paper and even hard leaves.
Arrowheads
At first, you can hunt small birds with arrows without tips. The main thing is that they are sharpened and hardened over fire.
The tip can be any hard material that can be sharpened to the shape of a narrow rhombus or triangle. Previously, these were pieces of flint or bone, now you can use tin shells from cans and even ordinary nails. Spoon arrowhead
Making your own hunting bows of good quality is a completely feasible task. Of course, they will be inferior to professional combat models, but they are quite suitable for hunting birds or small animals. Good luck!
The bow is one of the most accessible weapons for hunting. At the moment, many hunters are wondering how to make a bow for hunting with their own hands, since archery is one of the most exciting options for shooting prey. A bow made for hunting with your own hands can easily take its rightful place among environmental souvenirs.
Making a bow for hunting with your own hands is not too difficult
How to make a simple bow
To make a simple bow, you will need wood from durable wood species (cedar, pine, spruce, maple, elm, birch, bird cherry, pear, larch, apple tree). The dimensions of the bow depend on its future use. Hunting requires a compact weapon, so you need to choose a suitable line (flexible branch), apply its end to your thigh with one hand, straighten it with the other hand and move it slightly to the side so that the hand and the piece coincide with each other. The end of the bow will be where your hand can reach. In the center the width of the bow should be 5 cm, and at both ends 1.5 cm. Next, at a distance of 1.25 cm from the ends, mark the grooves for the bowstring.
Next, you should clean the workpiece from the bark, and then, giving it the required shape, rub it with animal fat.
How to make a compound bow
A real combat bow or for serious hunting is best made as a compound bow, i.e. from two or three parts. Making it, of course, is much more difficult, but finding materials for blanks is easier. Such a bow most often consists of three wooden components, or parts made of bone or horn. The edges of such a bow can be 1.5 meters in length.
The base of the bow is called “kibit”, and plays the role of a frame to which the main parts are attached. The kibit must be enclosed in a “handle” and two arms – horns, which should end with fastenings for the bowstring. The horns should have different lengths - the lower one should be shorter than the upper one. This plays a huge role when shooting from the knee. If you are not a fan of this kind of shooting, then you can make the length of the horns the same.
To make kibiti, wood that is suitable for making a simple bow is suitable. The tree should be chosen of medium thickness, without layered flexible wood. The optimal choice is near the native dense and porous areas of the tree.
To make horns, you should choose bird cherry that grows near a pond.
Using fish glue (made from crushed fish bones) you need to glue the finished parts together. After this, soak it in fat or cedar resin. The gluing areas should be tightened with the tendons of the animal and soaked in fat again. Glued onions should be processed using a sharp knife.
To give the bow maximum strength, the inside of it should be covered with a plate of spruce “kremlin”, and the outside with a birch plate. After this, we cover the entire onion with birch bark. The birch bark should be boiled and pasted over while still warm, with the fibers lengthwise.
Bowstring
It is made from a strip of rawhide 3 mm wide, cord or twisted nettle stems. If the bow has good flexibility, the string can be made long. The string should not be too tight. We put a string on the lower horn of the bow, near the middle of the inner part of the left foot, resting it on the floor, pull the handle towards us, with the other hand we press down the upper end and put on the bowstring loop. If the bow is powerful, then we rest its lower end on the ground so that the middle of the bow touches the back of the leg, then bend the bow and put on the string. The correct bowstring is located about 15 centimeters from the handle.
Arrows
It is clear that the length of the arrows will depend on the bow. It is the length of the arrows that ensures high-quality tension. To make an arrow, a blank, you need to rest it in the middle of your chest, stretching your arms forward. Wherever your fingertips are, that's where the end of the arrow will be. The tips should not touch the kibita. The diameter of the arrows is 6 mm. For hunting small game, arrows are made of light wood; for large animals, arrows are made of heavy and hard wood.
For arrows, you need to choose logs without knots, split them into splinters, and process them with a sharp knife. A slot should be made in the end tail part, 5-6 mm deep, slightly less wide than the diameter of the bowstring. Any strong flight feathers of birds are suitable for plumage.
To hunt small birds, the arrows are simply sharpened at the end. If the hunt involves more serious game, then you will need a simple tip made of bone or flint, giving them the shape of a sharp triangle.
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