how do you mount three arrows on a bow?
I wonder how Babali did it!
I think three arrows are a bit too much, both for myself as well this bow I have made for
my archery kit. in this video I will show you how I made this Takedown Bow and not the
arrows for I bought them from Decathlon, I will leave the links in the description below
in case you are interested.
By the way, I am Josh and you are watching my Diy Channel Videoeppo, Let's get started.
A quick disclaimer before we start guys.
In this video, you will not find professional tips or trick on how to make a bow for I am
not a professional or a proficient bow maker.
There are dedicated channels for this purpose, and I am sure you can watch them and benefit
from those But since you are here, please do extend your
courtesy by watching this video completely and sharing your opinion.
While I might not be able to give you professional tips or tricks, you can definitely see how
a first-timer stumbles upon certain mistakes and how he tries to overcome them.
I hope that persuades you to watch this video completely
Let me start by explaining a few things which will make communication easier as we move along.
bow and arrow have been in existence for a very long time.
Ever since man started hunting.
There are different countries cultures and kingdoms and they have developed unique methods
of archery, they have developed unique bows. this bow here has the arrow rest on the opposite
side of the draw hand.in this case the draw hand is the right... the draw hand is the
hand that pulls the string.
So this is going to be the right hand and therefore the arrow rest is on the left-hand side.
But why so?
When the arrow is placed on the same side as the draw hand, when we pull the arrow,
it tends to shift the angle of release and one might need to use the fingers to give
it a direction or support the arrow.
It could be hard on your skin, but when we place the arrow on the opposite side, the
body of the bow supports the arrow and hence this design.
There could be other reasons but this what I have learnt.
The centre part of the bow is the riser.
This is a takedown bow which means we can take apart the limbs.
The limbs are these parts here and in this case attached to the riser with some bolts.
Then we have the strings which complete the bow.
The first thing needed for this take-down bow is the riser.
For which, we need a template and plenty of them are available on the net.
The template I chose came out in 2 a4 sheets and pasted as one.
I took the liberty of modifying the template and design a little bit.
Using a precision knife, I started cutting the template
I can’t say how much this precision knife is better compared to normal box cutters.
This is a cheaper version of the Exacto knife, but worth the bucks.
Again, the links are in the description if you need one.
The template has 2 sides, the face and the profile which are quite obvious
Next, comes the lumber and I salvaged one.
This one 2 inch by 4 inches, quite apt for the riser template I downloaded.
Since this is an old piece of wood, I need to look for buried nails, which could blunt
and ruin the chisels later A neodymium magnet is powerful enough to detect
any nails buried in the lumber.
There was one, but discarded that part and used the other half.
The templates were pasted on the wood and I had to double-check on the side on which
these have to be pasted.
Pasting it on the wrong side will result in the arrow rest on the undesired side.
This is very crucial.
But actually, I don’t see a point of pasting the profile template now,
as it would be cut out anyways.
I checked it again by holding the wood.
The slack is cut here, and if hold the bow on the left,
the arrow rest is on the left as well. Therefore we are on the right track
Since this is two-inch lumber, I could run the zigsaw to clear much of the wood.
Once the shape was roughly cut, I was time to do the hard labour.
The shape of the riser is quite organic with a lot of curves and bends.
This had to be done manually.
I used chisels, rasp, sandpaper and even a box cutter to achieve my goal.
You can see me in a lot of different clothing
cause,I did this on different days whenever I had time.
After 4 to 5 work hours, the riser was completed.
Nothing fancy here, I just had vegetable oil so I used it to wipe out wood and the colours
of the wood brighten up a bit.
Next comes the part where I made the limbs.
This bamboo is not very ideal but this is one I got.
It has been an entire year on the outdoor in the summer sun and in the monsoon.
I am not sure if this is good material but trying out is an option I don’t rule out.
Roughly about 2.5 feet of bamboo is cut and the next challenge would be to split it apart.
This is bamboo is quite thick, I don’t have an axe so I thought of a simple fix.
I scored a straight along the length of the bamboo I made holes
at a various place along the length of the bamboo then used a chisel to split it out.
The plan seems to work.
Chisels are not ideal for this job, but these chisels are really old and blunt ones, therefore,
there is nothing much to worry or to lose.
once the bamboo was split, I used a knife to thin it out and
made it into a flattened piece.
I tried every possible method that could make this work and get this job done.
After a lot of bamboo shavings and 8 hours of strenuous work, I managed to change the
shape of the bamboo from like this... to like this...like a flat piece of wood.
Now if you see closely, that it is not perfect.
The side is not even...and the thickness is also not even...
I am still working on this. In most of the cases, the material the limbs are made up
of, is a composite material.
and sometimes some of the bows has a layer of sinew for the backing.
I am relying completely on the tensile strength of the bamboo itself.
and I think maybe I shouldn't have carved it this way...
may be I should have checked before doing any of this...
but let us see how this works and if it is not enough strength maybe I can add another
layer of PVC and since this is a takedown bow, I could do it later.
These limbs are going to be attached using two bolts, on the upper and the bottom side.so
if I find that if I don't have enough strength, I could add the PVC backing later.
I wanted to bend the bamboo using heat treatment.
I got a cylindrical stainless steel kitchen vessel and clamped it on the table Then pulled
out my butane torch.
I put on my welding gloves and heated the bamboo.
Then using a kitchen vessel as the support, I started bending the bamboo.
it is quite frustrating when you have your 8 to 10 hours of work getting wasted
because while I was doing the heat treatment, of the limbs broke
I could still salvage this one limb and make smaller bows
but right now, this is not ideal for the bow I am trying to make
I have no choice but to repeat the whole process of making the limbs again.
I got back to cutting, splitting chiselling again
For those who are seeing this for the first time, this is called a thread insert.
These thread inserts have threads in the interior and teeth on the exterior.
the way it is used is we make a pilot hole first,
and thread this inside that hole
the teeth on the exterior grab the wood and we can tread a bolt in the middle hole