Snake River Stickbow:

Primitive & traditional archery: 30 years of hunting and I am still learning. After many years of successful hunts, I found myself examining the experience and feeling that I might be missing something. I had to ask myself; what do I want from this? I quickly came to the conclusion that I did not need a kill. I realized that I was addicted to the stalk. That time in the field where I matched wits and stealth with a crafty, weary animal. The adrenaline rush of engaging prey in an ancient game. How could I get the most out of each encounter? Simple: set aside technology, and step into our past. My pursuit of the purest and most gratifying experiences led me to traditional archery. This, in turn, led me to becoming a bowyer.

[snakeriverstickbow]

Well dang. There is a good sized check in this black locust stave, I removed some more rings to try and get under it to no avail. I will straighten the stave and add some cyanoacrylite to the check. Maybe I can save this little stave.

[snakeriverstickbow]

I hope that when I’m all done with school, I can spend more time working staves. I didn’t realize my last two summers had such an obvious progression through styles: flat bows, pyramids, Mollegabet and now paddles, with the oddball recurved bow in there.

[snakeriverstickbow]

It’s been a long while, but I finally put some time into a stave. This 60” black locust stave has been drying for a year and a half. I chased the back rings down to the one directly above my target ring. This is a really thin ring. I’m leaving this on while I draw on the front profile and thin the limbs. The stave will be 1-1/2” wide.

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Maple paddle bow: This 66” bow has survived its first 100 arrows. The tiller is settled in and didn’t require any tweaking. I gave the bow a rough sanding with 150 & 220 and called it good. I prefer to leave a bit of cambium on the limbs; I like the way it looks. This bow will be a loaner or a give away. With the lateral crack in the limb, I wont sell it because it’s not a good representation of my work. I applied some dark walnut stain and a few coats of tung oil. Then I used a rough looking piece of deer leather to wrap the handle. Came in at 47# @ 30” draw.

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Maple paddle bow: Today I finished scraping and tillering this bow. The bow has a wonky limb, this made tillering more time consuming. A nice sharp scraper made the task enjoyable tho 🙃. My kid has a bit longer draw then I do, so he was tasked with modeling the tiller.

I missed my draw weight at 26-27” because I was having some trouble with the aforementioned wonky limb. This 66” paddle bow ended up with a 29” draw measuring 47#. I am very happy it survives being drawn this far! Now I need to shoot a bunch of arrows.

[snakeriverstickbow]

I accidentally dropped this stave on its limb tip, causing a crack to run up the limb several inches. I wasn’t going to add tip overlays to this bow, I was going to use pin nocks. This crack has changed that plan. I flattened the backs of each limb tip and glued on a red oak overlay. The overlay was roughly shaped and is ready for string grooves.

[snakeriverstickbow]

I evened out the limb thickness taper on this Maple paddle bow the other day. It has some set, from the shape of the stave. I used my form and heatgun to straighten it out as good as I could. It’s standing straight now. It will be interesting to see what kind of set the limbs will take when I start to tiller.

[snakeriverstickbow]

I decided to go ahead and add a bit of recurve to the limbs of this mulberry flatbow. I gave the edges a serious radius and applied a coat of spar urethane to the upper half of the limb. I steamed the limb for 30 minutes and into the caul/form it went. The limb was pressed down to the appropriate spot and clamped to cool. I was only looking for about 45 degrees of bend in this.

I don’t usually apply anything to the limb before steaming. I thought I would see if this made any difference because this is what Gary Davis does before steaming his staves. I was just looking for more data.

[snakeriverstickbow]

I added a grip wrap to this painted paddle bow. The grip is deer leather that is sewn on with waxed hemp cord. It has a few drops of glue added for extra security. The grip wraps around the arrow shelf, conforming to its shape very well.

[snakeriverstickbow]

The second project of the day was this Mulberry Flat Bow. I thinned the limbs and riser, then did some sanding to remove sharp edges. This stave will get some reflex and a slight recurve on the form.

[snakeriverstickbow]

Today I worked on two different bows. The first is this maple paddle bow. I drew on the front profile and used my draw knife to remove the bulk of the wood. Next, I roughed out the thickness of the limbs and riser. I intend to make a bulbous handle, so that’s how I shaped it. This stave will require a bit of time on the form to straighten it out.

[snakeriverstickbow]

Today I backed a mulberry stave. I drew on a basic flatbow profile and roughed out the shape. I am thinking of adding some slight recurve to these limbs. The growth rings aren’t the best, so I will see how the belly handles the minor recurve. The last recurve I made ended up having chrisals on the belly in one area. That was a bow that I recurved after tillering though as an experiment.

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68” Rawhide backed Red Oak paddle bow: This bow is a twin to the Maple bow. Again, I have some stiff midlimb to work out with this bow. It’s not quite there. This bow has a Red Oak rider and tip overlays. The rawhide on both of these bows is really good and should make for a nice canvas.

[snakeriverstickbow]

Here is a rawhide backed, 68” Maple paddle bow. I still need to finish tillering the middle of the limbs, they are stiff and it shows. The slightly longer limb tricked me a little and it needs to be thinner than the 66” bows I make.

The riser and tip overlays are Black Locust. It will be reduced and shaped as I get closer to finishing. I will probably add a shelf to this bow. The limbs are 2.5” wide and the draw length is intended to be between 28” and 30”.

[snakeriverstickbow]

I accidentally broke a tip overlay off the other day. This paddle bow had Maple overlays glued on and it seems that this lower density wood may not be the best option.

I removed the overlays from both tips. Next, I sanded the tip area nice and flat again. Then I made two new overlays from some dense Black Locust and glued them up. After drying overnight, I filed and sanded them into shape.

Every time I post some limb tip pics, Tumbler always flags me and says they are naughty, lol.

[snakeriverstickbow]

I finished painting my second bow. Inspired by a simple design from a museum relic. The pattern was simple to draw. It is easily customizable by changing angles, dimensions and of course, colors.

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I cut out and added muskrat string silencers to several bows yesterday. Slice, splice, twist and shoot!