After I made the two quarter staves, I was saving the last bit of that board for something. It wasn't as long but it was still good looking hickory. I found an unusual sledge hammer, that I wanted to refurbish, and put on a long handle for fun, but, when I was looking at the wood it, didn't want to be a hammer. It had a slight warp and some, fairly recognizable and consistent grain down it's length, that teased a different part of my brain.
This is something I've wanted to try since the second Lord of the Rings movie came out. I've read a lot of articles, watched some videos, and talked with guys at the woodworking store about bow making. I don't know if this is gonna go well. I don't know if the grain is, quite right, or if I have the skill to tease the most out of this and get it to work. But, bow is what it whispered to me, so, bow is what we're gonna try.
I measured and marked it out, made a few strategic cuts, then started splitting the limbs down with my axe. The gouges in the wood near the handle are remnants of where I haven't smoothed that out yet. A few more cuts have given me a rough handle. I still have a long way to go in thinning out the limbs and tillering the whole thing to keep the strain balanced, but I've been trying to practice patience and hand tools so this doesn't seem like a bad direction to take.
It could be like the other half dozen attempts of my youth that blew apart in my hands, but we're gonna keep practicing and learning. No this is not my first try, I've absolutely tried and failed multiple times. You just keep trying. The first step to doing something is being bad at it. And I think everyone should keep trying to do something they want to do, even if it's hard or doesn't work the first time.
