handle while you steady the tiller upright. Then put your foot on the
bow next the tiller and draw the string up until it slips in the first
notch, say twelve inches from the handle. If the curve of the bow is
fairly symmetrical, draw the string a few inches more. If again it
describes a perfect arc raise the string still farther. A perfect arc
for a bow should be a trifle flat at the center. If, on the other hand,
one limb or a part of it does not bend as it should, this must be
reduced carefully by shaving it for a space of several inches over the
spot and the bow tested again.
Proceeding very cautiously, at the same time not keeping the bow full
drawn more than a second or two at a time, you ultimately get the two
limbs so that they bend nearly the same and the general distribution of
the curve is equal throughout.
As a matter of fact, a great deal of experience is needed here. By
marking a correct form on the floor with chalk, a novice may fit his
bow to this outline.
The perfect weapon is a trifle stiff at the center and the lower limb a
shade stronger than the upper.
The real shooting center, the place where the arrow passes, is actually
one and one-quarter inches above the geographic center, and the hand
consequently is below this point. Your finished hand grip, being four
inches long, will be one and a quarter inches above the center and two
and three-quarters below the center. This makes the lower limb
comparatively shorter, so it must be relatively stronger. Your bow,
therefore, when full drawn should be symmetrical, but when simply
braced, the bend of the upper limb is perceptibly greater than the
stronger lower limb.
You will find the bow we have made will pull over eighty pounds, even
after it is thoroughly broken to the string. It is necessary,
therefore, to reduce it further. This is done with a spoke shave, a
very small hand plane or a file. Ultimately I use a pocket knife as a
scraper, and sandpaper and steelwool to finish it.
Your effort must be to get every part of the wood to do its work, for
every inch is under utmost strain, and one part doing more than the
rest must ultimately break down, sustain a compression fracture, or, as
an archer would say, "chrysal or fret."
"A bow full drawn is seven-eighths broken," said old Thomas Waring, the
English bowmaker, and he was right. Draw your bow three inches more
than the standard cloth yard of twenty-eight inches and you break it.
It is more accurate to say that a full drawn bow is nine-tenths broken.
It is also essential that the bow be stiff in the handle so that it
will be rigid in shooting and not jar or kick, which one weak at this
point invariably does.
A bow should be light at the tips, say the last eight inches, which is
accomplished by rounding the back slightly and reducing the width at
this point. This gives an active recoil, or as it is described, "whip
ended." This can be overdone, especially in hunting-bows, where a
little more solidity and safety are preferable to a brilliant cast.
And so you must work and test your bow, and shoot it, and draw it up
before a full length mirror and observe its outline, and get your
friends to draw it up and pass judgment on it. In fact, while the
actual work of making a bow takes about eight hours, it requires months
to get one adjusted so that it is good. A bow, like a violin, is a work
of art. The best in it can only be brought out by infinite care. Like a
violin, it is all curved contours, there is not a straight line in it.
Many of my bows have been built over completely three or four times.
Old Horrible first pulled eighty-five pounds. It was reduced,
shortened, whip ended, and worked over again and again so to tune the
wood that all parts acted in harmony. Every good bow is a work of love.
Your bow is now ready to shoot, but let us weigh it first. Brace it and
put it horizontally in the vise with the string facing you. Take a
spring scale registering at least eighty pounds and catch the hook
under the string. Draw it until the yardstick registers twenty-eight
inches from the string to the back of the bow. Now read the scale; that
is its weight.
As a matter of convenience I have devised a stick that facilitates the
weighing. I take a dowel and attach to one end by glue and binding a
bent piece of iron so fashioned that the extremity serves as a hook to
draw the string and the bent portion permits the attachment of the
scale. The dowel is marked off in inches so that one can test different
lengths of draw. With the bow in the bench vise, this measure hooked on
the string and resting on the bow at the arrow plate, the scale is
hooked in place, the dowel drawn down to the standard length and the
registered weight read off on the scale.
If you still find that your bow is too strong for you, it must be
further reduced. Begin all over again with the spoke shave and the
file, trying to correct any inequalities that may have existed before
and reducing it to what ultimately will be sixty-five pounds. Put on
the string and weigh it again and again until you get the weight you
want. If you have reduced it too much, cut it down two or four inches;
it will be stronger and shoot better.
All yew bows tend to lose in strength after much use, and your new one
should pull five pounds more than the required weight. If a bow is put
away in a dry, warm place for several years it nearly always increases
in strength. In our experience one in constant use lasts from three to
five years. The longer the bow, the longer its life. Some, of course,
break or come to grief after a short period, others live to honorable
old age. Yew bows are in existence today that were made many thousands
of years ago, but, of course, they would break if shot. Many bows over
one hundred years old are still in use occasionally. I have estimated
that the average life of a good bow should exceed one hundred thousand
shots, after which time it begins to fret and show other signs of
weakness.
Keeping in mind the idea of making your weapon as beautiful, as
symmetrical and resilient as possible, free from dead or overstrained
areas, work it down with utmost solicitude until it approaches your
ideal. Smooth it with sandpaper; finish it with steelwool.
Now comes the process of putting on the nocks. A bow shoots well
without them, but is safer with them.
From time immemorial, horn tips have been put on the ends of the limbs
to hold the string. We have used rawhide, hardwood, aluminum, bone, elk
horn, deer horn, buffalo horn, paper fiber or composition, and cow's
horn. The last seems best of all. From your butcher secure a number of
horns. With a saw cut off three or four inches of the tip. Place one in
a vise and drill a conical hole in it an inch and a quarter deep and
half an inch wide. This can be done by using a half-inch drill which
has been ground on a carborundum stone to a conical point the proper
length. In this hole set a stout piece of wood with glue. This permits
you to hold the horn in the vise while you work it.
After the glue has set, take a coarse file and shape the horn nock to
the classical shape, which is hard to describe but easy to illustrate.
It must have diagonal grooves to hold the string. The nock for the
upper limb has also a hole at its extremity to receive the buckskin
thong which keeps the upper loop of the string from slipping too far
down the bow when unbraced.
The nocks for hunting bows should be short and stout, not over one and
a half inches long, for they get a lot of hard usage in their travels.
They should also be broader and thicker than those used on target bows.
Two nocks having been roughly finished, they are loosened from their
wooden handles by being soaked in boiling water, and are ready for use.
Cut the ends of the bow to fit the nocks in such a way that they tip
slightly backward when in place, but do not attach them yet.
[Illustration: DETAILS OF BOW CONSTRUCTION]
At this point we back the bow with rawhide. Ordinarily a yew bow
properly protected by sapwood requires no backing; but having had many
bows break in our hands, we at last took the advice of Ishi and backed
them. Since then no bow legitimately used has broken.
The rawhide utilized for this purpose is known to tanners as clarified
calfskin. Its principal use is in the manufacture of artificial limbs,
drum heads and parchment. Its thickness is not much more than that of
writing paper.
Having secured two pieces about three feet in length and two inches
wide, soak them in warm water for an hour.
While this is being done, slightly roughen the back of your bow with a
file. Place it in the vise and size the back with thin, hot carpenter's
glue. When the hide is soft, lay the pieces smooth side down on a board
and wipe off the excess water. Quickly size them with hot glue, remove
the excess with your finger, turn the pieces over and apply them to the
bow. Overlap them at the hand grip for a distance of two or three
inches. Smooth them out toward the tips by stroking and expressing all
air bubbles and excess glue. Wrap the handle roughly with string to
keep the strips from slipping; also bind the tips for a short distance
to secure them in place. Remove the bow from the vise and bandage it
carefully from tip to tip with a gauze surgical bandage. Set it aside
to dry over night. When dry, remove the bandage and string binding, cut
off the overlapping edges of the hide and scrape it smooth. Having got
it to the required finish, size the exterior again with very thin glue,
and it is ready for the final stage.
The tips of the bow having been cut to a conical point and the nocks
fitted prior to the backing process the horn nocks are now set on with
glue; the ordinary liquid variety will do.
Glue a thin strip of wood on the back of the bow to round out the
handle. This should be about one-eighth of an inch thick, one inch wide
and three inches long and rounded at the edges.
Bind the center of your bow with heavy fish line to make the handgrip,
carefully overlapping the start and finish. A little liquid glue or
shellac can be placed on the wood to fix the serving. Some prefer
leather or pigskin for a handgrip, but a cord binding keeps the hand
from sweating and has an honest feel.
The handle occupies a space of four inches with one and a quarter
inches above the center and two and three-quarters below it. Finish off
the edges of the cord binding with a band of thin leather half an inch
wide. This should be soaked in water, beveled at the edge, sized with
glue, put around the bow, and overlapped at the back. I also glue a
small piece of leather on the left-hand side of the bow above the
handle to prevent the arrow chafing the wood at this spot. This is
called the arrow plate and usually is made of mother-of-pearl or bone;
leather is better. These finishing pieces are wrapped temporarily with
string until they dry.
The bow is then given a final treatment with scraper and steelwool and
is ready for the varnish.
The best protection for bows seems to be spar varnish. This keeps out
moisture. It has two disadvantages, however; it cracks after much
bending, and it is too shiny. The glint or flash of a hunting bow will
frighten game. I have often seen rabbits or deer stand until the bow
goes off, then jump in time to escape the arrow. At first we believed
they saw the arrow; later we found that they saw the flash. Bows really
should be painted a dull green or drab color. But we love to see the
natural grain of the wood.
The finish I prefer is first of all to give a coat of shellac to the
backing, leather trimmings and cord handle. After it is dry, give the
wood a good soaking with boiled linseed oil. Using the same oiled cloth
place in its center a small wad of cotton saturated with an alcoholic
solution of shellac. Rub this quickly over the bow. By repeated oiling
and shellacking one produces a French polish that is very durable and
elastic.
Permit this to dry and after several days rub the whole weapon with
floor wax, giving a final polish with a woolen cloth.
When on a hunt one should carry a small quantity of linseed oil and
anoint his bow every day or so with it. Personally I add one part of
light cedar oil to two parts of linseed. The fragrance of the former
adds to the pleasure of using the latter.
When not in use hang your bow on a peg or nail slipped beneath the
upper loop of the string; do not stand it in a corner, this tends to
bend the lower limb. Keep it in a warm, dry room; preserve it from
bruises and scratches. Wax it and the string often. Care for it as you
would a friend; it is your companion in arms.
SUBSTITUTES FOR YEW
Where it is impossible to obtain yew, the amateur bowyer has a large
variety of substitutes. Probably the easiest to obtain is hickory,
although it is a poor alternative. I believe the pig-nut or smooth bark
is the best variety. One should endeavor to get a piece of second
growth, white sapwood, and split it so as to get straight grain.
This can be worked on the same general dimensions as yew, but the
resulting bow will be found slow and heavy in cast and to have an
incurable tendency to follow the string. It will need no rawhide back
and will never break.
Osage orange, mulberry, locust, black walnut with the sap wood, red
cedar, juniper, tan oak, apple wood, ash, eucalyptus, lancewood,
washaba, palma brava, elm, birch, and bamboo are among the many woods
from which bows have been made.
With the exception of lancewood, lemon wood, or osage orange, which are
hard to get, the next best wood to yew is red Tennessee cedar backed
with hickory.
Go to a lumber yard and select a plank of cedar having the fewest knots
and the straightest grain. Saw or split a piece out of it six feet
long, two inches wide, and about an inch thick. Plane it straight and
roughen its two-inch surface with a file. Obtain a strip of white
straight-grained hickory six feet long, two inches wide, and a quarter
inch thick.
Roughen one surface, spread these two rough surfaces with a good liquid
glue and place them together. With a series of clamps compress them
tightly. In the absence of clamps, a pile of bricks or weights may be
used. After several days it will be dry enough to work.
From this point on it may be treated the same as yew. The hickory
backing takes the place of the sap wood.
Cedar has a soft, lively cast and the hickory backing makes it almost
unbreakable.
This bow should be bound with linen or silk every few inches like a
fishing rod. Several coats of varnish will keep the glue from being
affected by moisture or rain.
Since both woods are usually obtainable at any lumber yard, there
should be no difficulty in the matter save the mechanical factors
involved. These only add zest to the problem. A true archer must be a
craftsman.
MAKING A BOWSTRING
A bow without a string is dead; therefore, we must set to work to make
one.
Sinew, catgut, and rawhide strings were used by the early archers, but
have been abandoned by the more modern. Animal tissue stretches when it
is put under strain or subjected to heat and moisture. Silk makes a
good string, but it is short-lived and is not so strong as linen.
A comparative test of various strings was made to determine which
material is the strongest for bows. Number 3 surgical catgut is
apparently a D string on the violin. Taking this as a standard
diameter, a series of waxed strings of various substances were made and
tested on a spring scale for their breaking point. The results are as
follows:
Horsehair breaks at 15 pounds.
Cotton breaks at 18 pounds.
Catgut breaks at 20 pounds.
Silk breaks at 22 pounds.
Irish linen breaks at 28 pounds.
Chinese grass fiber breaks at 32 pounds.
This latter, with similar unusual fibers, is not on the market in the
form of thread, so is of no practical use to us.
We use Irish linen or shoemakers' thread. It is Barbour's Number 12.
Each thread will stand a strain of six pounds; therefore, a bowstring
of fifty strands will suspend a weight of 300 pounds.
A target bow may have a proportionately lighter string than a hunting
bow because here a quick cast is desired; but in hunting, security is
necessary. We therefore allow one strand of linen for every pound of
the bow.
This is the method of manufacturing a bowstring as devised by the late
Mr. Maxson and described in _American Archery_. Some few alterations
have been introduced to simplify the technique.
It is advisable to take the threads in your hands as you follow the
directions.
If you propose making a string for a sixty-five-pound bow, it should
have about sixty threads in it, and these are divided into three
strands of twenty threads each. Start making the first of these strands
by measuring off on the bow a length eight inches beyond each end--that
is, sixteen inches longer than your bow. Double your thread back,
drawing it through your hand until you reach the beginning. Now repeat
the process of laying one thread with another, back and forth, until
twenty are in the strand. But these must be so arranged that each is
about half an inch shorter than the preceding, thus making the end of
the strand tapered.
When twenty are thus stroked into one cord, they are heavily waxed by
drawing the strand through the hand and wax, from center to the ends,
each way. Now roll the greater part of this strand about your fingers
and make a little coil which you compress, but allow about twenty-four
inches to remain free and uncoiled. Thus abbreviated it is easier to
handle in the subsequent process of twisting it into a cord.
Make two other strands exactly like this, roll them into a compressed
coil and lay them aside. Now to form the loop or eye it is necessary to
thicken the string at this point with an additional splice. So lay out
another strand of twenty threads six feet long. Cut this into six
pieces, each twelve inches in length. Take one of these and so pull the
ends of the threads that they are made of uneven length, or that the
ends become tapered. Wax this splice thoroughly; do this to each one in
turn.
Now pick up one of your original strands and apply to its tapered end
and lying along the last foot of its length one of the above described
splices. Wax the two together. So treat the two other strands.
Grasp the three cords together in your left hand at a point nine inches
from the end. With the right hand pick up one strand near this point
and twist it between the thumb and finger, away from you, rolling it
tight, at the same time pulling it toward you. Seize another strand,
twist it from you and pull it toward you. Continue this process with
each in succession, and you will find that you are making a rope. By
the time the rope is three inches in length, it is long enough to fold
on itself and constitute a loop. Proceed to double it back so that the
loose ends of the strands are mated and waxed into cohesion with the
three main strands of the string. Arrange them nicely so that they
interlace properly and are evenly applied.
Now while being seated, slip the upper limb of your bow under your
right knee and over the left, and drop the new formed loop of your
string over the horn nock. Begin again the process of twisting each
strand away from you while you pull it toward you. Continue the motion
until you have run down the string a distance of eight inches. During
the process you will see the wisdom of having rolled the excess string
up into little skeins to keep them from being tangled. Thus the upper
eye is formed. At this stage unwind your skeins and stretch the string
down the bow, untwisting and drawing straight the three strands.
Seize them now three inches below the lower nock of your bow. At this
point apply the short splices for the lower loop. They should be so
laid on that three inches extends up the string from this point and the
rest lies along the tapered extremity. Wax them tight. Hold the three
long strands together while you give them final equalizing traction.
Start here and twist your second loop, drawing each strand toward you
as you twist it away from you until a rope of three inches is formed
again. This you double back on itself, mate its tapered extremities
with the three long strands of the string and wax them together.
Slip the upper loop down your bow and nock the lower loop on the lower
horn. Swing your right knee over the bow below the string and set the
loop on this horn while you work. Give the string plenty of slack.
Start again the twisting and pulling operation, keeping the strands
from tangles while you form the lower splice of the string. When it is
eight inches long, take off the loop and unroll the twist in the main
body of the string. Replace the loop and brace your bow. This will take
the kinks from the cord. Wax it thoroughly and, removing the lower
loop, twist the entire bowstring in the direction of the previous
maneuver until it is shortened to the proper length to fit the bow.
Nock the string again and, taking a thick piece of paper, fold it into
a little pad and rub the bowstring vigorously until it assumes a round,
well-waxed condition.
If the loops are properly placed, the final twisting should make one
complete rotation of the string in a distance of one or two inches. A
closer twist tends to cut itself.
If, by mistake, the string is too short or too long, and adjusting the
twist does not correct it, then you must undo the last loop to overcome
the error. The fork of these loops is often bound with waxed carpet
thread to reduce their size and strengthen them. The whole structure at
this point may be served with the same thread to protect it from
becoming chafed and worn.
The center of the string and the nocking point for the arrow must now
be served with waxed silk, linen, or cotton thread to protect it from
becoming worn.
Ordinarily we take a piece of red carpet thread or shoe button thread,
about two yards in length, wax it thoroughly and double it. Start with
the doubled end, threading the free end through it around the string,
and wind it over, from right to left. The point of starting this
serving is two and one-half inches above the center of the bowstring.
When you come to the nocking point, or that at which an arrow stands
perpendicular to the string while crossing the bow at the top of the
handle, make a series of overlapping threads or clove hitches. This
will form a little lump or knot on the string at this point. Continue
serving for half an inch and repeat this maneuver; again continue the
serving down the string for a distance of four or five inches,
finishing with a fixed lashing by drawing the thread under the last two
or three wraps.
A nocking point of this character has two advantages: the first is that
you can feel it readily while nocking an arrow in the dark or while
keeping your eye on the game, and the other point is that the knots
prevent the arrow being dislodged while walking through the brush.
We have found that by heating our beeswax and adding about one-quarter
rosin, it makes it more adhesive.
In hot or wet weather it is of some advantage to rub the string with an
alcoholic solution of shellac. Compounds containing glue or any hard
drying substance seem to cause the strings to break more readily.
Paraffin, talcum powder, or a bit of tallow candle rubbed on the
serving and nocking point is useful in making a clean release of the
string.
So far as dampness and rain go, these never interfere with the action
of the string. A well-greased bow will stand considerable water, though
arrows suffer considerably.
Wax your string every few days if in use; you should always carry an
extra one with you.
Strings break most commonly at the nocking point beneath the serving.
Here they sustain the greatest strain and are subject to most bending.
An inspection at this point frequently should be done. An impending
break is indicated by an uneven contour of the strands beneath the
serving. Discard it before it actually breaks.
By putting a spring scale between one of the bow nocks and the end of
the string, the unexpected phenomenon is demonstrated that there is
greater tension on a string when the bow is braced but not drawn up. A
fifty-six pound bow registers a sixty-four pound tension on the string.
As the arrow is drawn up the tension decreases gradually until
twenty-six inches are drawn, when it registers sixty-four pounds again.
At the moment of recoil, when the bow springs back into position, this
strain must rise tremendously, for if the arrow be not in place the
string frequently will be broken.
The tension on the string at the center or nocking point during the
process of drawing a bow--that is, the accumulated weight--rises quite
differently in different bows. The arrow being nocked on the string, it
is ordinarily already six inches drawn across the bow. Now in the same
fifty-six pound bow for every inch of draw past this, the weight rises
between two and three pounds. As the arrow nears full draw, the weight
increases to such a degree that the last few inches will register five
or six pounds to the inch, depending on many variable factors in the
bow.