MR. MAURICE THOMPSON has excited all the grown-up boys who loved in
their younger days to draw the bow, by his graceful articles on archery
for young men and women.
I want to tell the boys who are wide awake how they may, without
too much labor and with but little expense, make their own bows and
arrows and targets, having _their_ fun, like their elders, in this
health-giving and graceful recreation.
In the first place, after you have made your implements for the sport,
you must never shoot at or towards anyone; nor must you ever shoot
directly upwards. In the one case you may maim some one for life, and
in the other you may put out your own eye as an acquaintance of the
writer’s once did in Virginia.
[Illustration: FIG. A.]
To make a bow take a piece of any tough, elastic wood, as cedar, ash,
sassafras or hickory, well-seasoned, about your own length. Trim it so
as to taper gradually from the centre to the ends, keeping it flat, at
first, until you have it as in this sketch-for a boy, say, five feet in
height: (Fig. A)
This represents a bow five feet long, one and a quarter inches broad
in the middle, three-fourths of an inch thick at the centre, and a
half-inch scant at the ends in breadth and thickness.
[Illustration: FIG. B.]
Bend the bow across your knee, pulling back both ends, one in each
hand, the centre against your knee, and see whether it is easily bent,
and whether it springs readily back to its original position. If so
your bow is about the right size. Cut near each end the notch for the
string as in this figure: (Fig. B.)
Bevel the side of the bow which is to be held towards you, so that a
section of your bow will look like this figure: (Fig. C.)
[Illustration: FIG. C.]
The back or flat part is held from you in shooting, and the bevelled or
rounded part towards you. Scrape the bow with glass and smooth it with
sandpaper.
To shape your bow lay it on a stout, flat piece of timber, and drive
five ten-penny nails in the timber, one at the centre of your bow, and
the others as in figure below, so as to bend the ends for about six
inches in a direction contrary to the direction in which you draw the
bow: (Fig. D.)
[Illustration: Fig. D. (A and B are six inches from the ends. The bow
is bent slightly at C.)]
Your bow is now finished as far as the woodwork is concerned, and
you may proceed to wrap it from end to end with silk or colored
twine, increasing its elasticity and improving the appearance. The
ends of the wrap must be concealed as in wrapping a fish-hook. Glue
with Spaulding’s glue a piece of velvet or even red flannel around
the middle to mark your handhold. The ends may in like manner be
ornamented by glueing colored pieces upon them.
A hempen string, whipped in the middle with colored silk, to mark the
place for your arrow nock to be put, in shooting, will make a very good
string.
For arrows any light, tough wood, which splits straight, will do. I
use white pine, which may be gotten from an ordinary store-box, and
for hunting-arrows seasoned hickory. These must be trimmed straight
and true, until they are in thickness about the size of ordinary cedar
pencils, from twenty-five to twenty-eight inches in length. They must
be feathered and weighted either with lead or copper, or by fastening
on sharp awl-points or steel arrow-points with wire.
I used to make six different kinds; a simple copper-wrap, a blunt
leaden head, a sharp leaden head like a minie bullet, an awl-point
wrapped with copper wire and soldered, and a broad-head hunting-arrow.
[Illustration: FIG. E.]
To make a copper wrap, wrap with copper wire the last half-inch of the
arrow until you get near the end, then lay a needle as large as your
wire obliquely along the arrow as in this figure: (Fig. E.) Continue
the wrapping until you have weighted the arrow sufficiently; draw out
the needle and thrust the end of your wire through the little passage
kept by the needle, and draw it tight thus: (Fig. F.)
[Illustration: FIG. F. (Before wrap was drawn through.)]
[Illustration: FIG. G. (After wire was drawn through.)]
A blunt leaden head is made by pouring three or four melted buck-shot
into a cylinder of paper, wrapped around the end of the arrow, slightly
larger at the open end, and tied on by a piece of thread. The wood of
the arrow must be cut thus: (Fig. H.)
[Illustration: FIG. H.]