A weekly event during my childhood summers, we Indian scouts crouched low in the bushes on the western front, quietly awaiting the rumble of the wagon train. As it rolled by, we jumped to our feet and fired a hailstorm of arrows until our supply of crude projectiles ran out or the wagons passed out of range. Despite our mischievous efforts, the railroad’s freight cars were unchallenged by our bent sapling stickbows and simple twig arrows. Still, we considered our endeavors a heralding success if our newly made bows could cast our arrows from the western end of our yard to the railroad tracks across the gravel road.As the years progressed I continued my endeavors in archery, shifting to a more “grown up” red fiberglass bow that carried a Herculean draw weight of 15 pounds. Once in my teens, I graduated to compound bows. I shot them for many years with great success, both on round bullseyes and on all manner of wild Pennsylvania game. Still, I marveled at the rare fellow I would encounter shooting a field course or drifting through the deer woods carrying an “old fashioned” recurve. What refreshing simplicity and challenge that seemed to offer! While I took great comfort in my ability to shatter nocks with a compound, I longed to try traditional archery.
Three years ago, after a dozen seasons of hunting with a compound, I mustered the ambition to tackle the challenge and bought my first fiberglass laminated longbow. I found it thrilling to watch my arrows streak towards the target, and I quickly became enamored with its simplicity and romance. It wasn’t long until I learned that some archers were making and using yet an even more primitive type of bow. Made from a single stave of wood, "selfbows" are named such because they are “self-backed”, having no laminations of wood, fiberglass, or other strengthening materials glued upon them. Stickbows in the truest sense, they stand in proud testament to their time-proven usefulness as effective weapons.
Archeological remnants of the first bows are thought to be over 10,000 years old. Compared to modern compound bows, which became popularized just 30 years ago, and even to “traditional” fiberglass laminated longbows and recurves which date back 60 years or so, selfbows represent the vast majority of archery history. Selfbows were used by primitive European cultures, by the English during their infamous 15th century wars with the French, by Native Americans, and even by Saxton Pope and Art Young. For millennia, the humble selfbow has fed and fought wars for mankind. How exciting it would be to step out of time and hunt with the only equipment available to many cultures so long ago!
Selfbows were something I had to try. Though there are many fine craftsmen throughout the country who produce selfbows for sale, I knew that I could not realize the full experience of a selfbow unless I made one myself. Through internet research I found several forums where home selfbowyers from around the globe discuss topics on selfbow construction. After inquisitive participation in these forums, and with the guidance from a couple of books, I began to make shavings. In the two years since I first put drawknife to wood, I have built nearly two dozen bows. Most have been successful, a few have been failures, and all have been a learning experience. My selfbow endeavors have become an exciting journey, filled with rediscovering the lost secrets of selfbow design and manufacture. I have found few better ways to spend an evening than through gleeful selfbowyery toil.
It is easy to overlook the selfbow's many virtues when captivated by its unparalleled grace. Though simple in appearance, the selfbow casts an arrow with deadly efficiency. Heavy arrows, generally around 10 grains per pound of draw weight, provide plenty of energy to bring down the largest of game. Their feather light weight allows them to be carried at the ready all day long without tiring. They are virtually silent, minimizing the tendency of wary game to jump the string. Their ability to be drawn and fired very quickly makes them especially well suited to hunting in heavy cover and to still hunting, where the windows of shot opportunity can be frustratingly small. Selfbows also do not require being shot from a fixed position, but can launch arrows while sitting, kneeling, or even laying down. Their simplicity is itself a virtue, free of demons which plague things of complexity. Perhaps their greatest virtue is the sense of primal exuberance that selfbows bestow when carried confidently into the woods.
In my last two years of hunting with selfbows, I have managed to take a pair of rabbits, several squirrels, groundhogs too numerous to count, and three deer. Though none of these deer would ever be recorded in the annals of gaudily racked whitetails, they hold a place near to my heart as some of life's great achievements. I killed my first doe with a selfbow at eye level amidst an impenetrable tangle of vines and dense brush. In the five minutes prior to her arrival, two smaller does ambled by so near that I dared not even breathe and let them slip out of site. When a 3rd doe made an appearance just 10 yards from my groundblind, I was determined not to let opportunity slip by me again. I sprang from my hollowed entanglement to snap shoot her with the speed of an Old West gunfighter. Despite releasing from half draw, my stout maple arrow buried to the skin on the far side of her chest. She wheeled ’round and dove back into the gnarly maze, crashing down tremendously within five seconds of the shot.
My selfbow, "Venator", proved its first kill was not due to chance just a day later when I spied another deer making way across a harvested field. I stalked through the woods to intercept him at a point 100 yards ahead of his path, then knelt in the shadows of field side foxtail and an arborous canopy to prepare for a shot. When the deer sauntered by at a distance of 30 yards, I let my arrow soar from the string and through both of his lungs. The deer leapt like it had stepped on hot coals, then ran for cover of the woods. My eyes have never been so big, nor my jaw hung so low as when that little buck collapsed on the field's edge in plain sight, just 25 yards away.
This season’s grizzly old 8-point was so enthralled with a pair of does that he did not notice me drifting towards him through the woodlot, nor my first arrow which zipped under his brisket. So focused on his amorous pursuit, he amazingly did not even notice when his lungs were skewered with my 2nd arrow! With mere seconds of life remaining, he continued to chase his two damsels in full circle around a large rose bush; all three emerging again to charge past me at an arrow’s length. I scrambled to loose another arrow from the string, but he nearly bowled me over as I began to draw. The doomed buck continued just another 50 yards where he collapsed in ignorant bliss. Glory be! I took more thrill in taking these deer with my own hand-crafted bows than if I had taken a "record book" buck by any other means.
Making selfbows does not require any prerequisite of wood working experience or mechanical aptitude. It does require a burning desire to produce a superb hunting weapon. Like hunting, selfbowyery is an activity where the virtues of attentiveness and patience yield great rewards. Selfbow construction also requires properly dried, quality bow wood and a minimum of hand tools. The first selfbow I made was from a bartered, very clean, roughed out Osage stave. With just a 4-way rasp and a pocketknife, I was able to turn a yellow chunk of wood into a hard hitting bow that has been the demise of many groundhogs. Several thousand arrows later, it remains one of my favorites.
Though full instruction on selfbow construction is beyond the realm of this article, I can present an overview of the steps involved. Wood procurement is the first task at hand for the selfbowyer. Bow wood may be cut by the bowyer himself, purchased from dealers of fine staves, bartered for, or even carefully selected from commercial racks of hardwood boards. I take the greatest pleasure from finding and cutting my own wood and trading for staves that I know are of high quality. There is a sense of continuity and history in procuring wood by such methods, something that cannot be bought or found under fluorescent lights.
Requirements for bow wood include that it must be strong both in tension and compression to withstand the forces imposed upon the bow’s back and belly (sides away from and towards the archer). Certainly not all woods are created equal, particularly not in regards to their suitability as bow wood. Osage orange (a.k.a.; bois d'arc, bodark, or hedgeapple) is generally regarded as the supreme bow wood, and with that I agree. Its strength in both tension and compression, and its ability to remain in tiller and resist atmospheric changes surpasses that of all woods. Osage is also just about the toughest wood one could ever encounter. I have slammed my Osage bows in car doors, tossed them out of treestands, used them to beat down brush, pole vaulted across streams with them, even whammed on a snake or two with them, yet they are none the worse for wear. I have shot them in temperatures ranging from frigid February mornings to sauna-like summer days and their tillers remain true. Pacific yew ranks along side of Osage as a superior bow wood, but its limited occurrence to the Pacific Northwest and extreme cost for fine staves has thus far prevented me from working a piece. Close behind Osage and yew rank the hickories (especially pignut), mulberry, hop hornbeam, white ash, black locust and a slew of others. Generally, the higher a wood’s specific gravity, the better it is likely suited for bow wood.
Bow wood harvest begins by searching for a straight tree growing vertically, 6-inches or greater in diameter, with bark running straight up and down, containing no swirls, scars, or humps that may indicate twist, damage, or knots. Upon finding such a tree it is felled to make use of the trunk. It is preferably cut as long as practically possible (7 feet or thereabouts) to allow for wood waste due to flaws and drying cracks. Splitting wedges are driven down the length of the trunk to separate it into long, pie shaped staves before they are transported. Once at their new home, the bark (and outer layers of sapwood in the case of Osage) are removed using a drawknife. This can be done at any time, but sapwood removal in particular is much easier when the wood is still wet. Log splits can be left in full thickness and allowed to dry slowly over 2 or 3 years, or they can be reduced to slightly oversized bow dimensions which reduces drying time to several weeks. Selfbows are generally constructed so that the back of the bow is composed of a single, unbroken summer growth ring. This gives a bow integrity under the forces of tension. Unless a whitewood species is used where a pristine growth ring is revealed immediately under the bark, a cabinet scraper is used to carefully scrape the back of the bow to its final growth ring, following every hump, curve, and twist that nature has bestowed upon the wood.
Once a stave is dry, has been “backed out”, and trimmed to width (with the centerline following the grain of the wood), it is ready for tillering. Tillering is the process of making the limbs bend in a uniform arc while achieving a desired draw weight at the intended draw length. Because wood is not a homogenous medium, selfbows cannot be made by removing limb wood to predetermined dimensions and expected to bend in a beautiful arc. Tillering must be a progressive sequence of wood removal and limb exercise, similar to the way a runner gradually increases the length of his stretches before a race. Each time wood is removed from the belly, the bow is flexed repeatedly to allow the effect of wood removal to register in the limbs. Care is taken to never bend the wood beyond its intended draw weight or draw length during this process. To do such would overstress the limbs and could cause degraded performance or a broken bow. As the limbs are flexed, the bowyer takes note of the bending patterns to know where to continue removing wood. This process is repeated until the limbs bend in unison and have been reduced to the desired draw weight. Tillering is the heart and soul of selfbow making and can test your mettle as much as the wiliest whitetail. Selfbow construction is a unique form of woodworking, in that the process is more important than the final dimensions.
Completed selfbows may be finished with anything from rendered animal tallow to urethanes to modern catalyzed finishes. The wood’s natural color may be left to glow or it can be altered with a myriad of dyes or stains. Snakeskins, cherry bark, and exotic fish skins are often glued onto the bow’s back, providing a natural form of camouflage, as well as creating a striking appearance. Grips may also be adorned with leather or cordage and perhaps trimmed in fur. Part of the beauty in selfbows is that each one is created uniquely to please its owner. Since variations exist between every stave, no two selfbows are ever alike.
Selfbows, though tough, do carry some special care and use considerations. Unlike fiberglass and other modern materials, wood has a “memory”. That is, every time wood is flexed with greater force or farther than before, it retains some degree of permanent bend in the direction that it was flexed. It also becomes ductile under conditions of heat, moisture, and even time. Simple care items which can greatly extend the life and performance of a selfbow include; unstringing after use, storing away from excessive heat, arid, or damp conditions, maintaining its finish, and most importantly, never drawing a selfbow back beyond its intended draw length or in a manner that it was not designed. Selfbows require consistency in their use, so selfbow owners should exercise judicious forethought before allowing others to shoot their bows. If drawn too far or incorrectly (3 fingers under versus split finger for example), a selfbow may be thrown out of tiller, suffer a permanent loss of performance, or even meet an untimely demise. Upon being handed a favorite selfbow, persons unfamiliar with them often have the triumphant tendency to rip the bowstring beyond their ear, as if to conquer it. Mere witness of such Heathen draws have been known to send selfbowyers into cardiac arrest! Unfortunately, I know of several instances where selfbows met explosive fates in the hands of infidels. A few now serve alternative duties as tomato stakes…sad reminders of their glorious, but rudely ended lives. If properly cared for, a well tillered selfbow made from quality bow wood can last a lifetime.
Making, shooting, and hunting with selfbows has proven tremendously gratifying to me. I find at least some bit of irony in the fact that the little bent sapling bows which launched me into archery over 20 years ago were in fact selfbows, though of the most rudimentary sort. How thrilled I may have been if only I had known how to build more durable, harder hitting bows when I was eight. Though they still would have proven no match for passing train cars, the local critter population in the woods around my house just may have had something to fear!
Those self-reliant souls wishing to add more adventure and personal involvement to their toxiphilitic engagements may take extraordinary pleasure in pursuing the ancient and venerable craft of selfbowyery. A world of information on selfbows can be found on the websites that I have listed below. Aspiring bowyers may also wish to pick up one of the books that I have listed, or even attend a traditional archery rendezvous, which are frequented in part by selfbowyers whom are more than willing to share their knowledge. As the current renaissance of wooden bows continues to grow, fellowship at these events becomes more extraordinary with each passing year. I hope this article has provided an intriguing introduction to those who have never known of archery beyond its modern forms. If something inside of you has been stirred, follow it to your heart’s content. Happy hunting!
Recommended Websites
www.stickbow.com (Leatherwall forum)
www.primitivearcher.com (Bowyer forums)Recommended Reading
Traditional Bowyer's Bible, Volume 1 (of 3) - by Bois d'Arc Press
Hunting the Osage Bow - by Dean Torges
The Bent Stick - by Paul ComstockAnnual Traditional Archery Rendezvous'
Whittingham Traditional Rendezvous - Appalachian Bowmen of Sussex County, Whittingham, NJ (April)
Mid-Atlantic Classic - Baltimore Bowmen, Cub Hill (near Baltimore), MD (May)
Great American Traditional Archery Rendezvous - Warriors Mark (near Penn State), PA (June)
Eastern Traditional Archery Rendezvous - Denton Hill Ski Resort (near Coudersport), PA (July)
Return to the UBP Homepage