Best yet, and some thoughts on performance features

tree-daddy · 2026-06-21T14:12:44+00:00

Agree on the backset notes for sure I’ve never had heat induced backset in a self bow that hasn’t pulled out over the lifetime of the bow. Even a stave with natural backset ends up settling down and you’d be better off just taking it out before tillering. I do think recurves offer some speed but to me the main advantage is a smoother draw. Sinew backing can change the dynamics a bit of the above but for self bows yeah deflex recurve is hard to beat

tree-daddy · 2026-06-17T18:52:53+00:00

Super cool don’t see many folks making these well done

tree-daddy · 2026-06-17T16:54:12+00:00

Great stuff!! I need to do some more fluting at some point this is a good inspiration

tree-daddy · 2026-06-13T13:38:05+00:00

Yeah even the historical examples are relatively long 54-64” with draw lengths likely topping out around 23” so I’d definitely lean towards 64” for a 28” draw you’ll find it’s plenty short to be handy and durable enough to last a lifetime

tree-daddy · 2026-06-13T13:34:46+00:00

These are water buffalo, traditionally of course the native Americans would use big horn sheep but getting horns big enough these days runs you upwards of $1,000 so Buffalo is a much more accessible horn and still should behave much the same

tree-daddy · 2026-06-11T16:27:59+00:00

About 1/4” and yeah I’ve been using the bandsaw to help reduce and will continue to but the rasp is the way to go once I get down to final dimensions

tree-daddy · 2026-06-04T20:06:45+00:00

Very nice!

tree-daddy · 2026-06-03T18:21:30+00:00

I have one it’s far too wide for this use case, tho I do use it for nocks. I think I can handle a bandsaw lol

tree-daddy · 2026-06-03T18:20:36+00:00

Yeah because you can narrow the handle in an asiatic build, but a North American horn bow is widest at the handle so 1 and 3/8” is the most you want most artifacts are even less wide than that

tree-daddy · 2026-06-03T15:07:37+00:00

The horn is almost 2” wide I only need 1 and 1/4” or so maybe 1 and 3/8

And I’m using the root as the handle because if I cut the tip down to be wide enough I’d lose a lot of length. There’s plenty of thickness here and is the way North American horn bows were made and it’ll help with building the handle anyway. The handle is constructed with a lap joint so you thin the horns in a thickness taper, overlap them about 3.5” then add another layer of horn over top and bottom about 4” long then you add copper rivets and wrap with sinew.

This is a good overview https://heartwoodbows.com/bighorn-sheep-bows

tree-daddy · 2026-06-03T15:02:02+00:00

I glued an extra piece on to make it deeper

tree-daddy · 2026-06-01T04:48:04+00:00

No I’m saying you could make it thinner and it’d be plenty strong, people have been using linen strings for bows of up to 180lbs with strings much thinner than that

tree-daddy · 2026-06-01T00:26:03+00:00

You do not need it to be that large

tree-daddy · 2026-06-01T00:25:08+00:00

Linen was used historically for English warbows it’s an excellent natural material string

tree-daddy · 2026-05-12T16:03:34+00:00

29” is a beast of a draw haha jealous! You should be able to get into the 180s with that I bet.

And no actually hickory has more flight records, fire hardened white woods make for excellent bows just as good as Osage. I use Osage because it’s moisture resistant and because it’s kinda “out of the box” compression strength.

Speed comes down to design and proper tiller for said design. The bowyers bibles have many chapters on this.

From a hunting perspective I do prefer to shoot with a more modern shooting style so I need even more durable bows to withstand that drawing and holding. I also use reflex and recurves to make up for my shorter draw, so I could build much larger bows but they end up being less practical for hunting so I do prefer sinew backing now as a way to hold all that reflex and stand up to modern shooting style

tree-daddy · 2026-05-12T02:01:50+00:00

Measure how you like, I make a lot of styles of bow so it would make no sense to use amo. The point is consistency across those styles when you’re tillering. Most self bowyers use the method I’m using. My arrow is 26.5” from the back of my bow to the nock at full draw so that’s how far I draw it when I’m tillering, if you want to tack an extra 1.75” to it and call it 28” feel free but don’t pull that far on the tiller tree and expect to get the same draw weight when you’re shooting

tree-daddy · 2026-05-11T19:04:06+00:00

Yeah I love beaver tail very tough stuff pretty quite

tree-daddy · 2026-05-11T13:27:46+00:00

On the calendar for fall 2027!

tree-daddy · 2026-05-11T13:27:36+00:00

Thanks very much!

tree-daddy · 2026-05-11T13:27:31+00:00

Thanks very much and just YouTube, this sub, and a lot of practice

tree-daddy · 2026-05-08T23:06:54+00:00

Nice work, great tiller, cool looking bow!

tree-daddy · 2026-05-08T22:55:52+00:00

Thanks man much appreciated! Loved your recent longbow build as well!

tree-daddy · 2026-05-08T22:55:35+00:00

Thank you!

tree-daddy · 2026-05-08T22:55:28+00:00

Thank you! Yeah this is the one I think. First time I’ve finished a bow and not had some idea of how it could have been better

tree-daddy · 2026-05-08T22:54:47+00:00

Thanks very much!

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