Figure 1: Front profile of the bow blank (not to scale).

Figure 2: Side profile of the bow. The measurements are the final ones after tillering.

Figure 3: The Prevalence bow.

Figure 4: Front profile of the osage bow. The dimension of the handle section is that of the wood. The sleeve added a few more millimetres.

Figure 5: Side profile of osage bow.

Francois Squirra tells how the making of two bows took him down a path of self-discovery and self-fulfilment.

A man or woman should at least, once in their life, embark on a journey. A journey that will lead them along a path of self-discovery. When this journey takes the shape of trying to make a bow, you will discover that the path you set out on makes quite a few turns. One such path in my journey towards becoming a bowyer was one in which a bow had to be named. The clearing where this path led was satisfying – not to mention the wealth in self-confidence and knowledge obtained from the detour. Naming a bow, paying tribute to its character. Here then follow the chronicles of two bows, called Courage and Prevalence.

Courage
After successfully making two self-backed bows, I decided it was time to take a step further down my chosen path: making a bow with a slight reflex. The idea was that when the tillering was done, I would be left with a straight bow or as little string follow as possible. I decided to make a mould, so that when I glued the backing and belly together it would be in the desired reflex shape. So I made one, out of two pine beams.

What I did not do – and this I realised only after I took the bow from the mould – was to cut out my mould evenly. I was left with a bow blank with uneven limbs. I was disgusted and almost threw it away. Almost! Fortunately, I just put it away. As time passed and I longed again to make a bow, I remembered the bow blank and took it down from the rafters. As I cleaned away the glue, I saw another problem. When I clamped the backing to the belly, I had applied too much pressure and it caused the sides of the backing to come away from the belly wood (maple) at the edges. The same feeling I had felt five months before began settling over me again. But this time I was a bit more determined. I started reading up on bow-making and discovered that I could design the bow in a pyramid shape. That could bypass the problem. I penciled the front profile on the blank (see figure 1) and when I finished cutting out the profile, my spirits rose. The glue line was perfect and now I only had to deal with the uneven limbs.

After I glued on a handle using a piece of pink beech, I rasped the belly so that the thickness at the fade-out was 17 millimetres. I let it taper to 13 millimetres at the tip of the blank (see figure 2). I had a 45 to 50-pound bow in mind when I started tillering. To make a long story short, when I reached 28 inches, I took a deep breath to settle my nerves and took the bow into my hands. The one limb was straight, the other one had only a slight bit of follow.

Then I went out to shoot the bow. The cast felt good and after a few hundred shots I sealed the bow. When all was finished I shot the 43-pound bow through the chronograph. It cast a 418-grain arrow at 173 fps, which was excellent for a self-backed bow and one that almost ended up in the fire! I decided to name this bow Courage, which is what was asked of me in the end to complete it.

Prevalence
In the world of traditional bows, the word osage is always mentioned with respect. The only problem with the wood, so I’ve heard, is that it is difficult to obtain a piece without too many knots or blemishes. So when Jaco Wessels from Timberpoint Archery told me he had prime osage, I immediatley ordered a belly blank. In fact I ordered two slats, joined together in the handle. I named the bow even before I started and again it lived up to its name.

By this time I had my reflex mould sorted out, so I decided to back the osage with hickory. I had a nice two-inch backset glued into the blank. For the handle I used a beautiful piece of cherry wood, which I glued on before I glued on the backing (just makes it easier). It was with this handle that the trouble started – or, seen more positively, a new path on my journey. I wanted to make a bow in the 55-pound region, 68 inches long. I decide to leave the osage the thickness it was and taper it toward the tips, with parallel limbs up to midlimb. The handle section was such that the thinnest part came to where the fade-outs began/ended. I finished the tillering and was delighted to find that there was still a 1½-inch backset. The bow shot well for the first few days. Then one morning when I drew the first arrow, I heard a terrible sound. The handle section had come loose. The osage had forced the cherry away from the belly. Fortunately, the osage/hickory part was undamaged. Okay, the cherry was too weak for the osage, and maybe the glue was old as well. With a lot of care, I replaced the handle with a piece of beech and used URAC 185 instead of Titebond. Again all went well. Prevalence was born again. Then the whole episode repeated itself. This time the osage also got damaged in the handle section.

In retrospect, had I ensured that the bow started bending two inches from the fade-out, or had I kept the osage wider and gone a few millimeters into the belly at the fade-out, so that the osage could help absorb the pressure, all of this would perhaps not have happened. But that’s wisdom with the benefit of hindsight.

Not wanting to lose the osage, I remembered a takedown sleeve I bought from Johnny Snyman. From the osage bow, I now had two 30-inch limbs. Joining them in the handle using a z-splice would have robbed me of two more inches in length, so the sleeve was the answer. I glued on two four-inch pieces of ash wood, for the handle section. The most difficult part was to align the two limbs. This I did by measuring, re-measuring and then measuring once more before I made any cuts.

After hours of filing, fitting and checking, the bow was finished and even if I have to say so myself (tongue in cheek), the limbs aligned perfectly. I re-tillered the bow – carefully! When I reached 28 inches, I could not help but flinch in anticipation of a shower of wood, as has happened too many times before. But nothing happened and I now have a working 44-pound bow.

It is not in completing a journey that one defines oneself, but rather in overcoming the obstacles one encounters on the way. The way you approach problems. The courage you have, in taking on these small obstacles and the prevalence to see the job through no matter what the outcome might be. As long as you give it your best. This is what builds character and the funny part is that you do not realise this until you are at the end of your journey and look back on the road you have just traveled.