By Hendrick Bosmann

It was around April this year that the idea of building a selfbow first exploded into my brain from the recesses of my subconscious. The first step was to find information, but with South Africa not being founded on the bow and arrow, but rather on black powder, ball and musket, an extensive bowyer’s history is virtually non-existent, at least not until Derek Nourse started building bows some 17 years ago.

Being an avid reader of African Archer, this seemed the obvious place to begin my information search. I emailed Rean Steenkamp and he promptly supplied me with Derek Nourse’s and Johnny Snyman’s telephone numbers.

Telkom lines started buzzing and I spoke first to Derek Nourse first to find out which woods to use that are also not to difficult to obtain in South Africa. He mentioned a few names and I made notes. I then called Johnny Snyman, only to discover that he lives nearby and so, willing or not, but always polite, Johnny became my mentor.

My first try at a bow was with so-called Tasmanian oak and even though it was probably blue gum, the chap who gave it to me still insists that it was Tasmanian. When I visited Johnny he pointed out all the reasons why the bow would fail, but said that we give it a go anyway and see how far we get. This bow subsequently failed but we learnt a lot in the process.

In the meantime I looked around for suitable wood and came across a piece of Hickory from a batch of about 50 pieces at a branch of "Rare Woods" in Port Elizabeth. I also found a piece of Elm.

After much deliberation, many phone calls to Johnny and the purchase of the three volumes of the Traditional Bowyers Bible from Derek Nourse, I began working on the Hickory bow. First, I made the layout on the plank so that the outer year rings would form the back of the bow. For the riser I used a piece of African rose wood that had been given to me by a friend in Port Elizabeth.

Now I was ready to go (after I first pacified my wife by finishing some long over-due chores). The riser was doweled and glued with Cascamite and twenty four hours later I rolled out the meat saw and cut the bow outlines to very crude dimensions.

Next, armed with a homemade bow-scraper, a stack of sandpaper, a homemade tiller tree and Johnny on the other side of the phone, I set to work scraping and sanding, then using the floor tiller, followed by more sanding and scraping and more floor tillering. I continued this process until the hickory eventually started to bend ever so slightly. Some more scraping and sanding later, and at last the Hickory accepted the bowstring. Now the hickory was set in the tiller tree and checked. I did some more sanding and scraping and went back to the tiller tree. Thus I continued back and forth until the Hickory eventually drew 50 pounds 25 inches.

At this point I sanded the bow with P120 sandpaper to remove the coarse sanding marks and smooth the surface as much as the paper would allow. I then drenched the bow was in water to lift any hidden small splints and once the Hickory had dried, used P180 sand paper to smooth the bow and repeated the water treatment. This went on until the final sanding was done with 600 grid paper. Finally, my selfbow was complete.

My next bow will be an Elm bow, backed with hickory. At the time of writing this article it was in its finishing stages.