Building a Traditional Recurve Bow for Hunting

I’ve always wanted a nice handmade hunting bow, but I could never afford one. So I bought an instructional book and started work on it. I opted for a laminated bow since I wouldn’t have to do a whole lot of tillering to get the bend of the limbs just right.

The first thing I would need is a curing oven for the epoxy. And a large form to bend the wood until the bow cured.

I started off with a sheet with the dimensions marked on it, so I could make my bow form.

The finished form ready to assemble my bow.

I started off with strips of bocote wood and e-weft fiberglass for the limbs, and African zebra wood for the handle for this particular bow. The other bows I’ve built used rock maple as the limbs and dymondwood for the riser.

After placing plastic wrap on the bottom of the form, the layers of fiberglass, wood, and epoxy, are then sandwiched between the forms. I used heavy string to hold everything together on the form.

I used a fire hose and capped the ends so it could be blown up like a balloon. This holds everything very tightly together in the form.

One end cap on the fire hose has a tire inflation insert to pump compressed air into the entire hose.