Today I’d like to share with you the blueprints for one of my bow builds from last year.
I find this particular bow quite interesting. It’s not the easiest project to take on, but I hope these notes will be useful and give you a clearer idea of how a bow designed with certain dimensions looks when brought to life.
Important note here - using blueprints as a bowyer you have to be very elastic - each piece of wood is different and you can't blindly follow the exact dimensions. Wood imperfections like knots, waves etc. have to be considered at the stage of designing. It's especially important when it comes to the thickness - depending on the wood species and it's density - the layer of wood required to reach the specific drawweight will vary!
Red Oak Wood For Bow Making?
For this build I used red oak - a wood I’ve worked with extensively. Although it isn’t considered one of the top-tier bow woods, it remains one of my personal favorites. It’s pleasant to work with and, importantly for this project, it bends very easily when heated. Red oak bows do tend to take some set and aren’t usually the best performers. However, I’ve found that they benefit greatly from rawhide backing, and the “Basilisk” bow is a good example of that.
Backing is recommended when a bow struggles to handle the internal stresses placed on it. If the strain becomes too much for a specific piece of wood, applying a backing can relieve some of that pressure and allow the wood to work beyond its natural limits. It’s worth noting that well-made, well-balanced bows crafted from high-quality wood won’t gain much from rawhide backing - only the active backing like sinew can make a difference there.
As for the “Basilisk” bow itself, I drew inspiration from several sources: horsebows, fantasy-style weapons, and the five-curve bow design. To shape the stave properly I had to apply numerous curves on the stave, but the wood took it very well. The finished bow draws approximately 35–40 lb at 26". It was really tough to tiller due to shape I applied - it makes judging the bend really hard. The stave measured 59" (150 cm) from tip to tip. It features a stiff handle with an arrow shelf on the left side of the riser. The tip overlays and arrow shelf are made from bog oak. Brace-height is low - approx 14-15 cm.
The bow is far from perfect but I think it will be interesting for any bowyer too see and compare own experience and crafts with the blueprints.
The bow turned out rather heavy. I wasn’t aiming for top performance with this build, and the rawhide — which was definitely thicker than necessary — added noticeable weight. However, one detail worth highlighting is that the bow holds nearly zero set at rest. It's a sweet shooter!
Thank you for reading. If you’d like more bow-making ideas and detailed instructions, feel free to check out my e-books:
BOW MAKING BASIC + BOW MAKING WOODS
Grab the free recurve bow blueprints here:
DOWNLOAD (PDF FILE)
0 comments