What kind of wood is good for bows and arrows ~

The bow is made of bamboo (preferably more than ten years old) and horn, which is attached to the body to increase elasticity. String strings are made of animal tendons! Of course, it is best to use completely dry and elastic wood materials. If not, you should be able to bow well. If you plan to stay in your place for a few months, you should store some elastic wood for later use. Other elastic wood will have a shorter life, so you can make more bows and use another one when it loses its elasticity.

Taxus chinensis is an ideal material for making bows-all ancient English longbows are made of Chinese fir. There are five kinds of yew trees in the northern hemisphere, but not all of them are common. Others such as oak, willow, hickory, cedar, Cycas, elm, juniper, birch and hemlock are all ideal materials for making bows.

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Flexible materials with good elasticity and toughness should be selected to make the bow handle. Generally, it is about 120 cm long, but it can be selected according to individual circumstances.

Choose the bow handle suitable for your own use:

Put your right hand on your waist, hold one end of the elastic wood, lift the left hole stick forward obliquely and straighten it, hold the elastic wood, make a mark, and use this elastic wood as the bow handle, which will be very suitable in length. This can be used as a standard for the size of a bow (using a long bow requires more skill).

Processing of bow handle

The middle part of the bow handle is about 5 cm wide, and the two ends gradually narrow until 1.5 cm. Carve a groove (a) at a distance of about 1.25 cm from the rod end to fix the bowstring. Peel off the bark first, cut the bow handle into a certain shape and coat it with grease.

Installation of bowstring

It is ideal to use raw cowhide as bowstring. It can be cut into 3 mm wide ductile strips. Other kinds of ropes can also be used in an emergency. Old nettle skin is made of fine coarse fiber, which can be twisted into a strong bow rope. If the bow handle is very elastic, a relatively short bowstring may be needed. When the bowstring is fixed, the bow handle can only be slightly tightened-only when the bow is pulled open can the bow handle be further bent and tightened, providing considerable flexibility.

First, buckle the bowstring on the groove of the bow handle, and then wrap it around two and a half times. If the material used in the bow handle is not completely dry, one side of the bowstring should be loosened when not in use, otherwise the bow handle will be easily deformed.

Preparation of arrows

Any straight wood can be used as the material of the arrow shaft, but birch is undoubtedly one of the best materials. The shaft is about 60 cm long and 6 cm wide. It should be absolutely straight (tying an elastic rope between two fixed points can be used as a ruler standard) and as smooth as possible. The end of the shaft should be engraved with grooves to support it on the bowstring.

Check whether the groove at the end of each arrow shaft is wide enough to accommodate your bowstring.

Feather arrow

In order to improve accuracy, you can make an arrow. Feathers are selected materials, but you can also choose other materials-paper, light cloth, or even leaves cut into a certain shape.

A: From the top, tear the feather to the center of the feather tube.

B: There are 20 mm wide feather tubes at both ends of the feather, which are used to tie the feather to the shaft.

C: Divide the circumference of the shaft into three equal parts and tie three symmetrical feather tubes.

arrow

The front end of the shaft can be sharpened and quenched directly. It will be better to fix the pole with extra sharp arrows. Tinplate is great: flint can also be sharpened to make real sharp arrows. The front end of the shaft is split from the central part, and the arrow is inserted and fastened. Tendon is a good binding material-use it when wet, and it will shrink when dry, so as to bind the arrow tightly.