Bowyer - Making A Bow

Making A Bow

The most important part of crafting a bow is ensuring that the materials used are not strained beyond their breaking point. Due to the large amount of energy stored in a drawn bow, failures are often spectacular — often described as explosions because of the loud crack and flying debris. If a bow is being made from wood or a combination of natural materials (often called a primitive or traditional bow) careful attention must be paid to the selected materials. There are often natural twists, knots, bends or other variations that must be taken into account and worked with to ensure that the bow will not fracture at any point along its length. Serious injury can result from bow failure or if the bow string breaks. Due to this, traditional bows must be made individually.

Wood bow staves are often made from trees such as Osage Orange (Maclura pomifera), English Yew (Taxus baccata) and Siberian Elm (Ulmus pumila).

Read more about this topic:  Bowyer

Famous quotes containing the words making a, making and/or bow:

    “The organization controlling the material equipment of our everyday life is such that what in itself would enable us to construct it richly plunges us instead into a poverty of abundance, making alienation all the more intolerable as each convenience promises liberation and turns out to be only one more burden. We are condemned to slavery to the means of liberation.”
    —Raoul Vaneigem (b. 1934)

    “The whole land seems aroused to discussion on the province of woman, and I am glad of it. We are willing to bear the brunt of the storm, if we can only be the means of making a break in that wall of public opinion which lies right in the way of woman’s rights, true dignity, honor and usefulness.”
    —Angelina Grimké (1805–1879)

    “And long shall timorous fancy see
    The painted chief, and pointed spear,
    And Reason’s self shall bow the knee
    To shadows and delusions here.”
    —Philip Freneau (1752–1832)