In this video, I make an Osage orange selfbow (35# at 32", 63" length), yucca fiber bowstring, dogwood arrow, and flint arrowhead using Paleolithic (Stone-Age) technology and only tools and materials gathered on-site.

This was filmed entirely in Austin, Texas, with 90% being just along this one creek.

This is the second bow and arrow set I have made using strictly Paleo Tech. The first one was mulberry wood and smaller but was made similarly and still shoots great 2 years later.

The bow is based on historical methods of the Apache, Comanche, and Tohono O'odham, all of whom used Osage orange as their favored bow wood (second being mulberry), as did many other Natives. They also used roughleaf dogwood (Cornus drummondii) for arrows, as I do in the video.

The actual Stone-Age rough bow stave reducing technique among Indigenous North Americans is not known to me, as all the methods I've found in my research were recorded after metal knives were adopted. The wedging and peeling of green wood shown in the video would likely have been done. Similar techniques are known from other Indigenous peoples using stone tools.

I have been a traditional archer for 17 years, a flintknapper / primitive skills hobbyist for 15, and an ethnobotanist for 14.

Note that in the practice shots, I am demonstrating power and range rather than accuracy. It will take a little time to learn the quirks of this bow and the arrow needs to be tuned and a set of identical ones made.

This project took over 150 hours of work (59 just for the bow & arrow labor).

I think the sapwood of Osage orange and mulberry works great for bows, has anyone else used this material? The heartwood of both species was left on for a strong core / belly. This method allows one to use a small branch, split it in half and simply tiller down the interior face. When using stone tools, this is far more efficient.

I needed a bow for a halloween costume and I thought I might as well make the real deal.

This is a 76" long oak longbow (I know, I am tall), it is 33 pounds at 32" draw length, which was exactly what i was aiming for. It's also really awkward shooting in this stance instead of the traditional archery one.

Feel free to comment if you see anything wrong with it at first glance. I think the tillering is pretty correct but I might be wrong though, I don't really have an eye for it yet :)

Just finished my fifth bow, which I made as a gift for my girlfriend, it's her first very own bow! She loves black and purple, so I chose faux purpleheart and ebony as handle materials and "inverse"/black curly birch as limb veneer. They are sustainable actionwood made by a local company. The limbs are cherry with a bamboo core plus a powerlam and limbtip stiffeners/internal siyahs made from true purpleheart. It's 68.5" and pulls 24.5 lbs at 26". I'm honestly so happy with how it turned out and how well it shoots. The draw weight curve is super smooth, it's fast, stable in the hand, pretty quiet and veeery comfortable to hold!

12 arrows made almost completely by hand. I did as much as I could myself avoiding buying shafts, arrow heads or pre-cut vanes. I also tried to restrict myself to pre-modern materials and techniques. So hide glue in stead of PVA glue, linen in stead of polyester yarn, egg tempera paint in stead of acrylics etc. I only really cheated with the mild steel in stead of wrought iron, since I couldn't get any, and zink white is a modern pigment, since I'm not willing to poison myself with lead white.

No power tools were used. The planks of wood were ripped into slats by hand with a rip saw, and planed round with a hand plane and a shooting board. The arrowheads were forged using a coal forge that admittedly had an electric blower in stead of hand-operated bellows. The cresting was painted on with egg-tempera paint on a hand-operated arrow spinner.

The full list of raw materials is as follows:
A plank of poplar (Populus Tremula)
A plank of oak (Quercus Robur)
12x12 mm bar stock of mild steel
Greylag goose feathers
Linnen yarn
Hide glue
1 mm diameter brass nails
A chicken egg
Ultramarine pigment
Yellow Ochre pigment
Greenish Umber pigment
Zink white pigment
Persian red pigment
Oak gall ink
Tung oil

Video of it being shot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTGExGMMMx8

I finally finished this crossbow I've been working on for the past few months. The bow is made from a red oak board that I chased to a growth ring. Final bow dimensions: 33" nock to nock, 1" x 2" at the middle, and 0.7" x 0.7" at the tips.

I'm getting 160 fps with 415 grain bolts, so it's roughly comparable to a 50# longbow. The draw weight is a little hard to measure, because it changes dramatically with small changes in brace height, so 270# is more of an approximation. I'm using a gaffe lever to load it, aka "wippe" in German.

A high brace height has a more efficient geometry for crossbows, so the prod was boiled and bent into about 6" of deflex, which allows a high brace height (6.25") without excessive strain on the wood. In photos #6 and #7, you can see the tips of the bow only move a small distance when drawn. This is the effect of high brace height: Less bow tip movement for the same power stroke. Therefore, a longer power stroke can be achieved than with a low brace height. Or, with the same power stroke, the bow can be made with a much heavier draw weight.

The stock is spalted birch, the trigger nut is moose antler, and the side plates are inlaid buffalo horn. The bow string is 150 strands of linen, with hemp serving. Cotton rope was used to lash the bow to the stock. The bow and stock were finished with boiled linseed oil and beeswax.

I broke two strings while making this bow, effectively dry firing it twice. The first time, I used a longbow string without thinking, and when it broke, the bow launched itself off the tillering tree about 5 feet into the air. The second time I had a proper string, but then I shorted the bow by about 2", and I over-twisted the string to shorten it, which caused it to break at full draw. Despite the abuse, the bow seems perfectly happy to keep chugging.

I'm going to keep this crossbow, because it's my first one, but my next project will be a similar crossbow which I hope to sell. I'm aiming for about 100-130#, so it can be easily spanned by hand. I'd also like to see how high I can push the draw weight, maybe aiming for 600# with a larger hickory crossbow? :D

Let me know if you have any questions, especially if you want to make a wooden crossbow yourself. I did a lot of research on this topic, and I'd be happy to share my resources. Wooden crossbows are really under appreciated in my opinion, which I think is mostly because people don't realize the importance of deflexing them, or they only stick to light draw weights.

Hello archers and fletchers! Made my 24 medieval style military arrows for my Warbow! Hand forged arrowheads (chisel type) long 7.5 inch natural feathers and forced self nock. One arrow weight is about 60 grams. Arrow shafts is pine, parallel and have 11 mm in diameter. Don’t have chance to try it on long distances but in near target they fly strait. I hope you like it. Cheers!

Thank you everyone for all the tiller checks and guidance!! 66” Hickory, Sturgeon backed. 40lb draw weight at 26”. The bow is a gift for my dad, we harvested the tree together from the land I grew up on. The case is made from buckskin from a deer my dad harvested in 1982. This is truly a work of love.

Whew what a challange hunting from the ground with Stone Age tech! After years of work and practice I finally got one! Shit at 15 yds and the Stone point penetrated clear through both sides up to the fletching, but a doe blew right as I shot so the hit wasn’t great, thankfully it stepped back out into my other shooting lane and I put a plains style metal trade point through both lungs quartering away and brought it down. Hunting with a sticks and stones feels pretty cool.

Making a small bow for my son. Mostly a toy, but I would like it to function.

The plan was to slowly bend it into shape while the freshly cut wood dries out. I’m using the trunk of my car as a make shift kiln seeing as it over 100 degree here lol.

Once it dries I was going to thin it down to size with a rasp as I slowly test to make sure it bends in the right places.

Any particular advice on how dumb this plan may be lol?

Thanks yall!

I have a BL stave that I’ll be working on soon. The video is my 2 year-old with the stave. With trapping the back, is slightly rounding off the edges of the back enough to trap it? How much of a difference do you want between it and the belly? If you round off too much, are you risking pulling a splinter on the back at all?

Any suggestions for width? I’ve made most of my fire-hardened hickory and Osage 1-1/4 to 1-3/8” at the widest point. I don’t really round the edges on my hickory and haven’t trapped the back on them.

Finished these up last night but just got the chance to take pictures. A new set of 6 in my new personal style. A mix of Cahokia and corner notch points all from alibates stone from Texas. Glued with pine pitch and lashed with sinew. Pictured here with the bow, quiver, knife, and beaded sheath that will all be coming with me on a deer and pig hunt in south Texas in early December. These arrows are pretty light coming in at about 380 grains but shooting very fast out of my 52# bow and should get plenty of penetration.

Over the last couple months I have been poking away at my second attempt at a handheld ballista. This one features a metal, two piece trigger fabricated by yours truly. Mark 2 is also 1.2 pounds lighter than its previous version. This brings the total weight down to 2.5 lbs.

I have only fired it about 10 times. These shots were at a low amount of torsion. I will be testing this again (after making better bolts) with a lot more torsion. Keep your eyes out for my full length video on my channel.

My sister’s boyfriend is a local forester and game keeper. Some time ago he heard that I’m a bowyer and was like, maybe we can find a small piece of yew for you. Well, he shoved me a spot today where there was quite a few old yews and we cut down one(!) of them. Here’s result, and I’m just stoked, all straight as a pipe and with very few knots. Its european yew (taxus baccata). If she diesn’t marry him, I think I might!

3 European ash (Fraxinus Exelcior) holmegaard style bows back at the place they originally grew. All 180 cm long, with a draw weight varying from 245 to 300N (25 to 30 lbs) at 76 cm (30 inch). Burned belly for increased performance. All have minimal string follow. They are used at the archery range a short bowshot away to instruct people in the way of traditional archery by me.

If you are in the Netherlands, feel free to come by fort Everdingen near Culemborg. Most Saturdays I'm there shooting.

When you count all the time learning this has taken about 6 years to build. Just counting the time building I probably have over 100 hours into this kit. I remember the first time I flipped through the bowyers Bible and saw Steve allelys chapter on west coast bows. I remember showing my wife how cool they were and exclaiming that one day I’d build one. Well here it is all together after 6 years since I first started flintknapping and 2.5 years since I started bow making. The arrows are modeled after Wintu, Pit River, and Modoc examples. The bow is sinew backed hickory (couldn’t get my hands on yew) modeled after a pit river example with a hupa style paint job. I stretched the bow out to 54” to fit me and my shooting style. Still carries 2” of reflex which is nuts especially for hickory. The quiver is River otter adorned with abalone shell disks. The bow easily accommodates my 26” draw and modern shooting style and is a dream to shoot.

This is one of my hornbows I made. I love historycal archery