# Building a Traditional Wooden Bow How a traditional hickory longbow is carved, tillered and balanced, and why its string and arrow stay clear of the archer's arm\. By Thomas B Topic: Machines [Open the interactive Jig](https://ask.jig.com/j/lomqJriPRYVD) ## Transcript ### 1. A bow from one board This hickory longbow began as a single plain board\. Every curve of it has a job\. Follow along to see how it is built, why its two halves must match, and why the string misses the archer's arm\. It is about 1\.8 metres long: taller than most grown\-ups\. Drag the scene to look around\. ### 2. Pick a straight board Start with a straight hickory board about 1\.8 m long, 38 mm wide and 25 mm thick\. A thin strip of hickory is glued along the back, the side that faces away from the archer\. The back is stretched every time the bow bends, so it must stay one unbroken layer\. The belly is the side that faces the archer\. It gets squeezed instead of stretched\. ### 3. Draw the shape, then carve Mark the centre, a stiff handle about 30 cm long, and lines that narrow each limb to about 13 mm at the tip\. A draw knife and a rasp shave away the wood outside the lines\. A hard block of Osage orange wood, the riser, makes a solid handle\. Limbs are the two bending arms above and below the handle\. ### 4. Tillering: teach it to bend Tillering means shaping how the bow bends\. On the tillering tree the string is pulled down a little further each time\. A stiff spot stays flat, so the bowyer scrapes a little wood from the belly there and flexes the bow again\. The goal is one smooth, even curve\. After each scrape the bow is flexed 30 to 50 times before it is checked\. ### 5. Two matching limbs Both limbs should bend like mirror images across the handle\. The string must also run straight down the middle of the limbs and the handle\. Choose Uneven to see a limb that bends more and twists: the string drifts sideways and would shove the arrow off course\. ### 6. Not quite symmetric, on purpose A good bow is not a perfect mirror\. The arrow rests on a small shelf just above the centre, on one side of the handle\. The top limb is left a little weaker, so its gap to the string is 3 to 12 mm bigger\. That balances the bow around your hand and the arrow just above it\. Bowyers call this slightly weaker top limb positive tiller\. ### 7. The arrow bends to fly straight The arrow lies beside the handle, so at first it points a little off target\. When the string shoves it, the arrow flexes around the handle, wiggles, then straightens and flies true\. This is called the archer's paradox\. Press Shoot to watch it in slow motion\. Only an arrow of the right stiffness, called its spine, bends just enough\. The feathers steer it like a weather vane\. ### 8. Why the string misses your arm A strung bow holds its string about 15 to 18 cm from the grip\. This is the brace height: after a shot the string snaps forward and stops there\. The archer also turns the elbow outward, so the forearm sits beside the string's path\. Try the other choices to see what goes wrong\. An arm guard protects the arm, but good form and the right brace height are the real fix\. ### 9. The best shape for a straight shot Wide, flat limbs that narrow gently toward the tips share the bending work along their whole length\. Matched limbs, a string down the centre, a shelf near the middle and one smooth curve keep the push straight\. Compare round limbs: the glow shows them working much harder\. In tests in the 1930s, flat rectangular limbs beat rounded ones\.