This book is meant to be understandable and fun to use. The topics range from the beginnings to the end -- cutting and curing wood through building a selfbow of almost any type and finishing it. Selfbows are wooden bows with no laminations in the limbs. Both beginners and advanced bowyers should find the book usable and worthwhile. There are extensive descriptions and directions throughout, supported by over 200 individual color illustrations. Besides the how-to directions, there are sections on heat-bending, splicing billets, shaping handles, and treating problems like knots, cracks, etc. Several other useful topics are addressed, such as suggestions on how to make a bow with only a few measurements, reduce handshock, eliminate stack, stabilize arrow flight, shoot where you look, and increase arrow speed.

Enlightening and entertaining, this book has easy-to-follow instructions for readers who plan to make and shoot their own bows and arrows. It's a must-have text for outdoorsmen, bowhunters, traditional craftsmen, and historians.

Experience lifelong pleasure in making wooden bows! This full-color book explains how you can do that with local wood types and simple everyday tools and techniques. Wood Fever is a comprehensive guide, packed with illustrations, schematics, and background information. Step-by-Step it guides you through the basic process of transforming trees and boards into beautiful solid wooden bows (selfbows). All steps are illustrated with more than 360 full-color pictures and drawings. In a clear and easy to understand fashion, you will learn all about: Design and performance Wood selection Splitting logs and preparing boards Drying wood Making bow staves and raw bows Tillering Finishing Maintenance Strings and Arrows Because Wood Fever is also loaded with background information it allows you to make your very own choices in the bow-making process. And there is much to choose! Once you know how, you will be able to make excellent bows from almost any type of wood. There truly is a bow in every tree. So, go out there, find some wood, grab some tools, and experience the same thrills as your ancestors did 10,000 years ago. Imagine: there you are, holding a piece of wood you've worked yourself, shooting feathered sticks, which close in on their goal with a whirring sound - and then hit it with a satisfying thwack. Big chance that you will never be the same again: you've got wood fever. About the author: For almost 20 years, Jan van der Veen has been making, designing, and repairing wooden bows. Through bow-building workshops and his website he also helped hundreds of bow enthusiasts to get started in the ancient craft of Bowyery. This hand book is the culmination of these many years of hands-on experience. Wood Fever contains the essence of bow making.

"A bent stick and a string- for 20,000 years there has come from it a fascination that remains to this day. Archery in it's original form, with a simple device, without special features, has been finding more and more participants for some years and the art of bow building has also been rediscovered."--Front insert.

This collection of wild and woolly adventure stories from real life was first published by Stackpole Books in 1954. From roping bear and cougar in Arizona to hunting wild boar with a longbow on Santa Catalina Island in California and alligator wrestling in the Everglades, Howard Hill was the prototypical "extreme" guy. Includes outstanding photography from Hill's adventures of such animals as grizzly bear, elk, mountain sheep and moose. First published by Stackpole Books in 1954. Foreword by Errol Flynn. New preface by Jerry Hill, the author's nephew.

Thrilling stories about hunting wildcat, buffalo, mountain sheep, wild boar, alligator, deer and small game with a bow and arrow.

Written from a practical Native American perspective in easy-to-understand prose, THE WARRIOR'S TOOLS combines practical how-to information on bow making with historical insight on the place bows, arrows, quivers and shields played in tribal life in the past and continue to play today.