Customer Reviews

The Bowbuilder's Book

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Having been actively involved in archery for over 30 years, I feel that this book is excelent; although a great deal of the historical material has been copied from other publications. More detailed instruction regarding the actual art of building a longbow would have delighted me.

I am interested in what kind of bows that ancient man made and how they made them. But I bought the book to gain some knowledge on bow making. I would have liked more bow making and a little less history. I have learned much and am making a longbow. I wish that the measurements where in inches instead of metrics. They jump from cm to mm to inches in the same drawing. It makes me have to slow down and calculate. Over all, the book was quality and well done. Great pictures.

Good pictorials, Nice generalized ideas and laid out with each specific bow types each in it's own chapter. Some decent color photo sections of random finished bows. Not very in depth involving exacting techniques with a lot of educational information about the distant past uses and origins of bows, yet still a lot of useful information for a prospective bow builder.

This is a good book for those interested in different bow styles and history. The Traditional Bowyer's Bible series is better if you just want to get into building a bow though Paul Comstock's thin little book The Bent Stick is much more straight forward if you want to build a self bow. I have a 1958 edition of the Boy Scout merit badge series on Archery that is even better if you don't have access to a raw limb or tree but have some straight grain lumber.
I bought The Bow Builder's Book mainly for my research into the Saami Two-Woods bow. There is not a lot of information about this particular bow and this book didn't really help in my research yet it was a great addition to my bow book library for its overall information.
If you have the money you can't go wrong with Charles Grayson's Traditional Archery from Six Continents. It is a beautiful book with glossy, full color photos about bows and arrows and their history but nothing on building bows. It, also, is unfortunately shy of useful information or photos on the Two-Woods bow but that would be my only complaint.
C'mon, you know there is only so much you can read before you just have to get out there and build one. Just do it.