by Jon E. Lewis
Wood for the bow
The first step on the road to equipping yourself with a bow and some arrows is to find the materials from which you’ll make them – which means knowing how to recognize the right wood where it’s growing. You may already be familiar with the species of tree and shrub mentioned in this article, of course. If not, the best ways to find out about them are to ask someone who’s country-wise to show them to you, or to go to a botanical garden.
If the idea of visiting a botanical garden seems weird, bear in mind that paragraph 87 of the old Air Ministry publication on jungle survival recommends unit visits for aircrew. Servicemen in survival-oriented units should ask their CO to arrange a day visit, which most parks and gardens anywhere in the world will be happy to set up.
A day’s visit will give you all the knowledge you need about trees to find the material for a bow. On top of that, you’ll learn to recognize a huge variety of edible, medicinal and otherwise useful plants. If you think it’s a waste of a day’s training, just think about it – it beats the hell out of square-bashing, or humping a loaded Bergen over 50 kilometres.
PARTS OF THE BOW
Bows are described by their shape when they are unstrung, not braced. Note the reflexed bow and the recurved bow are curved away from the belly. Three quarters of the handle is below the centre of the bow and the bow string corresponds to this, so that is the bow string is braced the wrong way round the nocking point for the nock of the arrow will not correspond to the centreline of the bow. Cheap practice bows are available in nylon and fibreglass.
Let’s assume you’ve now armed yourself with a fair knowledge of the local flora. So what do you look for?
Hard, well-seasoned, springy woods are best for making a bow. Don’t even think about making one from softwoods such as pine, fir, new elder shoots, larch, spruce, and so on. You’ll only be wasting valuable time and energy.
Look for hardwoods like wych elm, elm, oak, ash, rowan, birch, greenheart, wild rose, hornbeam, dagame, lemonwood, osage orange, juniper and ironwood. Some of these will make a good bow, and some will make a passable one. None will make a bow equal to the king of bow woods, the yew.
Poisonous yew
Yew grows in most of Asia, the Americas and throughout Europe. It’s very common in southern England, and you’ll see it in churchyards, estates, parks and gardens.
Be careful with the yew. The leaves, berry arils (an extra covering over the fruit) and sap contain a deadly nerve poison, taxine. Celtic warriors dipped their arrows in the yew sap, just to make sure!
So don’t use the leftovers from your bowmaking as skewers or spoons or whatever. You won’t come to any harm from handling yew, though, as long as you wash the sap off your hands.
A quick one
You can make an excellent bow very quickly – seasoning the wood in a day, over a fire – from rowan. (This is sometimes called mountain ash in England).
Ideally, you should take the wood from a slim sapling growing in dense wood. This is because trees growing close together have to “shoot for the sun”, and so grow slim and straight with few branches low on the trunk: just what you need for a bow. You don’t harm the environment by taking a few of these saplings, since you help the other trees to spread. And if you cover or dirty the stump, you won’t leave any sign of your presence to be spotted from the air.
Rowan bows are “sweet” to use, giving no jar or kick. But they do creak ominously when you’re shooting them in. It takes fine judgment and a steely nerve to find out how far you can draw them – but then a good bow properly drawn is seven-eights broken!
The correct size of a bow
A bow 1.47 m (4ft 10 in) long, is quite handy for someone of the author’s height (1.75 m/5 ft 9 in). A long bow for someone this height would be 1.85 m (6 ft) long. When deciding what length to make your bow, consider the following:
1 The longer the bow is, the better it will resist a given pull.
2 If you change your mind and shorten an existing bow it will shoot further for the same draw but will be harder to pull and is more likely to break.
3 Experiment to find your ideal draw length and try to make your bow to suit, but any bow drawing between 60 and 90 cms (2 to 3 ft) will be sufficient for most “survival archery”. A bow should not bend in the middle – the central foot or so should be rigid. To determine the position of the handgrip, find the centre of the bow, then mark 75 mm (3 in) below and 25 mm (1 in) above. This section will be the handle. The arrow is shot from the bow centre while you grip beneath it. The upper part of the bow should be cut slightly more than the lower in order to compensate for the handle. Trim your bow to its finished size, then cut the nocks at either end.
Tools
Once you’ve selected your bow stave, you’ll need some tools to carve the actual bow from it. Professional bowmakers first use a hammer and steel wedges to split logs into workable dimensions. Then a small hand-axe trims the stave to the rough shape and size of the bow. A spokeshave brings it down to the exact size, with final minute shavings removed with shards of glass.
In the middle of nowhere and on the run you’re not too likely to have any of these. But an issue-type machete or a heavy survival knife will do the job, given some skill and elbow grease.
It’s always worth having at least Stanley knife blades in your survival kit. You can use them on their own as scalpels for fine work, and you can use one to cut its own wooden handle. You can use the Stanley to make your bow from scratch, but it’s invaluable for making arrows.
If you haven’t got any of these, tough titty. It’s back to basic stone-age survival technology.
Season the wood
Now to making the bow. Look for a branch or trunk of the right wood that’s as straight as possible. It should be at least 6ft 6in (2m) long, although you can go as short as 4ft (1.25m). If you can get a piece of seasoned – that is, properly dried-out – wood, terrific. Look for uprooted trees, cuttings and trimmings, at rail- and roadsides, and near farms and houses.
In conventional bowmaking the entire log is seasoned, sometimes for years, and then thinned down to a bow. Survivors have to reverse the process, and cut out the rough bow and then dry it. This is a lot faster, though it may cause some warping. Trim the stave to the approximate size of the bow, leaving a good quarter inch surplus in both thickness and breadth.
Drying out
At this point, decide how quickly you need your bow. Some woods you can use straight off, but all of them improve enormously with drying out. In a very hot climate a day or two makes a huge difference, and the bow keeps improving as you use it. In cold or temperate climates you will have to dry it over or near the fire. Yew and rowan make the best quick-dried bows.
While you have the bow near the fire, you may as well make sure that the stave is straight when viewed from the back or belly.
If you heat – or, preferably, steam – the staff where it’s bent, you can put it permanently into shape by applying pressure in the right direction. This doesn’t set up any stresses in the wood.
You can also re-curve or reflex the bow by the same method. But if the stave you’ve chosen is naturally reflexed, or re-curved at one end or the other, don’t straighten it. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
Making the string
The English longbowmen of the Middle Ages used bow strings able to take a weight of 140 lbs (60 kg), and these were made from the stalks of the common stinging nettle. Unfortunately this takes a long time to master, so the average survivor must improvise. Silk is ideal for a bow string because it stretches very little, but it is not available in every survival situation. Nylon paracord is a more feasible material. Although it does stretch a little, this can be taken up when bracing the bow and paracord has the bonus of being near rot-proof and very strong.
Bracing a bow
Putting the string on a bow is called bracing, and it is very important to get this right. Place your hand “thumbs up” on the back of the bow: the string sh
ould touch your thumb when correctly braced. You need not be too slavish to this rule with a survival bow, but the nearer the better. Use a timber hitch to tie the bottom end of the string permanently in place and use a simple loop to attach it at the top. When you need the bow, brace it and slip on the top loop. Always unstring the bow when not in use or it will lose strength and never leave it standing on end.
ARROWS
The arrow is at once both beautifully simple and extremely sophisticated. It is a missile, developed by human ingenuity over thousands of years. Many of the lessons learnt in the manufacture of millions of these missiles, with hundreds of variations, were forgotten after the Middle Ages, only to be painstakingly re-learnt by twentieth-century missile scientists.
For survival purposes, you will not have to make an arrow anywhere near as good as those used at Agincourt, which had heavy armour-piercing warheads and had to withstand 120 lb of thrust from the string.
The first thing to learn about arrows is that the missile (the arrow) must match its launcher (the bow). At this stage, an explanation of what’s known as the Archer’s Paradox is helpful. Due to the impact of the string, the inertia in the arrow, and the fact that the arrow is set at an angle to the string (which is in line with the centreline of the bow), and the edge of the bow, the arrow actually bends over the bow when you release it. You will not see this with the naked eye, but it does happen. When it leaves the bow, the arrow springs the other way and, after a few more bucks, straightens out and flies off to your target.
If the arrow is too weak for the bow, it will wobble in flight and lose power. It may also break, usually about six inches from the nock, usually with jagged edges, and usually getting stopped by the inside of your wrist, which is damned painful. If the arrow is too strong, it will go off a little to your left (if you are right handed).
For survival purposes, you don’t have to match bow and arrow exactly. Instead, learn how each of your arrows flies. It is better in every way to err on the side of the strong arrow.
Woods to use
So now we have the theory, let’s make some arrows before we starve to death! Good woods are birch, ash, hornbeam, alder, willow, bamboo, ramin, pine, fir, oak, elm, beech, elder, dog rose, bramble and some reeds. As a survivor you will do best by not confining yourself to the rules, but to use your common sense.
The simplest, quickest and most versatile wood is bamboo, which is not confined to the jungle but is common worldwide. Bamboo breaks always have many dead canes amongst the green: these can be used instantly – dry the green ones near the fire, or leave them for a few days after cutting. Don’t forget that you can eat the young shoots, raw or cooked, after you remove the poisonous hairs along the edges of the leaves! Next (for ease, not quality) come strong reeds, followed by willow. Surprisingly, thick bramble and wild rose can provide good arrows. The thorns are easily removed with your front teeth, leaving a nice round shaft.
The shaft
The arrow should be as straight as you can make it, as bends and kinks cause inaccuracy and wind resistance. Use steam, or bend it over a warm stone, to straighten it, as you did making your bow. Some woods you can straighten cold, either by bending and holding for a minute, or by tying the bow with thread or string and leaving it for an hour or so.
It is easier than you think to cut an arrow from a billet of wood, especially the softwoods such as pine, using your knife or, better still, your Stanley blade from your survival tin, suitably mounted.
If you have the time, it is back to stone-age technology for a sanding block, to give perfect roundness. Make this from two pieces of sandstone, about 2½ by ½ by 1 inch. Chip out a semicircular groove along the length of each one. When you put one on top of the other, they should make a circular groove that’s the same diameter as you want your arrows to be. Draw the arrow through these blocks until it’s smooth. A far better device, if you can make one, is a small steel plate ⅛ inch thick with a “V” cut in it. This cuts better, and allows you to vary the diameter of the arrow.
The flights
By far the easiest way to fit the flights is to use plastic – not quite as good as feathers, but requiring much less skill, time and effort. Sadly, there is no shortage of plastic litter anywhere. Near houses, where farmers, climbers and forestry workers are, along any roadside, beach – in fact, just about anywhere – you will find a profusion of plastic drink bottles, oil cartons, milk cartons, etc.
Cut them into strips with your Stanley blade or knife. If necessary, put them momentarily in boiling water or near heat for a few seconds to soften them, then smooth them flat. Fix them by cutting one slot through the arrow for a pair of flights and a groove at right angles for the third flight.
POSITIONING THE FLIGHTS
The flights should be positioned at 120 degree intervals. Plastic flights will need a little moulding to give them a slight curve, and if you are using bird feathers do not mix the feathers from either wing: this will make the arrow wobble and reduce its velocity.
If you use feathers, those of geese or large gliding birds are best – for example the eagle, buzzard, hawk, flamingo, pelican, crow, seagull or turkey. A good place to find them are farmers’ or game keepers’ gibbets: rows of dead crows hanging upside down on fences to scare other crows away. Use the large flight feathers from the wing. Do not mix feathers from right and left wings, if you can help it – it causes wobbling and loss of power, as they set up opposing wind currents.
Arrowheads and nocks
You can make your arrowheads out of steel, slate, stone, bone, flint, horn, glass, or just sharpened wood. You can even use staples from a fence post.
For the nock, it’s simplest just to groove the wood. Put a whipping above the nock to prevent it splitting, if necessary.
SHOOTING THE BOW
Although you can shoot without them, it is far better to have a pair of gloves, or a shooting tab and a bracer, to stop the inside of your bow arm being bruised by the string. You can easily make a bracer out of rabbit skin or hide, and a shooting tab too. If you have a jacket with close-fitting sleeves, you can do without the bracer. But a glove or shooting tab is virtually indispensable, as the pressure of the string on the fingers is painful and can be very distracting in the aim.
Correct standing position
Brace the bow
First you’ve got to “brace” or put the string on the bow. The correct height from the back of the bow to the string was covered in “Making a bow”. Don’t be a slave to this dimension for a survival bow, especially when you first use it. Use a timber hitch for the bottom end, permanently in place, and a simple fixed loop for the top. When you need to use the bow, just brace it by slipping on the top loop.
Shooting
Archery can be broken down into five component skills: standing, nocking, drawing, aiming and loosing. The principles outlined below hold good in target and field shooting, although it is not always possible to stand correctly in field shooting. Here are the ideals in the five disciplines.
Standing
Put your feet in the “stand at ease” position, at right angles to the target. Leave only about 8 inches between your heels. Keep your knees straight, body upright and turned towards the target, so that if a line were drawn through your shoulders it would run to the target.
Nocking
Hold the bow with your left hand (right hand for left-handed people). Without touching the flights, engage the nock in the whipping on the string (if fitted). The nock should be in the exact centre of the string, with the arrow resting on the midpoint of the bow, on the left-hand edge of the bow (right-hand side for left-handed people). You can make a mark in the middle of the bow to ensure quick, accurate nocking.
Drawing
Place the fingers with index finger above and next two fingers below the arrow. You will probably prefer the three-finger draw, but the two-finger draw did not harm mediaeval Englishmen! If the terrain permits, your weight should be evenly distributed on both feet. Bring y
our bow across your body at waist level, and slightly incline the head. This helps the chest muscles to assist the draw.
Both arms should be bent at this point, and your body relaxed. Begin to straighten your arms and bring the bow up as you continue the draw smoothly and continuously to the full draw position.
For target archery, exactly the same draw length is taken for every shot. This is not always possible (due to illness or fatigue), or desirable, in survival archery. And you are not very likely to have produced such perfectly matched arrows; it is far better to know how each arrow flies.
AIMING YOUR BOW
Modern target bows have adjustable peep sights which can be zeroed in once your draw length is consistent and you are using the same type of arrows. The bows you make yourself can also be marked up with aiming marks with different ranges. It is best to start at 20 yd/18m and find the correct point of aim to hit the centre of the target, and then paint on an aiming mark which you can use as a point of reference when you move back to 50 yd/45m and 100 yd/90m.
At 20 yards your sight picture should look like this, and your mean point of impact of five arrows should be the centre of the target. At closer ranges with very rigid arrows you may have problems with the Archer’s Paradox and arrows going out to the right. You must compensate by aiming off.
Aiming
Make a straight mark, or marks for different ranges, on the outside of the bow. If your arrow lengths and draw lengths are uniform, line up the arrowhead on the point of aim. Remember that the target and the point of aim may not be the same, due to windage or range.
The trick is to get the line of sight between your eye, sight marks or arrowhead, and the aiming point to coincide with the trajectory of the arrow. In field archery it is usually far better to make a quick draw, aim and shoot.
Remember the Archer’s Paradox? This can effect your aim at very close range (up to 10 yards/9m), and if the arrow is too rigid it will tend to go to the right, at any range. Compensate for these problems by aiming off.