I just came across your channel from the recommendation trail.. I'm not an archer but I'm staying since it's very cozy here

@DanSantanaBows

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks Boaredy, glad to have ya here

Drawknife hero returns!

@DanSantanaBows

3 жыл бұрын

almost called it the drawknife channel

Sweet bow man! Love that bend!

@DanSantanaBows

3 жыл бұрын

too bad I couldn’t get more draw weight but it’s a fun bow anyway

Definitely looked like a good day to build a bow! Nice clean video, good job young fella.

@DanSantanaBows

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks Wade. It’s too bad there’s wasn’t more wood left after chasing the ring or I could’ve gotten a heavier bow. But that’s alright the light ones can be more fun anyway

Great video. Love watching bows being made. Cheers👍😎🏹🇨🇦

@DanSantanaBows

3 жыл бұрын

thanks William. I just wish the stave was thicker after chasing rings so I could have gotten a bit more poundage. But I have to admit light bows are the most fun anyway

@rwgoodship3653

3 жыл бұрын

@@DanSantanaBows that’s what makes handmade bows so interesting. Each is unique and yes, light bows are fun too. Cheers👍😎🏹🇨🇦

Looks like a fun lil bow man!

@DanSantanaBows

3 жыл бұрын

Definitely a lot of fun shooting such a long draw without all the weight of a warbow

Nice work sir!

@DanSantanaBows

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks Uncle Dan!

You are very lucky to be out to source great timbers to make bows. We don't have many good species of trees in Australia to make any only some willow which the government had bulldozed out of everywhere and the odd tasslewood trees imported from Africa known in Australia as Lucerne tree's. Used to make them and they work very well.

@DanSantanaBows

3 жыл бұрын

I’m not sure where you are in Australia but I hear many more local woods are being used nowadays. Lookup colin gair of outlaw bows if you’re not familiar

@abbimilagon5499

3 жыл бұрын

@@DanSantanaBows you can get good timbers in the rainforest of NSW and Qld. And some oak in Tasmania manly yellow or white oak like the UK. But red is extremely rare unless someone grew it from seed they brought back from the UK or eroupe. In the drier and baren states nothing much grows other than crops. I've brought timber but most is imported from eroupe etc. I've tried red mallie red Box and most is to hard and cracks and doesn't have anoth spring in it. But the tropical Innisfail redwood is beautiful as. I've tried probably 42 varieties of timber. And some are okay but don't last and eventually crack through. Or just not anoth spring give in the timber. But I'm heading to NSW and Qld soon so I'll see how much I can get lying around.👍

Nice work buddy!

@DanSantanaBows

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks Todd!

Superb!

Lucky you, we don't have oak or something like that in our 'home depot's (here called Baumarkt ;-)) A friend of mine just got some ipe for his deck. He spared one piece for me. Will try to make a bamboo-laminated longbow out of it. Regards to all the bowyers :-)

@DanSantanaBows

3 жыл бұрын

Maybe you’ll have maple ash or beech. I know many bowyers in europe go straight to the sawmill for boards rather than the hardware store

Just started making board bows, wanted to make some for my kids. I have two attempt's and two fails, well sort of, I did learn some things so technically at least in my book not a total fail. Lol

@DanSantanaBows

2 жыл бұрын

Have been there myself. I’m working on a board bow tutorial next, should be out soon. You should post your projects on r/bowyer on reddit so we can let you know what you can work on so the next bow works out. Good luck on the next one!

@HergerTheJoyous

2 жыл бұрын

@@DanSantanaBows Thanks. I didn't know about Reddit, I'll check it out.

absolutely impressive bow! Just a little question about your target: is it home made or did you buy it? if you made it how did you do?

@DanSantanaBows

3 жыл бұрын

It’s just a big nylon sack filled with old clothes, towels and blankets. I have it on wheels so I can use the same space for the tiller tree

✋👐💎💪👍👍👍👍

nice one ! what do you think could you use common oak too? Ive heard someone build it but I guess its very heavy

@DanSantanaBows

3 жыл бұрын

I think pretty much all oaks are good for bow making. Over here I like white oak the most but I’m not sure what the best is in europe. I’m also making a full weight recurve from a white oak stave

@Rowanbows

3 жыл бұрын

@@DanSantanaBows I saw you posted a new hickory on reddit. will there be a video too? You heat treated it right? and you said hickory is one of the fastest woods after heat treating. please say theres gonna be a video :)

@DanSantanaBows

3 жыл бұрын

@@Rowanbows I made that bow off camera. Have been working on a board bow buildalong in detail for beginners. Another time i’ll make a video on heat treating hickory. hickory has the most world records in flight archery. Makes very fast bows if you treat it right. Heat treating helps but a big part is humidity management when you’re making the bow. Good hickory at 5-7% mc is top shelf bow wood. At 10-14 it’s ok but not that great There are also bad pieces, not all hickory is equally good.

@Rowanbows

3 жыл бұрын

that heat treating process was mindblowing to me. The bows shoot almost as fast as fiberbows after all. Hazel turned out to be very light after all and i gained 5 m/s aceleration

@DanSantanaBows

3 жыл бұрын

I really like hazel with heat treating. Over here we have witch hazel which is not considered good bow wood but with a heat treat it’s very nice stuff

Great video thanks so much . I’m building my first red oak board bow ( 72inch)and I’m wondering how long should the tillering string ( rope) be ? Thanks Arthur

@DanSantanaBows

2 жыл бұрын

Short answer is get it as short as you can without bracing the bow. You can follow my board bow tutorial the same for oak as maple. In that video you can see how I make and rig up a tiller string. Basically you use a string with only one loop that’s too long, and tie an adjustable hitch in the loose end. That way you can adjust the length of the string as needed and tiller many different bows with the same string

@jamesrobertson6959

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks so much !

Sorry if you've covered this somewhere before, but is the vise with the half-log and carved wood and tennis ball handle something you made from pieces? I have a more conventional vise but seomething like what you have looks like it would be a lot nicer for roughing out a bow. Also, is that a hidden magnet holding the curved card scraper onto the side of the bench?

@DanSantanaBows

3 жыл бұрын

Yep those are magnets. You can see a tear down of the face vise in my video on work holding methods. I made it out of random bits that were in the shop, the only thing I bought was a vise screw

@boxertechnical

3 жыл бұрын

@@DanSantanaBows weird, every time I think I’ve seen all the videos I ask a question and there’s already a video

Board bows are not bad bows!! Lol

@DanSantanaBows

3 жыл бұрын

Agreed. I don’t think board bows are as beautiful but performance-wise wood is wood

Dan, at what angle do you sharpen your (many) drawknives? I read 20-25° was good but when I put that angle on my blade the shavings became all square and crumbly.

@DanSantanaBows

2 жыл бұрын

That sounds about right to me. What kind of knife is it? Sounds like maybe your bevels could be at the right angle, but maybe the edge itself is blunter

@beesmongeese2978

2 жыл бұрын

@@DanSantanaBows It's an old straight blade drawknife. From doing some testing I think the fault may be in the wood. In this album I show the wood and the blade. Thank you for your help. imgur.com/a/qvR4C7h

@DanSantanaBows

2 жыл бұрын

@@beesmongeese2978 I wish I had a good answer but I’m not sure what’s wrong. The drawknife blade looks great. When i’ve worked yellow birch it carved very similarly to maple. i wonder if maybe your board has a bit of sideways runoff

@beesmongeese2978

2 жыл бұрын

@@DanSantanaBows Is it possible for a board to be excessively kiln dried and become mushy/crummy because of it? Maybe worth mentionning is that the board's surface was almost unusually smooth. Edit: Birch's MC is 9~11% while maple is 14~15%. So I think the problem remains a mystery.

@DanSantanaBows

2 жыл бұрын

Kiln drying isn’t an issue, the problem is more often rot, because lumberyard logs sometimes sit around a lot before they get milled

I would like to have your bow, can you ship it to Italy?

@DanSantanaBows

2 жыл бұрын

there would be significant import tax but I’m happy to look into it. I don’t have this particular bow anymore but can make you a different one

@francescofrancesco3303

2 жыл бұрын

@@DanSantanaBows if you can tell me the cost of the import tax and also the cost of the bow i think about it, i would like a bow of 64/66 "35/40 lbs # 28

How long do you steam your bows?

@DanSantanaBows

2 жыл бұрын

to bend recurves-45 minutes for thicker limbs. about 30 in this case. 10-15 minutes for minor bending corrections

Was the high ring count in your red oak bow not an issue? I read that a lower ring count (with thicker late wood rings) is more ideal than the inverse in oak bows. I have a red oak stage with a high ring count, so I hope it can work like yours.

@DanSantanaBows

Жыл бұрын

Ring count isn’t very important. I pay much more attention to the early wood to Lakewood ratio. This particular board was not that great

@richardsnow2609

7 ай бұрын

Can you elaborate on this concept please?

@DanSantanaBows

7 ай бұрын

I meant to say ring count isn’t important. The comment is now edited

@richardsnow2609

7 ай бұрын

@DanSantanaBows ty for your reply. Could you please explain the ratio and what you are actually looking for? And does red oak make a good bow? Also love your tutorials. I wanna make one for my daughter and wanna get it right.

@DanSantanaBows

7 ай бұрын

@richardsnow2609 Red oak is great. You can follow my board bow tutorial with it. The size of the growth rings isn’t a very good predictor of the quality of the wood. Really what matters is whether there is a lot of porous earlywood, since that’s not very good bow wood. If the ratio of early wood to latewood is low, then you have good bow wood since the latewood is the good stuff. The size of the rings doesn’t really tell you anything about the latewood ratio so it doesn’t really matter too much

Beautiful bow! I love simple bows and a 60" bow that can be pulled to 32" is quite impressive actually. That means you are practically bending this bow in half! Pretty cool when you think about it. Side note, I have actually raised the draw weight of a bow by putting a handle riser on it. A stiff handle riser can effectively remove the bending through the handle and raise the draw weight. Or maybe I am just imagining things. Have you ever tried that?

@DanSantanaBows

3 жыл бұрын

Makes sense since this shortens the bending limb of the bow. Kind of like how draw weight increases when you pike a bow except without changing the length. Only issue i see is that you’re really gonna have to trust that glue joint.

have you ever looked into fire hardening a bow? If not check out Thad Beckum and Keith Shannons video about it I notice you use whitewoods a lot it makes them much better.

@DanSantanaBows

3 жыл бұрын

Sure, I heat treat most of my bows. I was heat treating over coals well before that dvd and know for a fact that many other bowyers were as well. Great method, but not a new or revolutionary idea. You can accomplish the same quality of heat treat with other heat sources like a radiator or even a heat gun if you’re very patient.

@severinevans346

3 жыл бұрын

@@DanSantanaBows I have had some good bows come from heat treating a bow. But they always took some string follow of some kind. I haven't had any after trying this method it is very cumbersome sometimes but it works. Thanks for the reply great video man looking forward to the next.

@DanSantanaBows

3 жыл бұрын

There is a huge difference between a light and a heavy heat treat. To me fire hardening is just a very heavy heat treat and I disagree with shannon that it’s a distinct method, but of course really respect him and his skills as a bowyer. Heat is heat regardless of the source and in my opinion time and temperature are the main operating variables. Shannon makes some great and impressive bows, but the profiles he produces are very consistent with other bowyers who do deep heat treats. If the method was indeed superior then we would see superior profiles that other top bowyers are not capable of producing. I’ll eat my words if I see a “fire hardened” bow with a profile that’s not possible via other heat treating methods.

He was able to steam bend a red oak board? Any time I've tried that it either cracked or the bend just didn't take. Can anyone comment on that?

@DanSantanaBows

2 жыл бұрын

A lot of trouble bending boards comes from runoff and violated growth rings. So this wasnt as risky as bending most boards because i chased a growth ring on the back. If I’m doing a big bend I also like to chase a ring on the belly. If your bends are coming out, try locking with dry heat by heat treating the bend the next day. You can see a brief example of this in From Tree to Bow, after I bend the recurves

@ericbaillie1098

2 жыл бұрын

@@DanSantanaBows Just to make sure: steam the board, clamp it in the jig, wait until the next day and then reheat it with a heat gun while it is still in the jig?

@DanSantanaBows

2 жыл бұрын

@@ericbaillie1098 Yeah after it bends leave it overnight then heat treat in the jig the next day. Be careful because it the wood is still moist and you’re too aggressive with the heat gun you’ll see drying checks

@ericbaillie1098

2 жыл бұрын

@@DanSantanaBows Thank you for the response. I have just lifted a major splinter in the back of my current project so It's time to shop around for a new board. I'll try out your method.

@DanSantanaBows

2 жыл бұрын

@@ericbaillie1098 Forgot to say…I also sometimes hold a thin strip of metal like a flexible ruler on the belly of the stave when you bend. Helps keep any splinters from lifting

You dont really have a handle piece do you? It looks like its about the same thickness as the rest of the limbs

@DanSantanaBows

2 жыл бұрын

No riser, this one has a bending handle

@chrisw3493

2 жыл бұрын

@@DanSantanaBows oh i have never made one. Ill try it out. Thanks for the reply

@chrisw3493

2 жыл бұрын

@@DanSantanaBows by the way your channel is awesome. Wish it was around when i started making bows. It has helped me anyways. Thanks for the great content.

@DanSantanaBows

2 жыл бұрын

there’s a lot more info on this style of bending handle in the bowyers bibles in the sections on west coast bows. Bending handles where there isn’t a width change (ie english longbow or a d bow) are much easier to learn with. If you have a narrower handle there needs to be a really subtle thickness change through the fades and handle. Just don’t cut out the handle without leaving the area thicker or you’ll get a big weak spot-you still have to tiller the handle like any other part of the bow. Good luck!

@chrisw3493

2 жыл бұрын

@@DanSantanaBows awesome its going to be my next project. Thanks for the info. Have you seen Kramer Ammons channel.