Craftsmanship of Traditional Bows

"It almost takes a soul to travel through time and space to make a good bow."

"Cut wood in winter, take horns in spring, make tendons in summer, and combine them in autumn". According to ancient records, it took 3 years and more than 280 purely manual processes to make a good horn bow, the intricate details of the process and the difficulty of production are far beyond imagination.

Making a bow is like an art, with the accumulation of experience, the bowmakers has a strict process from material selection to production to achieve excellence. 

Material Selection—Buffalo Horn

Buffalo horn is an important material for making horn bows, and the bowmaker needs to select it strictly. Attach the thinly polished buffalo horn to the inside of the bow arm reduces self-weight and improves rebound.

Material Selection—Cow Tendons

The cow tendons determine the power of a bow. Disperse the sun-dried cow tendons and glue them to the bow arm in layers with boiled fish glue. This is the most critical process that affects the performance and longevity of the bow.

Craftsmanship—Traditional Lamination

Laminate the bow body with the pre-prepared molds to ensure a tight fit of all parts of the bow.

Craftsmanship—Decoration

The bowmaker adds handcrafted art to the finished bow, putting the finishing touches on it.

Craftsmanship—Bow-Training

When everything is done, train the bow and slowly hone the adaptability of the new bow to the various tensions that produce deformation.

The traditional craft of bow making is an art, full of mystery and artisan spirit.

Unlike traditional craftsmanship, a good laminated bow still takes a lot of time, process and human labor resources to complete today, despite the incorporation of mechanized production.

Process—Hand Polishing

The bowmaker polishing bamboo chip on the polishing machine. After the bamboo chip is polished thin, it is laminated with fiberglass or other materials.

Process—Hand-Finished

The bow shape has appeared after lamination and waiting for hand-carving, lacquering, details polishing and other decoration.

Process—Recurve Riser

Sanding out the shape of the recurve bow riser waiting for detail carving and lacquer polishing.

Traditional bow craft is a very important cultural heritage of mankind, with a long history of thousands of years. Making a good traditional bow requires a lot of careful handwork, but it is worth it the moment you like it and enjoy it.

May everyone find joy and comfort in traditional archery!