Select your wood. Go to a hardware store or an archery store. Only cut live trees if you are sure it is a suitable wood, and are prepared to properly dry the wood. Just-cut, wet wood won’t work well. Look for a board that’s 6 feet long, 1″x2″. Oak and lemonwood are good woods for your first bows.Osage and yew make the best bows, but are difficult to work with. Do not use pine, poplar, or other soft woods. Check the grain. The board doesn’t have to be straight, but you want the grain to run straight, both on the face and the sides. Ideally, the grain should run straight down the length of the board, so that the back of the board is a single layer of wood unbroken by any growth rings. It’s unlikely that you’ll find such a board at lumber yard, so get a board with as few defects as possible. Use a pencil to roughly draw the shape of the bow on the wood: For a longbow, you want it long and narrow taper to the tip. Follow the natural grain. Glue on your second piece of wood now, if you plan to use one.
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