Here's my latest attempt. Primitive in "flavor", but not in fact. I'm still in the learning stage. Each attempt is an experiment, taking me closer to my goal, which is to harvest a deer with equipment I make from materials I find on my own. I want to take as much modern technology as possible out of the picture.
This bow is actually laminated from birch and hickory. Birch ain't so hot for a bow, but it's what I had. Hickory is nice, but has a tendency to follow the string. I have some ash seasoning for a self-bow. I hid the hickory lamination by backing the bow with rattlesnake skins, and the bow tips are wrapped with buffalo sinew. Plains style quiver, but not a plains style bow. The lamination adds strength/durability, and somewhat reduces the tendency to follow the string. It's a "temporary" bow, as all of mine are. They all break eventually. Some take longer than others is all. A wooden bow is about 90% broken at full draw...
Cedar arrows, my next ones will be dogwood. Self-wood nocks, my own self-prepared turkey feather fletches, glued on with self-made hide glue and wrapped with buffalo sinew as well. Two of these have practice points on, one has a not-yet-sharpened steel point. Four of my more recently knapped stone points as well. I want to use those for hunting, but I'm not to that point yet. I'm not up to par with your average neanderthal yet when it comes to knapping. One point is chert, one obsidian, and two are from glass (which I use as a cheap practice material).
I started with traditional archery equipment, "progressed" to modern compounds (and teaching archery to kids), and finally "regressed" back to traditional. The modern stuff was just a passing fad for me. That's too much high-tech modern tech for me to stay interested in. Actually, most of my hunting is done with birds now, apart from some freezer-filling expeditions each fall/winter.
