Project for a Cold Day: Making a Bow String Board

I am in the process of making my first bow. However, the next part of the project requires a couple different pieces of equipment. These pieces of equipment could be bought...or they could be made. Me being me, I have decided to make both of the two. The first piece of equipment is a board for making bow strings. Of course, bow strings can be quite long (especially since I am making a long bow). This board allows you to make all different lengths of strings in a very compact area.

To make this board, I followed the instructions found here. Here is how it turned out:

And here are the steps I took to make this.

STEP 2

Make marks on the board to help you see where all the nails and holes need to be.

This is the one side.

This is the other.

I found it easiest to make a line down the center of the board (along its entire length). Then measure everything off of that line.

STEP 3

Nail in the 3d finish nails where they need to be. You will need a total of 22 finish nails.

STEP 4

Next, you are going to make the holes for the adjustable peg. I went with the suggestion on the website and used a 10d common nail as my peg (with the ends cut off). Because of that, a 5/32" drill bit worked perfectly. If you want to use something else (like a dowel rod) size your holes appropriately.

Just to know how far in the board I am drilling, I always use a piece of tape wrapped around the drill bit as a depth gauge.

When you are finished, you will have a nice line of holes.

At this point, you should have a functional board that looks like this:

STEP 5

Add the length markings and any other markings that you may find helpful.

Make sure to break out that stencil to make your numbers perfect!

So there you have it - a bow string board. This is the first step in helping to make perfect homemade bowstrings.