If you have never made a bow, it will be a trying adventure, but can be done. I’d suggest to go with lams under glass, that way the tillering is not as hard. That is as long as you get even tappered lams. You can buy them from threerivers, rubber bow, trad gang, etc. or a host of places on the internet as well as glass lams. Buying them would be the easiest way. IF you go with solid ash, tiller to a heavier weight than you want because it will lose some weight when you shoot it in, as well, it will develop set. I don’t like ash as a bow wood, it breaks easy. It works and is easy to read the grain, but ash alone is not your best choice. Have you ever build and tillered a wood bow? If not, id suggest you do so, that way you can get and idea of how to tiller because to make a warf bow you’re going to have to do more than just build limbs. You will be making a takedown bow in all essence. I did one with a black bear riser a few years ago. I made Osage lams around action boo between glass. It was my only bow ever made with a takedown design. Are you going to go with a recurve design, reflexed design, etc.? Are you going to deflex the limbs or keep them straight off the riser. These are things to consider. If you do a recurve, you will need to build a caul to the shape of reflex. If you do a solid limb, you won’t be able to glue in the reflex, but will need to steam the limb or bend them with a heat gun and mineral oil.If you do go solid wood, id suggest doing a lam wood, that way you can simply glue in the reflex/deflex/recurve. As for glue, the best wood glue would be titebond III.If you use glass to sandwich the wood in, you will need to use a two part epoxy like urac 185 or smooth on 40. You will also need to cook it at a temps higher than you can foresee the bow ever experiencing because epoxies will soften a few degrees higher than what it cured at. I cook any of my bows that use epoxy at 160 degrees for 6 hours. Also, you will need to score the surfaces with something more than sand paper. Epoxy will not grab a smooth surface well. I use a gig saw blade in a vice.

As for the backing, it is a cool backing, and if you glue straight to wood you can use any of the wood glues like titebond II or titebond III. If you put in on glass, any strong epoxy will hold it. I have never backed with a snake skin but would use a two ton quick dry epoxy if I were to do it on wood or glass. The only consideration with using snake skin as a backing, it will not support wood (wont serve as a single wood backing), you will need to back a solid limb then put on the snake skin. Also, you will need a stringer to string the bow so you don’t booger the snake skin. Snake skin is only for decoration, a cool decoration at that.


I guess I’ve rambled enough posting my thoughts. Hope some of this will help you consider which rout you want to go.