 Welcome back to the channel y'all. We are working on some bows here today, man. I am already thinking about Hunting well, I've been thinking about it for months quite honestly getting to the woods Trying to accomplish this goal. I've made for myself this year of taking out a whitetail with a bow and arrow setup that I've made myself. I'm on my fourth or fifth bow build right now and And I'm gonna show you guys some of the bows that I've been building right now We're on a hickory bow, and it's pretty much complete, but I'm gonna put a snake skin on this Never done a snake skin before thought it'd be kind of cool You guys can hang out with me here at the treehouse today, and we're gonna do that together Possum took him out. Wabam. No more rooters around in the grass with a flower bed So that's good. We're on a weekend here And I usually work on archer stuff and hang out with the family on the weekends So I've got my snake skin right here. We're going to rehydrate this snake skin It's been drying out for over a month. So we'll put it in some water Let it rehydrate and while it's doing that I'm gonna show you guys around with the bows that have been building. So this is what the snake skin looks like When it's all dried out. This is off of a rat snake a Texas rat snake It's got some cool red in it. I thought it'd be neat and normally you would take two snake skins Try to match them. It'd be really cool to have some copper heads or some rattlesnakes something like that don't have that but this came from a snake that was getting into a chicken coop and Eating some it already eating some baby chicks and some eggs causing some issues so we Into that and we are going to cover this bow because it happens to be a very long snake and we'll cover This whole entire hickory bow. So I got my favorite little tin cup here My camp cup my hunting cup always take around. I don't know why I'm putting that snakeskin in there So I'm gonna be drinking some delicious coffee out of that one day again But we'll just let that soak in there I'm gonna say about 30 minutes Never done this before and I'm not an expert. So Don't take my advice and I'm sure you guys will correct all my mistakes in the comments But if you guys do want to and you still have a chance to do this if you do want to try Building a bow. Maybe you have a deer lease that you always go to You just want to switch it up this year kind of like me you can build your own bow You can get the bow year's Bible which basically tells you everything you know Everything you need to know about building bows from wood in your backyard or getting staves or whatever you can buy staves There's tons of videos on on YouTube about it where you can learn that way as well But it seems like even everybody that that makes YouTube videos. They all revert back to that bow year's Bible That's kind of the the it's the Bible man. It's the basics of building bows So if you want to get into it I highly recommend that book and it's just cool. It's cool outdoor book to have in the collection So, let me put this on the tripod. I'll show you guys The Comanche bow first the Comanche flat bow. This is the first bow I built out of Osage And it's a Comanche flat bow. This was a branch a large branch But it was a branch of Osage wood. It's got tons of knots terrible terrible. That's why I had to put raw hide on it And you know, I've just finished sealing it this morning. So this is one I've been working on it is a Instinctual style bow. It's not made for a full draw which my full draw on a Traditional primitive bow is like 26 and a half fish So I can't even fully draw back. It's just like snap shooting. It's literally how a lot of the Indian shot It's really fun to shoot the problem is in a hunting scenario. I get a little nervous with consistency I like to have an anchor point So coming inside to the cave and this one is another branch bow that is also wrapped in raw hide and It's Osage and it's also sealed put a leather handle on it and it's about a You know, I'm gonna say after adding the raw hide it's close to 40 pounds pull it back. It's got a it's got a little three inch offset Tips or flip so it's you know semi-recurved. I guess you could call it So I love shooting this bow And in fact, we'll go outside and shoot this thing here in a minute So it's just fun to watch been patiently and progressively building arrows from You know full primitive style with like, you know, animal fat beeswax To you know more of like just trad style With the turkey feathers. I've got different spines and different lengths needless to say I have fully immersed myself into the trad game Love it, but I haven't I haven't forgot about the conventional y'all two of them I'm working on right now. The crossbow is a separate project But anyway, two of these I'm gonna be doing videos on these complete Full setups from scratch tags still on it. This one doesn't even have a string on it So complete full setup this year and I'm taking my newfound interest in trads and I'm kind of kind of putting that into these compounds. I'm pretty excited about archery this year to say at least All right, we're filling time while our snakeskins soaking So while this is still soaking I'm gonna get this Pickery bow ready. I'm gonna put it in my vise here Doing this traditional post up is a lot of it's just woodworking. So many of the tools that Already have I just put them to use and then making these bows So what I'm gonna do right here is just scuff up the top of this. So we're literally gonna take wood glue Put it on top of here and then apply the snakeskin. It's pretty simple It's exactly how I've been doing the raw hide as well. It's yet to come off yet to explode We shall see though. So to get a good adhesion. I'm gonna take this 80 grit Sandpaper I'm just gonna go with With the grain here Actually not not really liking the way that is Going too much I'm actually gonna take Sold crusty hacksaw Try to get a little bit deeper scarring on here Denatured alcohol this stuff right here Don't take a swig of Light you up. Not that I've done it. I'm just gonna wipe this down to get any sort of Cheeto stains Potato greasy potato chips. No kidding. I'm not not putting that stuff in my bows But you know just oils from my hands just messing around with it Any sort of other stuff from the shop? I Have to get to see a snakeskin Back to trad bow where I'm like that doesn't look good. They all look good Now I've never seen one with a rat snake on it. This is probably gonna be one of the few out there, but Nevertheless should look cool. It's got a little red pop in it. So when I put put a sealer on here It's gonna be pretty Wood glue that we're gonna be using and every everybody needs to have this in the wood shop. Anyways Tight bonds. This is type on three though. It's It's waterproof or they say it's waterproof. Here's the issue with this one right here It's I was putting that little recurve in there. I just I just sent it a little too hard Over the edge and just barely cracked. I was heating the wood And it just barely cracked and I tight bonded the absolute tar out of it I mean, there's a fat layer of tight bond on there. So by no means Am I a master craftsman at this but I've shot this bow enough times now that I think it's gonna hold up I haven't seen any issues in the crack. I've probably shot it two or three hundred two or three hundred arrows With having that crack on there and it hasn't has it budged So we're gonna add this snake skin on here now First of all, you want to drink that water for good luck just in case I'm just kidding. I'm gonna pour this water out All right, so it's in there about 20 minutes and now it's completely soggy soft That's what you want. So I'm gonna actually lay this out over the bow sort of how I want it Put it on look at this big boy. You think that thing could eat a chicken? Oh, yeah Eat its last chicken look at that. Isn't that pretty that is pretty cool guys That is awesome for the first time laying a snake skin on a bow just feels feels right So I'm gonna cut this little four inch section off here And for some reason it's also got like a weird I don't know if it just had meat more meat on it or something. It's kind of crooked Take that piece off Save that for something else maybe someday I'll need a piece of snakeskin for something now. I just need to make sure there's not scales Underneath it Which there are So it's not gonna go over the sides of the bow. It's technically gonna just be on the back So that is starting to get sort of tacky. I don't want to like super Liquidity because it'll slide around a bunch We're gonna start laying our skin on here So from right here, I don't really know what I'm doing. I am just pulling tight on this on both sides Hoping that the air bubbles come out and I'm trying to get everything even so it looks Nice and pretty. I feel like I'm missing a huge step right here something is Missing something big and I don't know what it is. I'll figure it out as soon as I'm done. I Did not refer to the boyers books At all before I came and did this I literally just walked out in the garage and said hey, I want to do this Turn on the camera. It's pretty much on here at this point y'all So all I'm really doing It's just stretching it out Just pulling the edges to try to get those Any little glue pockets bubbles out and then you stretch that skin To get it tight over the top Hey, I'm excited about that y'all that looks cool I just think that's one of those ones you just break it out of the truck at deer camp You know like boys. Hey, let me show you something got something new this year. You break it out They're like you did that dude. You really did that. Yeah, man. I made that they're not even gonna believe it That may fall off the first time I shoot it, but it's gonna look cool for a second or two Now I'm gonna shoot one of my bows so you guys can see it. I honestly I shoot Pretty much every day that I'm home every evening when it cools down just a scotch I just want to share these bows with you guys Really pretty awesome. We're tired on them So get a little shooting right here See if we get some groups Pretty decent little group. There we go. So, you know, that's it 15 yards About, you know, it's obviously in for the center So didn't get that but as long as you're consistent, whatever, you know, whatever you do What however you get there however you're hitting that target consistently, you know do it But for me something that I figured out Because early on I was like I'd be swapping the target and then my third or fourth shot It was just like I missed the target Like how am I off that much like I'm hitting and then I'm off And I just figured out my hand my hand position and a lot of times you see it in the arrow flight Or how it's positioned in the target if your arrow's left or right I've had a tendency to Come back and be inconsistent when I'm pulling back like I'm waiting for the string to leave my hand And now I'm sort of positioning right here It's like in between my ear And my chin like right on the jaw Making a little C with my hand. So that's that's where I'm pulling So it's not my full draw length like when I would draw when I draw back on my compound my knuckle Is sitting right there behind my ear But with this I'm right here. So it's you know, two and a half three inches shorter Ending on it partially because of the group was nice to look at but the form I My form was consistent all three shots felt great. So just took our snakeskin bow. I moved it outside So we can get some breeze. We've got a little breeze today. It's about 104 Little toasty not as hot as yesterday. It was 107 But we're gonna go inside here. So I heard a whisper Someone was gonna make an ice cream cookie That's something I want to be a part of there. There are osg's classic snickerdoodle ice cream Sandwich cookies that is happening right there my friends and that is my lovely wife's hands But lady Cookin ice cream sandwiches on a Sunday I won't let it get anywhere You won't let it get anywhere. No, it's gonna be messy except your mouth, right? Hey, what's going on here? How come she's being served for me? I'm sorry. Do you have an ice cream sandwich? I thought I was getting special treats. Did I not conquer the yard for you? You're right So Thank you I'm just kidding. Nothing in this world is just for me when you have Two kids in the household. So it is your last in line Big bonus points getting that possum now ice cream cookies magically here. It's you see this. See this happy wife Happy life. Thanks for happening Well, I'm gonna put that in my face. Okay We got cinnamon now my Cinnamon went down my throat All right, Bo's been out here three hours in a hundred plus degree heat So the wood glue it should be dry now when I see some of the scales that are starting to flake up a little bit so One thing that I've noticed Is that since it's been drying it's curling in some areas And it's starting to kind of get warpy on the edge and you can already hear it It's it's fairly dry But I think it's safe enough at this point that I can go ahead Take a take a blade and just take off that excess on the sides and see what we're looking like I've still got a little bit of work to do With the knife just taking the real sharp knife And since I've kind of beveled the edges of this bow, it's kind of rounded Just have to do that a little more with the knife and get those little spots touch up spot right here I put some wood glue in one of these little I don't know what you call little disposable containers. It's got a little metal Beak on the top so I can insert that into real small little cracks and crevasses And just a couple spots where I missed the edge. I'm going to put it up under there And press that down and I'm actually going to let this thing sit overnight really harden on the edges And then I'll be able to uh Just scuff it up on the sides with some sandpaper kind of get it all smooth Are we uh, we putting on a concert out here for that? This is great, you know I like I like my peaceful woodworking time with a little a little bit of toddler concert full dad life this is my This is my weekends Isn't that cool? Yeah Say yay daddy If it was a copperhead, do we honest it would be that's the ultimate you get two copperheads and Put them put them on there, but that's just one snake covering the entire bow. It's kind of crazy Almost I mean from tip to tail it definitely would have covered the entire thing And this is one that was in the chicken coop. Yeah, not ours. It was in uh, where we got our chicken from Yeah, like you see we roll like does yes It kind of has that like yes Yes for anyone that is out there wondering It is like sushi rolls I think I did a decent job. I don't see any uh big air bubbles that I can make out and You know if I had any of those we could probably fix them at this point, but I really don't see any Cut around that shelf pretty good So I think it looks awesome, man Makes for some good camo looks good. I think once we get uh coat of finish on there It's really gonna pop it'd be all shiny and glossy So I don't know if that'll be a like a primary hunting bow, but definitely something cool to Play around with the backyard and hunt smaller game with I think the rest of the snakeskin project is going to be pretty self-explanatory guys We're just going to scrape scales off put a coating on there and it's pretty much done I got a wait a while to be able to shoot it though I would show you in that in today's video, but it just takes it's going to take days from now So you can go check out the finished product on my instagram It's lake fork guy I'll leave the link for it down below as well And with the few short hours I have left here in the cave for the weekend working on archery stuff I'm working on Some arrows for compound bows and I want I want you guys to let me know in the comments any of you guys You know fletch your own arrows or just have preferences on arrows That you buy let me know in the comments down below. I have shot the same arrows For really the last five years this year. I'm I'm totally switching things up and I'd like to know in your comments. I'm still playing around with different fletchings to see What I like for you know for shooting broadheads that I'm going to be shooting and There's just tons. There's tons that goes goes into it lots of experimentation. So I want to let you guys Shout it out in the comments whatever you'd like and also as a community note There is a douche that is commenting on other people's comments in the comments down below Saying like they won texas number blah blah blah pretending they're me that is not me you guys don't Don't interact with that. I'm trying to go in there and delete these things and block this person But you know how it is trolls. What are you gonna do? Thank you guys for hanging out with me here at the treehouse today If you want to stay tuned the more fishing hunting and everything else outdoors Subscribe right here to the channel. Thank god bless you in your adventures and the outdoors