how to make a leather arm guard for shooting a bow

Hi,

The last few days I have been quite busy with all kind of designs for my tattoo website and also some hobby art projects. I wanted to create a leather armguard, to match the handle wrap on my first maple flatbow. There were a few large pieces of leather left. First I made a did some measurements on my arm and created a full size template for the armguard. Here you see the high quality template, you can use it for cutting your own guard as well. I also added a finger tab outline, so you have a complete set for your bow:

 You can click the image and download the high quality picture. If you print it, make sure the line is 10 cm, then the arm guard and fingertab will be at the right size.

Simply trace the shape on leather and cut it with a knife or scissors. I punched some holes in the sides of the guard with this piece of equipment:

Then you can press some metal rings in the holes for a smooth finish. A piece of paracord is used to strap it around the arm. You can use a simple knot, or get the element/button from a raincoat that straps your jacket, not sure how you name it...

The final piece has some stitching done on the back of the leather and I added another strip on top for some extra strength.

If you want the template in an Adobe Illustrator .ai file, just send me a message and I will forward the file, so you can adjust it to your own wishes.

Kind regards, Mark

info@storm3d.com

How to create an arrow rest and leather arm guard

Hi,

In the last few days I tested my bows and made some changes. The first hazel bow didn't have an arrow rest cut into the handle. When I first shot the bow it felt really good. It's really satisfying to shoot your own handmade bow. Unfortunately it wasn't really accurate, the arrows didin't fly in a straigth line to the target. I was hesitating a bit to cut an arrowrest in the finished bow, worried about weakening the handle and breaking it.

But after a few more shots this was the best option, so I first drew the shape of the arrow rest on the handle and used my jigsaw and rasps to get the desired shape.

On my other maple bow the handle/grip was not really comfortable, so I wanted to make a leather grip. My neighbour had a leather jacket that he wanted to get rid of so I was really happy to help him out :)

First I made a paper template and traced this on the leather. After it was cut I wanted to decorate it with a pattern. For some other projects, like my Maori powerkite, I use a Pfaff 1221 sewing machine. It's a powerfull German machine, that works through 3 layers of leather without any problem.

The sewing machine has a lot of different patterns built in, for normal sewing, but also for decoration purposes.
Here's some  image of the variety of stitches:

The final wrapped handle looks like this:

Tomorrow I will work on a leather arm guard in the same style, so please check back soon!

Kind regards, Mark