This is a story about making a crossbow with your own hands at home. The first desire to make a crossbow myself arose unexpectedly, while watching a movie on TV. I still don’t understand what attracted me so much to this weapon. Some switch just turned in my brain, and in addition to the pure, devoted love of archery, I also developed a passionate attraction to crossbows.
By the way, I remember the name of that film: “Escape is Impossible” - a fantastic action film recorded on videotape, in the “inimitable” translation by Leonid Volodarsky. It was 1996.
The first pleasant impression of discovering such a fascinating topic as a crossbow and everything connected with it, without any intermediate stage, grew in me into uncontrollable fanaticism. I wanted to have a crossbow until I had a toothache. The same as, for example, Barnett Coomando from films with Chuck Norris.
Those who are older remember that in the 90s the arms market of our country was still in its infancy, and such an abundance of bows and crossbows as today was out of the question.
If a crossbow appeared in weapons or hunting stores in the early 90s, it was only in single copies. And even then, mostly from the category of imported cheap consumer goods, which were purchased for pennies. But they were often sold for exorbitant amounts of money by the standards of that time. And the only logical solution then was to take it and start making a crossbow for myself.
It’s worth explaining here: I was incredibly lucky that at that time I was working as a toolmaker at a local metallurgical plant. That is, from the very beginning I had access to both materials and equipment.
But that's only half the battle. The most important question was - where to get information? How can I find out how a crossbow is designed? What parts does it have inside? Where to get blueprints for a crossbow and how to assemble it later. There was no Internet yet.
As a result, I managed to find out something through questioning, thought of something myself, and somewhere I was able to read or see a picture on a topic that interested me. Information sometimes had to be collected literally from newspaper clippings.
Finally, the happy moment came, and I set about creating a prototype.
How to make a crossbow.
Visually, I was guided by a crossbow from the Snipe company. There was a company producing crossbows for some time, in St. Petersburg, I think. I cut out a photo of their crossbow from a 1992 weapons magazine. I couldn’t find information about them today, but the Interloper AK-47, which appeared much later, is suspiciously similar to that crossbow.
The guide of my crossbow consisted of two parts, connected to each other by welding (seriously, real hardcore). One of the parts was the trigger mechanism box; a bar with a milled dovetail was screwed on top. I planned to immediately install optics and did not count on open sights. The bar covered the parts of the mechanism, and a spring plate, cut from a piece of an old ruler, was attached to it, which presses the arrow to the groove on the guide.
This is almost exactly what my first homemade crossbow looked like. The only thing is that it did not have a lever cocking mechanism. And the butt did not have such elegant shapes; the lower part was straight. And it’s very similar.
I planned to make the shoulders separate and removable - before that, I had seen enough of sporting crossbows in a weapons magazine, which was brought by a fellow worker who heard about my concern.
The block for them was milled on a machine; the idea was to make it so that it would be attached to the guide with a screw, similar to how the blocks assembled with the shoulders of Excalibur crossbows are attached today. But when I was young, I made a mistake with the drill, and I had to weld the block. Only the shoulders themselves remained removable.
There’s no other word for how I fenced them off; it’s a different story altogether.
Question one: what are the shoulders made of? At that moment the answer suggested itself. And I went to where they cut scrap metal at our factory to look for a spring. What do you want me to do? I basically couldn’t find any other material for flexible elements then.
Of course, I found the spring and the work began to boil.
Making a crossbow with your own hands
I now understand that I violated all conceivable and inconceivable technical processes and principles at that time. At that moment it didn’t matter to me, I was young and full of creative energy.
I found a spring from a tractor, and used a cutter to cut a piece about 400 mm long from it. Next: it was necessary to get two narrower pieces from one piece approximately 50-55mm wide.
I couldn’t think of anything better than to use guillotine shears for cutting metal and halve the plate on them. One half turned out smooth, the other was bent with a screw. At that time I didn’t even think about some microcracks caused by rough cutting and other similar dregs.
Returning to my site, I clamped the “screw” half of the spring in a vice and straightened it using simple manipulations. In the same vice, I shaped the shoulders, bending the ends outward and slightly bending the plates. The result was two identical shoulders with a bidirectional smooth bend. Well, almost identical.
I understood that the range of bending of the crossbow arms and the operation of the springs when driving a vehicle are noticeably different, and the halves of the arms would have to be re-heated. Fortunately, our workshop had a well-equipped thermal unit with a competent thermal operator. It was he who told me how to properly harden spring steel.
Looking ahead, I will say that soon, repeating the same technology, I had to make a second set of shoulders. This happened because two young dunces - me and my friend - decided to set the bowstring by resting one shoulder on the bench and pressing the other from above. A lever was created that went to a break and the lower arm broke near the fastening screw.
I made the second set of shoulders faster, taking into account previous experience. In terms of tension force, the arms turned out to be somewhere around 60-65 kg, with a working stroke of the bowstring of 250 mm. The shoulder width was 720mm.
The small working stroke is due to the peculiarity of the steel arms, which do not have the same flexibility as fiberglass ones with similar dimensions. But I didn’t want to make a wide arc for the sake of a slight increase in the stroke of the bowstring.
On top of the steel guide I glued a fiberglass plate with a semicircular groove along which the bowstring was supposed to slide and the bolt to move. I didn’t take into account at all then that the fact that the bowstring lay on the guide with a large bend. The friction turned out to be quite strong and soon the fiberglass began to wear out, bristling with fibers.
The bracket on which you place your foot to cock the crossbow turned out to be a little small and only allowed you to insert the toe of your boot. But over time I got used to doing it.
The steel parts of the crossbow were finished, the next step was making the stock. The only wood suitable for this task was oak, ash and birch. The choice fell on ash. It had a nicer texture than just white birch wood. The oak was simply too heavy.
Folk art of homemade crossbowmen
The butt and fore-end were supposed to be separate. I made the forend in the shape of a strongly elongated trapezoid, the wider part was located just under the palm, then it smoothly tapered in width and height. The edge of the forend was beveled to give it a more graceful shape.
The stock looks wide, with a straight bottom and a large hole where the thumb goes through. It was comfortable to hold the crossbow and aim. The handguard was attached in a rather funny way: a groove was milled into the wood, into which the guide almost completely sunk. Without further ado, I took and glued the forend and a plate with a groove directly to the guide using epoxy - for some reason I didn’t want there to be holes in the lower part of the forend and screw heads visible. It seemed that it would be unaesthetic.
After all the metal parts were assembled, the forend was glued and the stock was installed - it was attached with two screws to the sight post from below, another question arose: “Where can I get suitable threads for the bowstring?” I immediately rejected all the advice to use nylon thread or, as some “especially gifted” people said, fishing line.
My stepfather helped me out, quite by accident. He was sorting out old trash in the garage, and from somewhere he fished out a large coil of thin rope, twisted from unknown threads. The rope did not stretch under the force, and after several experiments I wound a bowstring from it onto a crossbow.
There are also block homemade structures
I almost forgot to tell you how the trigger mechanism on that crossbow was designed. It turned out, oddly enough, for me it was durable, reliable in operation and consisting of only three parts and two springs.
The hook that secures the bowstring in the cocked state, or popularly “nut,” was made in the form of a washer 10 mm thick. The groove for the passage of the bowstring and the protrusion into which the locking sear fits are made using files of different calibers. The “nut” was single-toothed and the back of the bolt did not rest against the bowstring.
Wanting to squeeze the trigger mechanism into the small dimensions of its box, I got carried away and slightly incorrectly distributed the length of the sear arms relative to the center of rotation of its axis. This played a cruel joke on me and the descent turned out to be a little harsh.
During the firing process, the “nut” rotated, carried away by the bowstring. After which he hit the front wall of the box and happily bounced back, where he stopped. Before cocking, it had to be lowered manually each time to allow the string to pass through and the “nut” to be rotated to the position where it was fixed by the sear. I was unable to find a technical solution so that the hook would remain in the lowered position after the shot. I racked my brain and racked my brain, but couldn’t come up with anything worthwhile. After which I gave up on this matter and left everything as it was.
The final touch in creating this crossbow was the installation of a sight. At that time, gun stores began to actively import pneumatics and various useful things for them. Like inexpensive optical sights, for example. This is the one I bought. I took a simple four-power scope with an eyepiece with a diameter of 25mm. Soon it was installed on the crossbow.
The long-awaited moment of the first tests was getting closer, all that remained was to make the bolts - and you could shoot.
Crossbow at home: preparing for shooting.
It was impossible to find aluminum tubes with a thin wall and I had to opt for wooden shafts. For this matter, I again turned to the place where they fitted me with wood for the butt - to the Model Shop. The same ash tree came up, whose dense but not very heavy wood was perfect.
A friend of mine turned the shafts on a wood lathe; the conical tips also came out from under the turner’s cutter, only for metal.
I painted the bolts poisonous red to make them harder to lose, and I also coated them with varnish on top. The tips, which were sharpened for me as many as ten of them, turned out to be of slightly different shapes, but almost the same length - and that’s a joy. I started going through them and ended up selecting more or less the same ones. It turned out to be two groups of tips, six in one and four in the other.
I placed the tips on the shafts, securing them with Moment glue. Next in line was the plumage, which was not clear what to make of. A bookstore helped me out - there I saw and later bought these thin multi-colored folders into which pieces of paper were inserted. Their covers were made of thick cellophane, which held its shape well. So they were used to feather the bolts for my crossbow.
I invented the manufacturing technology quite quickly: I cut out a pen template from cardboard, traced it with a pen, attached it to the covers of folders, and used ordinary scissors to cut them into the required quantity.
As you probably know, branded feathers for bow and crossbow arrows have a seat in the form of edges facing to the sides, by which the feather is glued to the arrow shaft.
I got around this point in a rather interesting way. To begin with, I cut the feathers in a double set. One thicker feather was glued together from two thin halves. Before gluing, I outlined the edges of the halves identically, and then simply bent them in different directions. The resulting seats are almost the same as those of factory rubber feathers. All that remains is to glue them onto the bolt shafts, which is exactly what I did. There were two feathers on each bolt, because there was a semicircular groove on the top of the guide. I was not yet technically mature enough to make a deep groove along which the lower feather passes, when there are three of them.
So, tests! Everything happened in the forest, the target was a cardboard box filled with old rags and leaning against a thick pine tree. With my first shot, I drove the bolt into the tree just below the box. An attempt to pull it out ended with the shaft remaining in my hand, and the tip stuck deep in the barrel. I didn’t bother picking at the tree to get it out and left everything as it was.
The crossbow showed its good side, it shot sharply, the steel shoulders straightened at a good speed, sending bolts into the target. The lock worked properly, without breakdowns or interruptions, except that the release was a little harsh. I cocked the string while wearing gloves - it cut my fingers very “spiritually”, but I didn’t know anything about the tension cord and how it works.
As a result, after the first shooting I only had three intact bolts that were not broken.
That crossbow stayed with me for some time, pleasing the eye and warming the soul. But I moved on, working on the creation of the next, more perfect model, and it was given into the possession of my friend, who then shared my passion.
You will learn about how my next homemade products turned out in another article. In the meantime, here is an example of an interesting video of a crossbow made at home by the same enthusiasts.
Video of shooting from a crossbow made by yourself.
Reading time ≈ 8 minutes
Today, making a crossbow with your own hands at home is not so difficult if you have the necessary drawings and the desire to work hard. Having modern materials and tools on hand, you can make both hunting, tournament and sports weapons.
What have we gained and what have we lost?
Unfortunately, the centuries-old experience of our ancestors in making crossbows and bows was largely lost. Many secrets remained forever in the abyss of time. But the current generation has finally realized the importance of crossbows and bows. The ability to make such weapons is returning again. More and more people are becoming his fans, joining the ranks of modern Robin Hoods. Now everyone can make a crossbow. Next, we revealed all the features and detailed instructions for creating a crossbow at home.
Features of creating a crossbow at home
Today on the Internet you can find a lot of offers for purchasing a ready-made crossbow. There are many models for different tastes, but it is worth noting that the price will vary. Nevertheless, there are a lot of people who want to make throwing weapons with their own hands. Initially, a beginner may get lost in a series of actions, but now we will tell you how to make a crossbow with your own hands at home and provide drawings so that everything is as correct as possible. This is very important, because even small manufacturing errors can lead to unpleasant and unexpected surprises in the future, including injury.
Before you begin the process of manufacturing the device, you should dwell on two important points.
- On the territory of our country, the crossbow is used exclusively in entertainment or sports competitions and events. Using it as a hunting weapon is strictly prohibited! All types of throwing weapons that have a tension gain of 43 kg and more are combat types, as in the photo. In this case, you must have a special permission for use, which can be obtained from the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Combat crossbow
- A crossbow is a special design that is subject to incredible loads during use. That is why it is important to follow all the rules for its manufacture and not allow even the slightest mistakes and errors. Otherwise, you may be injured during operation. Do not forget about the multiple safety margin that absolutely all structural elements must have.
It is very easy to get injured with an incorrectly made crossbow.
Making a bow
One of the main components of the entire structure and the engine of the crossbow was the bow. This is a plate with great elasticity, which has a complex shape. This plate has a bend. For greater functionality, one more bend is created at both ends.
Making a crossbow should always start with a bow. The remaining components should simply be selected to suit it:
- stock parameters;
- what will be the release mechanism;
- Which tension option is better - block or recursive type.
The bow is the main link of the crossbow
How to choose material for manufacturing?
A crossbow can be made from several materials - wood, metal or composite. But what is better to choose is up to you:
- wood - it is better not to use it as the main material. The wood that can be found in the yard is not of sufficient quality for a self-made crossbow. A branch from the forest will eventually lose its original appearance and properties due to drying out. Although this option is suitable for short-term use. For example, play shooting games at the dacha in the summer. Despite this, ready-made models of Scorpio and Tarantula crossbows, which consist of wood, have become quite popular;
- composite – consists of fiberglass, which is joined together with an epoxy binder. At first glance, this material seems simple and ideal. But only at first glance. The downside is the mandatory perfect adherence to all the nuances of the manufacturing instructions - accurate calculation of the proportion of the mixture, compliance with drying conditions and correct exposure. It is almost impossible to create and maintain such important conditions at home.
Crossbows can be made from anything
Metal
It should be given a separate place among all materials. It has no alternatives or competitors. Owners of old Moskvich cars with leaf springs will definitely win.
You only need 1 sheet - the 2nd in size. If size is not a problem for you, then you can make a crossbow from the first sheet. The first one is even more profitable to use due to the presence of tubes on the edges. We can say that the bracket on which the bowstring or blocks are attached is ready.
To attach the bow to the stock you will need a block. It is shaped like the letter P and seems to hug the stock from the front side. Its fastening can be of two types:
- Weld tightly to the spring leaf using welding. But this option is unsafe and impractical. Each time, excessive load will be applied to the welds, which will sooner or later lead to the part being torn off;
- use of a ball joint on the block. This part from a VAZ2108 or 09 is ideal. You need to fix the bow on the pin itself. The ease also lies in the fact that the sheet has a hole suitable for this.
Important: A connection with bolts, and ideally with rivets, is many times better than a conventional weld, since this part of the crossbow experiences enormous vibration overloads. Homemade pulleys can also be found among Moskvich spare parts. Window lifter elements are suitable for this.
Special attention should be paid to the manufacture of the bowstring. To avoid searching for a suitable element for a long time, many people use a metal cable (very thin). But it is better to replace this option with a durable climbing cord, with a cross-section from 5 to 8 mm. The cable is unreliable due to the fact that it cannot withstand incoming changing loads for a long time.
The cord will allow you to use the crossbow for a long time and safely
When you have chosen the material of the string and attached it to the bow, it does not hurt to test it for bending. It is best to use a dynamometer for these purposes (100 - 150 kg). After such tests, you will decide on important parameters that will be useful in the further manufacture of the crossbow:
Crossbow test
Creation of a lodge
An equally important element is the crossbow stock. In this case, you can’t do without wood as the main material. But not all wood can be used. For example, you should give up aspen, spruce, alder and pine. Oak, beech, and elm are considered good options. For a good crossbow, such a blank must be perfectly dried for a couple of decades, which is, in principle, unrealistic for ordinary home production.
Lodge drawing
For a homemade crossbow, 7–9 mm plywood with moisture-resistant properties is suitable. Then, 3–5 contours of the future part should be cut out of this material and joined together with epoxy resin. Despite the external unpresentability, such a part will be unusually reliable and strong.
Before making a stock, pay attention to some features:
- shape: it is better not to choose a half-pistol shape. A straight English stock is optimal. The advantage was not only ease of creation, but also increased strength;
- When you assemble all the elements of the stock, take into account the course of the bowstring and the resulting load. The stroke of the bowstring is the distance from the release groove to the block itself. Load – the thickness of the false walls where they are fixed. In a straight English stock there is no such thinness between the fore-end and the butt as in the semi-pistol version;
- The arrow guide is the main element of the stock. Make sure it is smooth and strong enough. No need to worry about how to make such a detail. A plate that is framed by Moskvich glass or furniture fittings is suitable;
Creating a crossbow trigger
It is almost impossible to make such a link in a house structure, even if you have the necessary diagram. The exception is if you are a professional locksmith and you have the necessary equipment.
Crossbow trigger diagram
It’s great if you have a trigger for an air rifle. Having modified it a little, you will receive a finished part for your homemade crossbow.
A casing should be placed above the mechanism itself, the height of which is 2–5 cm. It is needed to protect against moisture and debris. In addition, it will become the basis for devices that increase the aiming of fire - rear sight, optics.
The front of the casing (placed above the trigger mechanism itself) has the shape of a tail, the length of which does not exceed 10 cm. It is this that will hold the back of the arrow on the guide itself.
You can make arrows yourself or buy them in a specialized department. Congratulations, you were able to make a crossbow with your own hands at home, using ready-made drawings with instructions. If you did everything correctly, it will serve you for many years. For even more practical tips, watch the video.
Evgenia Smirnova
To send light into the depths of the human heart - this is the purpose of the artist
Content
How to make a crossbow - this question worries both hunters and shooting enthusiasts. Shooting from a crossbow, as from a military weapon, is left far behind. Today, crossbow shooting is practiced mainly by professional athletes, as well as by amateurs who want to shoot at targets. Shooting with a crossbow has a number of advantages over shooting with a firearm. Firstly, it is silent shooting, and secondly, accessibility and comparative safety. A crossbow does not require any permission or medical examination to purchase it. You just need to buy a ready-made one (for which you will have to pay several hundred dollars or more), or make a weapon yourself. That is why your favorite useful advice site will tell you today how to make a crossbow yourself.
How to make a mini crossbow - instructions
Types of weapons and ammunition for them
Experts distinguish two types of crossbows - field and match. Ammunition for both types is considered to be feathered arrows. Carbon and duralumin feathered arrows are available on sale. You can learn and compete in shooting using a standard five-color archery target, which is also available for sale. Field crossbow shooters usually compete at distances of 35, 50, 65 meters (outdoors) and 10, 18 meters (indoors). Match shooters usually compete only in special premises - shooting ranges at distances of 10 and 30 meters.
Hunting with a crossbow is an activity for real men
Many owners use their devices for hunting. Hunting with a crossbow is fundamentally different from hunting with a gun - shooting animals from a tower, a helicopter, or driving an animal in a large crowd is not everyone’s cup of tea. Hunting, on the contrary, loves silence and solitude. In some ways, this type of hunting is reminiscent of the famous heroic pastime - hunting a bear with a spear. In fact, to shoot you need to approach the animal at a distance of 50 meters or closer. Not everyone will be able to approach a boar at such a short distance, and approaching it at such a short distance requires special hunting skills. Well, the more valuable the loot!
How to choose
Power
For hunting birds or small animals, a crossbow with a draw power of 50 kg is sufficient. With a pulling power of 50-70 kg, you can hunt large ungulates. For wild boar hunting, crossbows with a power of 80 kg are used.
What ammunition can be used
Hunting large game requires special ammunition. To hunt large prey you need to use special professional arrows made of fiberglass or carbon. These arrows are strong and light enough to be properly centered to ensure a successful hit. There are also sometimes excellent aluminum arrows on sale. But such ammunition is only suitable for hunting small animals or birds. Manufacturers of arrows provide the possibility of turning hunting ammunition into sports ammunition - to do this, you just need to change the arrow tip. The threaded connection allows this to be done very quickly. A hunting arrow weighs from 30 to 35 grams, the length of such an arrow is from 45 to 50 cm. As a rule, the length of the feather of a hunting arrow is longer than that of a sports arrow, because the arrow needs to stabilize faster in flight to assume a firing position.
I don't think that when we decide to make a crossbow, we will have at hand all the tools we want and a bunch of raw materials. Therefore, it is difficult to predict what our crossbow will be made of, so we will simply consider the main components made with minimal complexity. We will also, if possible, avoid metal parts.
In order to present a general view of what should happen, I will give a picture from the site www.daslife.ru.
Naturally, I do not suggest doing everything according to size, just taking into account the overall structure.
One of the most important parts of a crossbow is the arc. As you might guess, it has a decisive influence on the speed of the arrow, and therefore on the combat power of the crossbow. An arc can be made from both wood and metal. A wooden arch can be either made from a single piece of wood or combined.
The option using one type of wood is the simplest, but also the least powerful. Almost any type of wood is suitable for manufacturing: ash, maple, hazel, juniper, birch, oak, yew, elm, white acacia. You can use both thick branches and trunks of young trees. Ideally, take the harvest in winter when there is no sap flow; naturally, the worst time is in spring. As you might guess, a workpiece with knots is a completely unsuitable option. In general, making an arc is in many ways similar to making a bow, and you can read about it on Hobbit's blog.
Making a composite arch is not cheap, because it requires covering the arch with tendons and horny plates. Most likely you won’t have either one or the other, or glue on hand =)
Although we agreed to use wood, it is worth noting that the springs of Soviet passenger cars will make very powerful arches, and if possible, they should be used.
Attaching the arc to the stock is usually done to the end of the crossbow using ropes, through a window 10-15 centimeters from the arc. The picture shows examples of fastening the arc; as you can see, wooden wedges can be used to secure the arc. 
Another important element is the trigger mechanism. Let's consider the simplest option - a pin lock. 
When erected, the bowstring hooks onto the protrusion, and underneath there is a cylindrical pin (1) that rests against the body of the trigger lever (2).
Also, to ensure that the arrow does not leave the crossbow before the shot, it is recommended to apply a little pressure. Similar to the one shown in the photo. 
The crossbow stock, the recess in which the arrow is located, is perhaps the most labor-intensive part of the crossbow and requires filigree processing. If we don’t have a metal stock processed on a milling machine (and we don’t), we can replace it with a carefully sanded wooden one. Do not forget that the advantage of a combat crossbow over a wooden bow is not only in shooting power (although a homemade crossbow without rollers and a block system is unlikely to exceed a bow in this indicator), but primarily in the convenience of its design and the ability to conduct aimed fire. To do this, it is necessary, taking into account the flight path of the arrow, to adjust the stock so that it is located at an angle. The average value is 5.6 degrees, but we advise you to decide on the distance at which you will send the arrows, and what is called “shoot” the finished product, after each series of shots changing the angle of the stock until your homemade crossbow begins to send arrows exactly at target.
Well, the last point is the bowstring tension device. Since the tension force of the crossbow arc can exceed 100 kg, at least the simplest device for tensioning the crossbow should be provided. 
And finally, a photo of a homemade crossbow. 
Making a crossbow string(taken from www.turmaster.com/)
During a shot, the bowstring receives significant tension and rupture pressure; therefore, one of the conditions imposed on it is its ability to withstand a large number of shots, i.e. have durability, vitality. In addition, the bowstring should be light and low-stretch.
The following threads are used to make bowstrings: lavsan, dacron, kevlar, deinema, SVM, fastflight and other synthetic fiber threads.
In this case, you need to have a simple device.
As can be seen from the figure, it consists of a wooden plank, in which on one side there is a slot and a movable threaded rod, allowing it to be installed and secured in different places; at the other end of the plank on the axis there is a V-shaped part made of plywood or wood with a thickness of about 10 mm. Two rods are permanently fixed at the ends of the part. The V-shaped part is fixed in two positions. The first position is shown in the figure, in the second position the two rods are in line with the movable rod.
If such or a similar device is not available, the string can be wound between two nails driven at the required distance along the length of the string. Winding the thread is done in a circular motion of the hand with uniform tension on the thread. The number of threads depends on the strength of the bow
After the bowstring is wound, a safety winding is made of the loops and its middle.
The safety winding is made using twisted silk thread, nylon, nylon, or cotton bobbin thread. When making a bowstring from Kevlar threads, it is necessary to strengthen the loop, either by making additional padding from the threads and weaving them into the bowstring, or by doubling the number of them in the loop. After winding the middle of the loop, the V-shaped plate is rotated to its original position and the end of the bowstring is wound.
The second loop is wrapped in this way. In this case, it is necessary to accurately maintain the middle of the winding. The string attached to the bow should not have sagging threads; their presence indicates poor-quality manufacturing of the string. As a rule, this happens if the windings are not made with the same tension.
The safety winding in the middle of the string is made at the moment it is put on the bow. The safety winding should not be made too tightly: this significantly extends the service life of the bowstring.
To protect the bowstring from moisture, lightly rub it with beeswax. The wax should be rubbed in carefully so that the string threads do not break or become deformed. It must be remembered that lubricant increases the weight of the bowstring and leads to a decrease in the speed of the arrow, so it should be lubricated with a small amount of wax.
The threads from which the bowstring is made, under the conditions created by the work of the shoulders, are lengthened (from lavsan or dacron by 2-3%, from Kevlar by 0.8%). In this regard, when making a bowstring from Kevlar, it is recommended to make it slightly longer than from Dacron and Dacron.
Shooting practice involves replacing bowstrings after 5,000-10,000 shots. Kevlar bowstrings last significantly less and can withstand about 2000-5000 shots.
By twisting the bowstring, you can change its size until the accuracy of shooting becomes satisfactory. The maximum number of turns to change the length of the bowstring is 30. If more turns are required, it means the string is too long and a new one should be made
Making a crossbow string 
Metal rope string
A cable with a thickness of 1.5 - 2.5 mm is suitable for making a crossbow bowstring. But it has a number of features that must be taken into account. In general, a bowstring made of synthetic threads is more preferable.
Features of using a metal cable:
Structurally, the cable is designed for static loads. Under dynamic loads, it collapses much faster.
Over time, the cable will stretch and, accordingly, the bowstring will weaken
The mass of a rope bowstring significantly exceeds the mass of the same bowstring made of synthetic materials. This indirectly affects the speed of the arrow, since the arms require more energy to accelerate the massive cable.
When chafing or excessive stress occurs, the cable, as a rule, breaks in places of kinks, knots, fastenings
You can get loops at the ends of the cable by tying it with an ordinary oak loop. Soldering, as a method of connecting cable ends, is less reliable in operation. Riveting the ends of the cable in a copper or brass tube has worked well. 
Loops for attaching a bowstring to a crossbow.
Some examples of more complex trigger mechanisms 
In addition, it will be interesting to shoot from such a weapon yourself. Everything is done quite simply; you can get by with hand tools. The crossbow turned out to be quite powerful, as for target practice. Double limbs are used here, which increases the rigidity of the bow and allows you to throw wooden arrows at high speed. The author uses self-tapping screws as arrowheads, but you can use your imagination and come up with something more interesting.
Materials and tools used
List of materials:
- timber;
- PVC pipe;
- two self-tapping screws;
- strong rope;
- wooden rods for arrows;
- adhesive tape (for feathers).
List of tools:
- hacksaw or pendulum saw;
- jigsaw;
- belt grinder;
- drill;
- marker;
- roulette;
- screwdriver;
- construction hair dryer;
- vice;
- oil for wood processing;
- paint for painting onions (optional).
Crossbow making process:
Step one. Cutting out blanks
First of all, let's cut the wooden beam, it will be used to make the base. We also need to cut the pipe. You should have two parts, long and short. See photos for dimensions.
Step two. Making a bed
We make the bed from a wooden beam. First of all, we will make the necessary markings using a marker. Well, then we cut out the extra parts using a jigsaw; a jigsaw will cope with this task perfectly.
Step three. Let's make a bow
Our bow consists of two parts, which increases its rigidity. Everything is made from PVC pipes that need to be made flat. To do this, we will need a vice with a wooden insert so that there are no marks left on the pipes. We heat the pipe with a hair dryer until it becomes soft, and then squeeze it in a vice. Step by step we heat the areas and compress them. Finally, we form the desired bow profile.
Step four. Bow mount
To attach the bow, look for its center, and then drill two holes, like the author. For fastening we use two self-tapping screws and washers. But don’t fasten the bow tightly yet, it still needs to be modified.
Step five. Finalizing the bow
The essence of the modification is to make grooves at the ends of the arms, to which the bowstring can be tied. We make markings and cut out excess parts using a jigsaw. As for the short arm, you need to make grooves at the ends so that the string does not fly off.
Step six. Installing the bowstring
We use synthetic strong rope as a bowstring. Cut two pieces of the required length and melt the ends using a lighter. Well, then we tie the main string to the ends of the shoulder with a slight tension. As for the additional shoulder, in order to use it, you will need another rope. You can see how everything connects in the photo.
Step seven. Arrangement of the trigger mechanism
The trigger mechanism is of the trigger type. It consists of two parts, one is the trigger, and the second is a part with teeth, one of which holds the bowstring, and the other rests against the trigger. These parts can be cut from plywood using a jigsaw.
Step eight. Making arrows
We make arrows from wooden rods. To stabilize the flight, make feathers for them; the author used adhesive tape for this. Well, you need to install some kind of weight on the end of the arrow; the author put a self-tapping screw there. If desired, you can cut off the head and sharpen the rod.
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