The Crossbow And The Bow Book By Jaroslaw Jankowski

This book is a result of 28 years of Jaroslaw Jankowski’s activity as a craftsman.  It is a compendium on the construction, design, and use of string weapons – both bows and crossbows – historical and modern. The DIY-guide is mostly intended for beginner craftsman, however with a few exceptions.

Book Notes From The Author:

This book is a culmination of over 25 years of work devoted by the author to the science and craft of making string weapons. It is a compendium on the construction, design, and use of such weapons – both historical and modern. The reader will find here descriptions of the making of medieval and modern crossbows (both models for recreational and competition use), wooden and laminated fiberglass bows, and traditional wooden archery arrows.  On the basis of this guide it will be possible to make the items described here yourself. This study is written in accessible language so that its content can also be understood by readers with little or no technical background.

Among more advanced projects are  laminated fiberglass bows – ‘Hunter’ model and deflex-reflex model – along with photos, descriptions and drawings of gluing jigs’ shapes to be copied and information on the core thickness for a given draw weight.

The competition crossbow (visible on the book cover) is an advanced project as well. The description of how to make the crossbow is provided with detailed hand-made technical drawings and photos of all the elements. 

In the book, a reader will also find description on how to make early – all wood crossbow, medieval crossbow with steel prod, stone-bow (ballester), English sporting crossbows of 1950s and 1960s, traditional wooden bows and wooden arrows (including footed – two-splice and four-splice).