And now, for something completely different.

I'm going to start off the new year right, with some actual archery.

I've done a little work on the hickory stave, but that book my friend gave me has been distracting me. It's actually incredibly interesting. It inspired me to do a little bit of PVC bowyering, and it paid off. I'm going to list this as the short, siyahed recurve from the votes :) This bow is based off of the old Mongolian recurve bows of the steppes. In the spirit of its ancestry, I named it Genghis Khan. It was quick, easy, and cheap to make, and shoots pretty straight for a bow that probably should never have been made.

Pictured with a 30" Carbon Express Terminator 4560 for size comparison.

Full draw from the left.

Full draw from the right.

I braced it with a 41" string, giving it a brace height of 8 3/4 inches! That, combined with the non-existent early draw weight make this bow fairly accurate given its short length. It only pulls 45 pounds at 28 inches, so it's not quite at the stage where it's up to hunting power (PVC bows shoot about 10 pounds slower than an equivalent wooden bow), but I wouldn't want to stand in front of it, that's for sure.

It's got some pretty severe stack (just look at that string angle!) but the light let-off at the end definitely helps the accuracy, and it's so easy to brace a child could do it. The nocks and handle are wrapped in electrical tape, the paint is just Krylon spray paint, finished with satin Deft for durability. It's fun to shoot, but it's going to a friend, the same friend who gave me the book on making bows from PVC. I'm sure he'll enjoy it.

EDIT: I was shooting this bow, and when I aimed a tad off, the arrow hit a cinder block and chipped a 1 inch section off of it. Yeah, it's got some power to it :)