Just finished this Northern California Paddle Bow.

Belly side, This one is hickory sapwood, 60" NTN, 45 lbs @ 28", bison horn tips,rawhide backing. Stained with Harvest Gold from 3R to resemble Yew and acrylic paint on back.

If you built it as well as you decorated it, it should be awesome!

Sweet lookin bow sir!!!

Really nice.

Very nice!

Very nice looking.Is it backed or did you paint on the wood? What kind of paint over what finish and did you top coat it? I want to attempt something like that but don't expect it will look as good as yours. >>>----> Ken

I backed it with rawhide and TB3. Acrylic paint over the rawhide, which comes in tubes from the craft store. Six coats of polyurethane satin over the paint / stain. The bow was a u finish Modoc from Crows Head Archery. After receiving it, I put it on the tillering tree and found that it bent smoothly all the way to 28". Nothing to do really except final sanding and roughing up the back. I have a permit to cut a Yew tree over on the Mendocino, so this was a good practice run.

Did you handpaint (free hand) or work off a pattern you made? Looks sweet.

nice job...the pattern is very nice.

Thanks Osage. I use all those products. Just haven't put them together to decorate a bow.>>>----> Ken

I used a template for the triangle, diamond, and ellipse shapes. French curves for the parabolic lines. Basically draw the shape with pencil then paint inside the lines. Then hand paint the border around the shapes. TBB vol 1 has a chapter on west coast bows as well as examples of patterns used by the various tribes. Also, Billy Berger's video on 'The Northern California Paddle Bow" is another good resourse.

Like your designs, nicely done.

Well done . Arvin

That's an eye catcher, nicely done. -bb

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