Many years ago a student of mine made a long bow as a GCSE project :shock: . I think the timber she used was lemon wood for the front and degame (?) for the back tho' can't be sure. She used the normal selection of hand tools to shape the bow, mainly spokeshaves after the initial machining to size had been done. I'm sure that if you did a bit of Googling you'll find loads of stuff on making bows, might even be an archery forum somewhere. I also believe that Robert Hardy, the actor is somewhat of an authority on the longbow and has published a number of books - Rob