How to make a wooden crossbow

I made my crossbow out of 8mm birch plywood.

First of all I designed my crossbow templates in illustrator. I then printed out the templates and joined the A4 pages using tape.

The build begun with the body of the bow. I cut two pieces of plywood with my circular saw. I glued the two pieces together using double sided tape. I glued the template using spray adhesive and cut out the body using my jigsaw. 

I sanded the body with a sanding block. For the curves I used my metal ruler as a sanding block in order to follow the curves of my design, while sanding. 

I sprayed the template with rust remover and took it easily off the wood.

I used my fret saw to cut the smaller pieces of my template.

For extra strength, I glued a few blocks of wood between the two sides of my bow’s body.

I sanded the remaining parts using my belt sander and my metal ruler as a sanding block.

For the trigger mechanism I fist added the trigger. I first drilled a hole on my drill press.

I used my dremel tool and metal cutting disc to grind off a piece, from a few screwable metal rings.

I connected the trigger with string holder using my metal rings and a folded rubber band. I also nailed and glued a stop block. I added the string holder raiser and added a screw to act as stopper.

I preassembled the body and added screws to keep everything in place. 

Using my rotary tool again with a metal cutting disc, I trimmed my screws flush with the bow’s body.

I screwed another stop block for the string holder on top.

I screwed the bow in place. I added screws to hold the string. I also added two guides for the arrow. I nailed and glued them in place.

The string of the bow is just a few rubber bands connected with each other.

On my table saw, I made a simple arrow. I Created a v at the end of it using a chisel. I did that to give the string a place to push the arrow forward.

My bow is ready. 

Please be extremely careful if you try this build. If you do so, do it at your own risk and never point the bow to people or animals!