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How are Charly flatbows made?

Charly bows are made from natural materials, different types of wood as well as composite materials like fibreglass, Karbon fibre,... and contain from 2 - 9 layers of different materials that give a bow special characteristics and all that at thickness from 4 - 8 mm. Materials are glued together with special epoxie resin.

Though many people think solely of longbows when wooden bows are mentioned, the flatbow is actually a superior bow design for most types of wood because the stress is more evenly spread out than in a longbow. A bow limb is essentially a flexed beam undergoing bending, and in any flexed beam the farther from the neutral axis (line in the middle of the flexing beam which is not under tension or compression the more stress there is within the material. When a limb is rounded, as in a longbow, some wood “sticks out” farther from the neutral axis, and thus is put under greater stress. In a flatbow, the flat belly and back ensures that all of the most highly strained wood is a uniform distance from the neutral axis, spreading the load over a wider limb, minimizing stress and making weaker woods far less likely to fail (break or become permanently bent and lose the springiness needed in a bow).

Because yew, the wood of choice for English longbows, is light, resilient, and has exceptional compressive strength, the rounded design can be used to produce a smooth shooting, efficient, powerful bow. For more common, lower strength, hardwoods such as elm (a bow wood used in ancient Europe, as evidenced by bows pulled from European bogs), maple, and ash, the flatbow design must be employed to create a bow of equal power and efficiency. The flatbow design also lends itself to very dense, high strength woods such as hickory and especially osage orange (a wood favored by many Native American tribes for bow making).