Here is some of what I've learned from making bows. There is not much here right now primarily because of time constraints....please keep checking back. Thanks.
I've made ring bias flat bows out of maple, red oak, white oak, and cherry.
So far, maple is my favorite all around bow wood. It can be hard to find 6 foot lengths with straight enough grain, but its still easier than joining 2 half staves (and I'm a long time wood worker). Maple can be a little hard to work, but I can do more of the shaping and tillering with coarser tools and not worry about cutting too deep. Finishing takes a while, but the wood is dense enough that you can get it to an absolutely silky finish. Furthermore, maple bows are more forgiving of slight imperfections. My very first bow was of maple, and is still shooting beautifully after thousands of shots. Imperfect tillering made it slightly whip ended, but it has only lost about 3 pounds of draw weight in that time.
All the oak bows I have made have broken. One even shattered into 17 pieces (that I could find). This was primarily due to using wood that was too dry, and not modifying my design to take this into account. Had I made the bows longer, wider and thinner, or lower draw weight, they probably would have survived. Unfortunately, I was too unwilling to reconcile the wood available with the design wanted. In my woodworking career, I have done a lot of work with oak, and am generally pretty fond of working with it. Some oak is pretty open grained, so be careful which tools you use on it. Draw knives, spokeshaves, and scrapers work well; coarse rasps and Stanley shapers can cut through too many fibers.
Be careful if you use cherry. Cherry has one of the best tensile strengths to weight ratios, but its compression strength is a little weak. If you make a very thin flat bow, be very, very careful when tillering. I made a pyrimid style flatbow (design in "The Traditional Bowyer's Bible") out of cherry. About 1/4" thick, 45 pound draw, fast like you would not believe, gentle release, total wieght of bow under 1 pound. In short, beautiful in every way. But it developed incurable compression fractures and had to be retired. I loved how light the bow was to carry around, so I plan on trying another cherry bow in the future, but it will be a thicker design.
I am _still_ in the process of making a ring backed bow out of pecan. This wood is frustratingly difficult to work with hand tools. It took weeks just to get the back worked down to one ring with a drawknife. Now I'm trying to get the belly worked down. I've put this bow on the back burner for now, and plan on returning to it periodically for the rest of my life.
Tools
I generally stick to hand tools, but I have done some rough shaping/sizing with a bandsaw or tablesaw.
Drawknife: Should be very sharp unless you are trying to work down the back of a ring back bow. A slightly dull drawknife will find its way between the rings, where a really sharp knife will cut right through the one you are trying to follow.
Spokeshave: Somehow, they don't work real well for me, but I know people who love them. Borrow one and give it a try before you buy one.
Rasp and file: I have a very large, coarse rasp which I use on occasion, and two smaller, fine files which I use for finishing the curves around a handle and at the tips. One file is a "D" cross section, the other is a rat-tail file. These are very useful.
Stanley Shaper: I love this tool. You can get flat and curved blades for it, as well as sandpaper like attachments. This tool removes a lot of wood by cutting instead of by ripping fibers like a rasp. Be careful if you are using it on open grain woods like cherry.
Cabinet scraper: I like them for finishing flat bows, but some people find them hard to use.
Miscellaneous
Draw length: Be careful how you measure this, I have broken a bow-in-making because I thought my draw was 33", when in fact it is only 31" (this was very early in my archery career). I was trying to recover a flat bow that had developed a split towards one tip, so I took about 5" of each end and started retillering. The wood was very dry and brittle, but I was hoping to actually gain some draw weight by shortening the bow, so I left it as close to the original thickness as possible. Once I had tillered it well to a 30" draw, I decided to check my exact draw length. I picked up my trusty yardstick and drew it like an arrow on an already completed bow. With a little effort, I secured it with two fingers of my bow hand while I gently removed the other end from the string and returned the string to its normal, undrawn position. It was so easy, it had to be correct. 33" even. I went over to the bow and continued to check its tiller in 1" draw increments. At 32" it seemed to be a little strained, but still a nice tiller. At 33" it just snapped. Naturally, I was distressed by this, and eventually it occured to me that if I hadn't been so greedy, I could have had a bow with a 31"-32" draw. I decided to double check my measurement, and brought in a friend for a more careful and accurate reading. 31". Well, now I know.
Targets: My original target consisted of two straw bales stacked on the narrow edge, and hung with a target painted on a piece of burlap. Beyond it was my neighbor's field and drip irrigation system. After several repairs to the drip system I purchased three more bales and set them against the sides and on top of the other two. After several more repairs to the drip system, I got yet a few more bales and set them up to fill in some of the gaps in my "backstop". Then the wind blew it over. Now generally speaking, I'm pretty good about construction stuff, but this time I was trying to save money, and that was my downfall (or rather, my targets downfall). So here's my tip: Get all your straw bales at once, so they are the same size. Your target will be more stable and there won't be as many gaps for the arrows to fly through. I recommend 9 bales stacked on edge, three high by three long, but if you actually enjoy chasing arrows or won't admit that you (or any of your friends) ever miss the target, you can get away with fewer bales.
My new target is much improved and much easier to maintain. Forget the burlap or paper targets. Buy spraypaint. Just paint your target directly onto the bales, it sticks great, looks just as good at any shooting distance, and doesn't tear up. Nor does it color your arrows, as long as you wait for the paint to dry. If you want clean lines between circles, make a series of circles or circle cut-outs that you can line up to eliminate overspray.