Recreating the Vigilante Bow from Arrow Season 1
Years of research, careful component sourcing and plenty of weathering have finally brought this long-standing personal project to life.
Some props stick with you for years. They might be an unusual design, an interesting combination of materials, or simply something you know you'd love to recreate one day. For me, the Vigilante's bow from Season 1 of Arrow has always been one of those projects.
After years of researching the original prop and looking for suitable components, I've finally brought my own recreation to completion. Rather than fabricating every element from scratch, this project presented a different challenge: identifying the right parts, matching their appearance to the screen-used original, and bringing them together into a convincing replica.
Researching the original prop
The original bow was built around a Ragim Matrix Jr recurve bow, customised with decorative symbols, metal adornments and leather wrapping. Its distinctive combination of traditional archery equipment and seemingly improvised additions gives it a rugged, utilitarian appearance that fits the world of Arrow perfectly.
Recreating that look meant spending a considerable amount of time studying images of the original prop and identifying components that could reproduce its distinctive features.
One of the biggest challenges was sourcing a suitable bow. With the original Ragim Matrix Jr no longer available, I had to look for alternatives that would capture its overall shape and proportions as closely as possible.
The solution was to combine parts from the Ragim Matrix and Ragim Matrix Evo ranges. This provided a suitable foundation for the recreation while keeping the finished piece faithful to the appearance of the original.
Unlike many of my projects, which involve designing and fabricating individual components from the ground up, this build was primarily an exercise in research, sourcing and careful selection. Finding the right starting point was just as important as the work that followed.
The metalwork
One of the most recognisable features of the original bow is its collection of metal additions. These give the prop much of its distinctive character, making an otherwise conventional recurve bow look like something that has been adapted and modified for use in the field.
For my recreation, I sourced a boat chock and a set of marine door hinges, which provided suitable components for reproducing the original's metalwork.
Of course, simply attaching the parts wouldn't be enough. Their finish was equally important to achieving the right appearance. The steel components were treated using a hot brass-brushing technique to create a brass/gold colour closer to that seen on the original prop. This helped transform the appearance of the hardware, giving it the aged metallic finish needed to complement the wooden bow and its other decorative elements.
The choice of existing hardware was an important part of the process. Rather than attempting to fabricate every detail from scratch, I could concentrate on finding suitable components and adapting their appearance to match the reference material.
Engraving the wooden riser
With the main bow selected and the metal components sourced, attention turned to the wooden riser.
The original prop features decorative symbols burned into the wood, an important detail that helps distinguish it from an ordinary recurve bow. Reproducing these markings accurately was therefore a key part of the build.
I began by carefully sanding the wooden surface before transferring the symbols from images of the original prop. With the designs in place, I painstakingly burned them into the sides of the riser by hand.
This process required care to ensure the markings remained consistent with the reference images while looking as though they belonged naturally on the bow. Once the symbols were complete, the wood was stained and weathered to develop a finish that complemented the rest of the prop. The aim was not to make the bow look factory-fresh, but to create the appearance of an object that had seen considerable use.
Assembly and weathering
With the individual elements prepared, it was time to bring everything together.
The metal components were secured in their respective positions, with additional leather and twine wrapping applied over the top to recreate the layered appearance of the original design.
These details are particularly important to the finished look. The combination of wood, metal and wrapping gives the bow a sense of being assembled and modified over time, rather than manufactured as a single, uniform object.
The final stage was extensive weathering.
I wanted the finished prop to have a convincing, well-used appearance, so the staining and weathering needed to work together across all the different materials. The wood, metal and wrapping each contribute to the overall impression, and the finish helps unify them into a single piece.
It's this final layer of detail that brings the recreation together. The individual components provide the structure, but the finishing gives the bow its character and the sense of history that makes the original design so appealing.
A long-awaited project
This bow has been a personal project for a long time, although it has repeatedly found itself pushed aside in favour of other builds and commissions. Despite that, it has remained something I've wanted to tackle properly.
Completing it has been a slightly different experience from my usual prop-making work. Rather than starting with raw materials and fabricating everything myself, the challenge was to research an existing screen-used prop, identify suitable real-world components and recreate its appearance through careful selection, adaptation and finishing.
Best of all, it's not simply a display replica. By building around a real recurve bow, the finished piece remains a functioning bow as well as an impressive addition to a prop collection.
After years of research and a project that kept getting pushed further down the list, I'm incredibly pleased to finally have this one finished.
What do you think of the finished piece? I'd love to hear your thoughts, particularly from fellow Arrow fans and prop-making enthusiasts.
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