Main Discussion Area > Bows

Glass: a few follies

(1/14) > >>

Kegan:
Well, I just finnished my new bow. Best one yet! A red oak flatbow with wide limbs and deep handle, broken in some during tiller to keep most of it's weight and pulling around 63# at 72" long. I went to test it this morning though, and made a woderful discovery: it shoots better than a glass laminated bow! Smooth, quick, accurate, and quiet, it completely out-shot a glass bow of similiar weight on both moving and stationary targets. And, considering that the wood isn't considered in the hightest ranks of bow woods, I just keep coming back to few questions: why fiberglass? New longbows produce so much more handshock, the new longs and especially recurves are very noisy, and so expensive and now the prices are getting higher.

Badger:
Kegan, I love stories like this, you obviously designed the bow properly, skillfully executed the design and netted the results. Can you give us some details of the bow? How long is the handle and fades section. I figured about 23" oz.

Pat B:
Some folks believe that modern inventions must be better than ancient technology. ???  Bow builders of glass bows can use a formula to produce the same bow over and over again with very similar results and to accomplish weight and draw changes they revert back to the formula, make some slight changes and BINGO!  they have it. We can blame Henry Ford for the mass production revolution.
    Also bowyers of glass bows can add one type of wood veneer or another plus some fancy wood joinery to make their bows very beautiful and John Q. Public eats that up. Go to one of the glass bow sites. When someone shows off their new bow, they show the riser with all it's fancy joinery and tropical woods and the wood veneer in the limbs but very rarely shows a full draw pic, the braced profile or unbraced profile. To them it doesn't matter as long as it looks good. ???
   Why would anyone pay $1000 to $2000 for a bow in the first place. . So they can show it off and say they paid that for it. I guess they think that makes it a better bow. All bows are inherently accurate. Different handle types are more comfortable than others for folks so they will be able to shoot one better than the other but that is them, not the bow. Both of the custom bows I bought were the bottom of the line for that particular bowyer. Basically the same as their others but without all the fluff...and the fluff is where the extra costs comes from.
   At 20 yards, a well placed arrow with a scary sharp broad head will kill an animal just as quickly and humanely no matter what the arrow delivery system is. Whether it is a $2000 Widow or a simple stick and string. Give me a simple stick and string any day!!! ;) I never was one for fluff!..fuzz maybe ;D but not fluff!    Pat

Kegan:
Badger: The bow was 72" long with 2" wide limbs to past mid-limb where it tapers to 3/8" pin nocks. It tapers from around 3/4" thick at the fades (which are each about 4") to 3/8" at the tips. The handle is 5" with a leather grip and strike plate. The bottom limb is slightly stiffer than the top limb but has an over-all eliptical tiller. It draws about 63# at 28".

Pat B: Makes sense- the more I think about it the more you seem exactly right- fluff rules the market. I guess people just want to pay more? Oh well. It's their loss- they don't get half of the fun that comes with being primitve. Or fuzzy ;D

sonny:
I reckon that's why they deleted a thousand-dollar-glassbow-bashing thread I started at the Leatherwall some time ago.......it was all in fun as far as I was concerned but I suppose they didn't take it that way. Darn those fellers get uptight when you make fun of 'em for spending that much money.

...I can only assume they'd get even more uptight if someone was to say a wood bow would outshoot their custom glass bow,,,,but considering I don't visit there any more I'll leave it to speculation.
 

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page