Tribute to Dean Torges

[organic_archer]

Good evening, everyone. It took 10 years of building before finally making my first bow inspired by the late Dean Torges. His book is one of my favorites and has been read many times, but I was always hesitant to try his aggressive design.

I’ll post the bow here within the next couple days, but it finished as an osage bow of 62” overall length and high 60’s draw weight. It’s a “D bow” at brace and a “C bow” fully drawn. I strayed from his methods slightly by backing it with paper thin goat hide, mostly because my hunting bows tend to get lots of dings in the thick timber around here. Rawhide backing has been a welcomed protector of my favorite bows’ backs.

It turned out to be a really fine shooter and I’ll be finishing out my deer season with it. I thought the faceted tillering was a fairly fool-proof way to nail tiller and it did seem easier than tillering with a flat belly. 

After much research into the backlogs of this forum, I found no shortage of praise for his design and craftsmanship but very few examples of Torges style bows.

If any of you have made a bow with his faceted tillering and rounded belly, I’d love to open a new discussion of the merits of this style. What are your thoughts? If you’ve ever built one, please share a couple photos!

[George Tsoukalas]

No doubt, Dean was a special man. We shared our common Greek heritage. I met Dean at the 2003 Mojam.  Pretty eventful for me. Jawge

[Bob Barnes]

No doubt, Dean was a special man. We shared our common Greek heritage. I met Dean at the 2003 Mojam.  Pretty eventful for me. Jawge

...that was a great Mojam George! 

Organic_archer, there should be a lot of discussion and pictures for you...there was a time when it seemed like everyone made their bows as close as possible to the FireStix.  This will be a good thread.

[Eric Krewson]

Deans book "Hunting the Osage bow" was a game changer for me, particularly on how to handle fresh cut osage properly. I started using his bow designs but didn't use the facet tillering he recommended in his book. I called to order one of his bowyer's edge tools, he answered the phone, we talked bows, bow making and hunting for quite a while.

When I first started out making bows I experimented with a lot of whacky ideas and posted my results on the Stickbow site. Dean saw my posts and said that I "was an insult to the true art of bow making", he wasn't trying to be humorous, he was dead serious. This rubbed me the wrong way at the time but looking back, he was probably right.

At the time Dean said this, I thought I could come up with some better bow making processes than the old masters, after ruining a lot of good osage I found out I was dead wrong. I did come up with the Tillering gizmo during this experimentation phase so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

[Aksel]

A short and heavy bow with rounded belly sounds like recipe for chrysaling, at least for white woods.  Maybe it works well with Osage and yew. Does anyone on the forum forum favour this design for white woods? Will be interesting to follow this thread 

[Badger]

   I use a slightly rounded belly just because it makes tillering easier even though I believe a flat belly to be better. As I near completion I do start flattening out the belly.

[PaSteve]

The first bow I ever made was after reading "Hunting the Osage Bow". This was the mid 90's. I didn't have a computer and knew nothing about the internet so reading books was about the only source for bow building information available to me.
     As far as Dean's tillering method I can't speak because I had not a clue how to tiller a bow anyway. I am planning on building a Torges style bow as soon as I can back to building. This is the only picture of the bow I built. The first day of archery season and the first day I hunted with the bow. Guess I got lucky. The bow was 60", and 57#@26". On a side note Eric's tillering gizmo was a game changer for me as far as achieving a good tiller.

[organic_archer]

Awesome stories and insights all around. Keep 'em coming!

Had good light today so I grabbed a couple of shots of the bow from the original post. It's not exactly a by-the-book recreation, because I shoot best with a particular handle style; but the overall dimensions and technique from HOB were followed.

This stave had minor deflex in the upper limb, minor prop twist, and good string alignment, so I didn't do any heat corrections. The goat hide is so thin it's transparent in some spots, which gave the back a cool pattern.







 

[Jim Davis]

I don't do faceted tillering, but I cut facets using the band saw, then flatten the belly. There is very little tillering to do after cutting a pyramid bow to the lines.

Dean was fun to read on the forums. Seemed to have a great sense of humor.

[BowEd]

The beauty of osage is that it'll handle rounded or flat bellys.Some woods can't.
Did a tribute to him quite some time ago too with the rounded belly and the sunburst pattern finish on rawhide.Much like his BBO's.He was always called the professor.It's evident in his language in his book also.
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,60623.0.html
Good tiller on your bow.I like that about goat rawhide also.

[Eric Krewson]

I think he was a professor before he started making chairs full time.

[Stixnstones]

Good lookin bow Corey. Dean was and is a huge influence on me, though I have never tried to make a Torges style bow. He is definetly my favorite bowyer, just always thought his work as pure artistry

[superdav95]

She’s got nice curves for sure.  Looks good to me. 

[medicinewheel]

Dean has been very helpful on tillering one of my very first bows, which was from a boo-backed Osage blank I had purchased from him. MANY pics and words have been sent back and forth via email, and the bow hit the desired poundage of 50#/29". The bow had shot thousands of arrows when a splinter lifted in the main bending area, and Dean again helped me to fix that. In return for his help I translated some of his writing into German for him. Which made him send me an English - already had the German version - copy of the book with a dedication.
After years of shooting the bow myself it was passed down to a lady friend who shot it for a long time, and it is now with a youngster in our archery club, and after 17 years of usage it still throws arrows with authority!
An occasional contact between us was kept, and it much seemed to be his pleasure that he had helped me into bow making successfully.
Was said news when I heard he had passed.

[RyanY]

I started out with rounded bellies and face ring for wood removal. It’s much easier to remove wood that way versus trying to get a flat belly. I still do this for ELBs where I want the rounded belly. For other bows I prefer a sharp spokeshave to get it as flat as possible.