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What's even worse than breaking your bow?
WhistlingBadger:
I have a young college-age friend who has been talking for almost a year about a red oak board bow he was building. Today he's back in town and I asked him how it's going. He runs inside and brings out a nice-looking pyramid bow, backed with duck cloth. Looked a little rough, and he said the draw weight was a lot lighter than he planned, but he had been putting some arrows through it and really liked it. He's a fairly stoic kind of kid, but he was just beaming about it.
I asked, "Mind if I give it a pull?" "Sure," he said. I had it about halfway to full draw and CRACK. The bottom limb came off just outside the fade. It didn't hurt me, but it was a pretty violent break, enough to tear through the backing.
Man, what do you say? I don't know how many times I apologized. Just an awful feeling. He took it well, and after the initial moment of shock wore off, he immediately started laughing and saying, "Well, now I get to build another bow." We examined the break, which appears to have started with a gouge on the belly, and talked about what happened. I offered him a hickory stave to start a new one, and soon the conversation moved on to other things. But wow. Breaking somebody else's bow is even worse than breaking one of my own. In the future I don't think I'll be so quick to try out somebody's new bow.
Bleah. :-[
Eric Krewson:
There is a sefbow etiquette that most don't know about. It is a guy thing to want to draw someone's bow which is fine for laminated glass bows but not always for selfbows. I will only let someone draw my bows if they have the same or shorter draw length than mine and explain that selfbows are tillered to a specific draw length and drawing them further could crush the wood cells on the belly and cause the bow harm.
The proper way to ask if you can draw a selfbow is to state your draw length and then ask. As in, I have a 26" draw length. Is it OK if I draw your bow"?
I have seen one elm bow explode when a friend with a 29" draw snatched the string back as soon as the owner handed it to him.
bassman211:
2x.
Muskyman:
Exactly what I thought of when I read the title. At least he can make a hickory bow now.
WhistlingBadger:
--- Quote from: Eric Krewson on July 10, 2023, 08:16:15 am ---There is a sefbow etiquette that most don't know about. It is a guy thing to want to draw someone's bow which is fine for laminated glass bows but not always for selfbows. I will only let someone draw my bows if they have the same or shorter draw length than mine and explain that selfbows are tillered to a specific draw length and drawing them further could crush the wood cells on the belly and cause the bow harm.
The proper way to ask if you can draw a selfbow is to state your draw length and then ask. As in, I have a 26" draw length. Is it OK if I draw your bow"?
I have seen one elm bow explode when a friend with a 29" draw snatched the string back as soon as the owner handed it to him.
--- End quote ---
Yep, yep, yep. Lesson learned.
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