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building wood bows for a living

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Gordon:
I stopped selling bows years ago - there just isn't any money in it when you factor in labor and what most people are willing to pay. Now I just make bows for friends and raffles. I've made grown men and women cry when I surprised them with a bow that I custom made for them - you can't put a price on that.

superdav95:

--- Quote from: Gordon on December 13, 2023, 09:27:00 pm ---I stopped selling bows years ago - there just isn't any money in it when you factor in labor and what most people are willing to pay. Now I just make bows for friends and raffles. I've made grown men and women cry when I surprised them with a bow that I custom made for them - you can't put a price on that.

--- End quote ---

Well said Gordon

Gordon:
I have become active in black powder rendezvous and primitive archery has become a popular event. Most people who participate in the archery shoots are not inclined to make their own bows and there are a lot of substandard bows in circulation. Now a days I find that I spend more time reconditioning existing bows than making new ones. It starts when someone tells me (or I observe) that their bow is too stout to handle comfortably. If the bow is salvageable (and not all are because some are junk) I'll offer to reduce the draw weight. I'll then fix the tiller as best I can (tiller is always off with these bows), remove excess wood (most are overbuilt), bring the bow to the desired draw weight, refine the handle and tips, add a handle wrap and arrow pass, personalize the bow, refinish the bow, make a new string, stress test, and make them a proper stringer. And when I hand them back their newly reborn bow, the look on their faces is priceless.

Gordon:

--- Quote ---And if you are curious about where you may have seen my work, check out the Yellowstone prequel, 1883. Most of the gear of the Sioux war party was mine. And yes, the fateful arrow that pivoted the story was mine.
--- End quote ---

Dang John, you were the one ultimately responsible for Elsa's demise? She was my favorite character!

Eric Krewson:
I have done a lot of the same Gordon, usually after I made a comment at a tournament about someone's bow and they asked me to fix it. I had to quit fixing bows because some of these bows were such a mess that I would end up bamboo backing them and making a complete bow with their old bow as a core. I could have made two new bows in the time it took me to resurrect some of these substandard bows.

I learned my lesson and have turned down every request to straighten out something on a B/P rifle, there is often a lot more wrong with them under the surface that you can't see by just looking them over.

The strangest thing I found on a B/P rifle was that the builder used finishing nails for barrel pins, which is normal but he left the heads on the nails. When I tried to remove a pin to take the barrel out the head of the nail took a chunk of wood out with it as it came out. I decided to leave the barrel in place and not mess with it.

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