Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: radius on July 16, 2009, 10:51:01 am
-
I don't know about you guys, but for me bowmaking (and other creative pursuits) is not just about scraping and bending wood. It's like a relationship between my creative imagination and the material.
As i start working on a piece, at first my imagination is in charge: i see the stick and the bow i want to make. For instance, i'm working on a holmegaard right now with some yew i found. I imagine it with a raised handle at the back, a heartwood growth ring on the limbs and tips, wide limbs, stiff tips, and a sturdy handle which does not bend. That's the basic. Then, i approach the wood.
Gradually, shaping the bow becomes give and take. I feel my creative energy cycling between me and the stave. Does anybody know what i am talking about? It's like there's a stream of information going back and forth, which has the result of giving me ideas and mental imagery which i then apply through the tools. The bond feels organic and spiritual to me.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that i think the wood can think or talk! Haha. But the process of turning a fallen tree into a stave and then a bow is not all one-sided. I think it goes both ways, somehow.
Any thoughts?
radius
-
Musicians who are completely fluent with their instruments do the same thing, they tap into that creative energy. I guess it's all about raising your consciousness level.
I look at bows and the things that go with them as sculptural forms first and weapons second. Mostly I use my hands and eyes as measuring tools. I do have a 30 year history of making a living in my studio turning and sculpting wood that I can draw on that helps me a lot.
I think the cool part of making these primitive forms is feeling the connection you get with human kind. People have been doing this for a awful long time. We are keeping that connection.
-
For a while I built bows for no other reason than I enjoyed building them, and very much had the same experience. As I went on, however, the idea of shooting and hunting became more appealing and I lsot some of that magic when I woud go about building a new bow. Usually I approach a stave with an idea of what I want, adapt it to what I have in the given stave, and go from there, aiming for the best I can get in the end. Usually, as the bow starts bending and slinging arrows, I begin to look it over with thoughts of special touches and what not, but usually when I build it's less magical now, and more for a specific purpose.
-
Yeah I don't get that at all, it's just a piece of wood ;)
Seriously though I think that is the only reason I became addicted to this is that mindless freedom of just doing until you have it done. Creating stuff has always been that way for me no matter if its a piece of wood I'm making into a bow, flute or painting on. Grunts right that relationship is something that is tapped into when you finally stop trying to do something and you finally get it. I haven't been doing this long but I think that's why sometimes I have ended up breaking a bow is trying to making the wood do something it doesn't want to and the wood always wins unless your willing to compromise.
-
The wood is definitely the boss in the end! The best we can do is suggest and ask politely for the woods cooperation...... or put it in torturous steaming bending and clamping devices. >:D and even then there is cellular memory to contend with..... yes I stand by it... the wood is the boss
-
yup, i usually start out with an idea as to what i want to make.
but in the end the wod always tells me what "it" wants to be,same with knapping.the stone always shows me what shape and size it wants to be.
i have learned to let the wood/rock be the boss.
this is easy to do to,just get maried for twenty years and youll be used to being told what to do.most times its not what ya really want either lol
-
man that is deep with some good smoke. ha ha yea if you cant use your brain in thought of what you want go do something else. you gota know what it is before you start it is a pic in your head. ya dude getter done.
-
kegan: sorry to hear that...can you have purpose AND magic?
woodstick...yeah, smoke one more!
-
puff puff pass
-
Heya,
I definitely feel that creating bows and tackle is an outlet for a sculptural outlet but it does amaze me at how much more the process encompasses. I had no idea when I first started doing this at the new-year. I feel more connected to the environment in lookout for materials. This is a great part of the process for me. Acquiring and valueing locally growing materials. I went running the other day and found a great wing feather just laying on the path. Little things like that make me feel like I'm in the right place at the right time.
The word organic is being thrown around a lot these days in modern media and in consumerism. What a triumph it is to understand meaning for that word through this ancient and evolving process. I honestly believe the process is improving me as a person. 8)
Puff, puff...pass.
Parnell
P.s. Kegan, ever teach someone else some of the skills you've acquired? May be some magic left there. Just a thought...
-
me too: way more connected to the environment, and i find myself wanting to identify all the trees around me. I want to hunt, for materials, but just for the joy of the stalk and the thrill of nature.
this new bow is something i could never have planned with a laminated bow like i made last year. I'm finding alot of the knots are going away, and as i reach floor tiller stage i find that me and this chunk of wood know each other in a completely unique way.
puff puff pass
-
I guess I am about like Kegan,I will say I enjoy nothing more than building bows and use to make them and do what ever the wood wanted me to do but now I go in with something in mind and
al tho there is a lot of obstacles along the way to overcome I feel a little dispointed if I can't tame a piece of wood and get pretty much what I want. It still takes a lot of thinking and working around problems almost from start to finish witch a person really needs to keep the brain sharp but saying that, I still want it to turn out at least close to what I had in mind.As I have moved along in this I can usually look at a piece of wood and have an educated guess if that is even possible.Not sure weather I like Hunting or building bow best but they are both at the very top of the list of things I love to do so my bows are built for that,to be handy and efficient in the woods,Don't care much about building something that I can't do that with.Everyone has there own reasons for doing this and that is mine. :) I also really enjoy gathering supplies in the woods and I am sure that getting into this years ago has enhanced my woods skills and awareness of things natural around me. :)
Puff/ puff/ Pass. ;D Been 40 years since I done that. ;) ;D and didn't inhale then. ;) ;D ;D
Pappy
-
Sorry guys...I never did the puffing, only the passing. ;) I will put my two cents in though...I really enjoy making bows, probably a little too much as that's about all I care to do in my free time. Also, if you don't make bows or at least hunt...I'm probably not going to have much in common with you or have much time for you. I, like Pappy build bows to hunt with or maybe give away to a friend and build it to their needs. I want the bow to perform well, and look good. I really enjoy the finish work such as shaping tips, handles and making the grip. I enjoy the sculpting aspect of it, and that mostly comes into play for me with tips. I like to envision what I want and prepare the inlay prior to gluing it on such that it will allow the shape and look I want when I finish it. Taking a rough piece of wood all the way to something folks might admire is pretty cool I think. ;) I've learned a lot from many of you guys...
-
i'm glad this thread has gotten some interest.
Like Kegan and Pappy (and many others, i'm sure) i also want the piece of wood to do what i want it to. To that end, i'm willing to steam it, bend it, cajole it, threaten it, intimidate, whatever, to get the bow i desire out of the piece of wood at hand. But as i began with, it's a give and take for me. I really enjoy bow building in and of itself. But i look forward to taking a deer out of the bush this fall, having slain it with a bow i made myself. Spirit of Jay Massey, be my hunting partner.
puff puff pass
-
pretty good medicine around this council fire. I've always had an interest in bowmaking. I made my first greenwood bow when I was nine by cutting down a sapling with a sharp rock and grinding to shape while green on a concrete block. I read everything I could get my hands on at the local library about archery (witchery etc...) I also devoured the Bernard Mason and Ben Hunt books on Indian crafts and lore as well as everything in print by Allan Eckert. I was extremely discouraged in my bowmaking attempts as the "witchery" scared me off of non yew woods and kiln dried lumber..... however until the recent discovery of TBB which lit a fire under me, almost a revival so to speak. It has such a grass roots use what you have feeling to it. What a wealth of information! I decided that more than anything else in my life I wanted to be hunting primitively as our ancestors did by the time I was 40 and teaching others to do so as well. I am 34 now and have been knapping maybe a year or so. My points aren't terrible but it sure takes alot of rock to get them! I have made several osage bows this year as well, and broken even more learning the lessons we all must learn. My arrowmaking and fletching is novice at best but I have learned to be self sufficient and see the resources around me in a way that the modern hunter can never understand until he begins that journey for himself. I also have gained true freedom in that I can hunt the rest of my life if I choose without spending another dollar at a store anywhere for anything if I choose. I feel welcome now to the world beyond this thin construct we call"civilization".... not just a visitor in his hi-tech camos and camping gear, but a participant.... doing what we are meant to do and remembering how we ought to live in Harmony with and Reverance of our Mother Earth
-
are you the same ohio john who thinks you should just obey the law, no matter what it says?
I think you and i could be friends, john...you are a multifaceted person.
Me, i haven't gotten down to flintknapping yet, but god knows it might happen. Ravenbeak tells me that oceanspray shoots are great for arrows, so i'm gonna collect a couple dozen of those this weekend and set em drying while i do my other stuff.
That's the thing: once i get the bug, my imagination takes off with me, and i can see shapes inside of wood everywhere i go. When i'm not concentrating on something else or distracted by women, i'm applying my imagination to this stave i'm working on.
I just now had a good idea for a "new" kind of holmegaard, and it's the kind of bow i plan to make next. The back is decrowned over the working limbs, but left full thickness at the handle and tips. It fades up into the tips from the back, rather than down into the tips from the belly. As with other holmegaards, once i reach full thickness on the lever-tip, i will reduce it down to 1/2 by 1/2 at the nock. I think in this style a nock groove would serve better than a pin nock...
The belly is one long line, not counting the handle, which will probly get a dished shape.
I know i know: decrowning the back is a lot of work! But i enjoy it.
We'll see what the stave has to say.
-
are you the same ohio john who thinks you should just obey the law, no matter what it says?
That isn't what I said by the way :)
-
Don't get me wrong, it's always wonderful when I get a new bow done that's special for some reason or another. But as I've gotten on the building of the bow has simply become less about the process and more about the finished product. Even if that takes some of the magic away, my final bows have started to finish up neater and cleaner, more elegant and eye-catching. Which, to me, makes up for it when I take them shooting :).
-
Oh yes, bowmaking is a huge creative outlet for me. I've dabbled in woodworking since high school, but never got a passion for it, until I began making bows. The static form of most wood products and the mundane measuring and cutting is rather dull and seems lifeless. Bowmaking on the other hand, where both the process and end product are dynamic is exciting. There's little that can be cut to predetermined measurements and work. We're asking the wood to work and that makes it seem alive.
When I "discovered" bowmaking, one of the things that really drew me to it was that it meshes so well with the archery and bowhunting interests that I already had. Getting an eye pleasing, solid shooter in the end is very important, too though, so I'm not just about making shavings. Just like when I'm hunting, I like to put a tag on something by season's end.
-
Oh yes, bowmaking is a huge creative outlet for me. I've dabbled in woodworking since high school, but never got a passion for it, until I began making bows. The static form of most wood products and the mundane measuring and cutting is rather dull and seems lifeless. Bowmaking on the other hand, where both the process and end product are dynamic is exciting. There's little that can be cut to predetermined measurements and work. We're asking the wood to work and that makes it seem alive.
When I "discovered" bowmaking, one of the things that really drew me to it was that it meshes so well with the archery and bowhunting interests that I already had. Getting an eye pleasing, solid shooter in the end is very important, too though, so I'm not just about making shavings. Just like when I'm hunting, I like to put a tag on something by season's end.
I guess it's gone backwards for me, never been hunting in my life, but now that I am making bows I will be this year. I doubt I will get anything as I don't know what the heck I am doing and will probably scare anything within a mile of me, but it will be fun nonetheless.
-
Very interesting thread. I always let the wood guide me. I listen to the wood figuratively, of course. I don't literally plug in my ear phones. :) Jawge
-
puff puff, puff puff,puff puff pass ;D ;)
-
Why do I make a bow?
that's a simple question for me. I want to expand my collection. But whenever I finish a new, better made bow, I throw a couple old ones out of my collection. I'm getting more and more selective. However Ive made close to 35bows, I have less than 10 in my collection. Every new bow raises the bar for me, and for my collection. I want beauties. Not the badly finished ones I used to make.
What do I enjoy about making bows?
everything starts in the woods. I love being there! seeing staves in every tree, picking the best out, chopping it down, bringing it home. then the roughing out, wich is easy when wet. getting big, Beautyfull long curls with my drawknife. Then the initial tempering; the rings start to darken, the contrast between the early and latewood increases, growrings starting to feather out in the handle. I love playing with the growrings!
after that comes final tapering, then the most exciting part; tillering. After tillering comes the finish, unvealing the real beauty of your bow and the wood it's made off. It's one big adventure... :)
Nick
-
Posted by ravenbeak on broken arrows computer.
I got into bow making through yew,
I've love carving it ever since i discovered it 4 years ago, and since share a special connection with it. Couple years ago i found a yew with the top broken off by a blow down. It was crying to be carved into a bow. I harvested split into quarters, and proceeded to carve something which closely resembled a bow. I had no idea about bending or tiller, but i had to figure it out, and i'm getting there.
I build bows because i love carving beautiful things out of yew wood, these just happen to bend nice.. :)
-
good call, Jamie...
i've got a piece that i'm going to carve into a sword for doing tai chi with. So far i've just used a pointed piece of poplar, damn ugly. I'm gonna make a beautiful yew sword and try to keep the light/dark ratio even, like the light and dark sperms swimming around inside the yin-yang or tao symbol. I should do that right now, while my holmegaard is in the steamer.
radius
-
i also got a new idea for making holmegaards. Like the one i'm making now, it involves taking the sapwood off the back except at the handle and the tips. The bow would be 68" long, with 12" levers. The difference is that the levers would be carved out of the sapwood, and the transition area would actually be the back of the bow! The belly would not have the change to deal with, but the effect would be the same.
Aaah! I'll just show ya when i'm done!
-
doing it that way,wouldnt that be like leaving a violated ring(s) on the back
well hope it works out,if not you got lots of yew to try again
me i dont have much wood,so i need to make sure and use proper design right from the get go
if i break one,that just on less piece of wood.and then i start looking for more.dont have all that handy free wood like some folks
-
well, they say that yew can handle ring violations...i'm gonna test that...besides, it happens in a place where it don't bend anyway...should be good
-
wait until there is a big storm and buy a chainsaw.... there is always another stave somewhere!
-
a chainsaw, and a bus!
-
its up to you what you make of your life. I did my time on the bus
-
and i did my time in a privately owned vehicle...they're handy, but not as necessary as ppl think...
-
if you dont mind being that guy who always needs help and is dependent on the good will of others to drag staves out of the woods
-
hey, in canada, friends like to help each other...like today, my friend with a vehicle is going to help me get some staves...and i'm gonna be his friend handing him a case of beer!
-
true true!!!
-
imagine that
a canadian that will work for beer lol
-
imagine that
a canadian that will work for beer lol
Some Okies would make that same trade, as long as you'll sit and drink one with us :)
-
I've only been seriously working on bows this year but have been an avocational archaeologist and flint knapper for over a decade. I've always done things that give me an excuse to go out into the brush or on the water and every time I get isolated from humanity, I wonder what it might have been like hundreds...thousands of years ago for a guy living off the land. of course I love to hunt and fish but never got a big "thrill" out of popping a deer with the 0.243. My compound bow is neat but until my curiosity about the local Indians and what wood they may have used got to me, I wasn't hooked on archery.....I am now.
I enjoy getting out into the wilds of S. Texas and seeing what woods might have made good bows.
Working the wood, I try to stay as close to a "primitive" thought" as possible; using sight, feel, sound and intuition as a guide....I like it!
Tom
-
I envy those who came to bow building as accomplished craftsman, carpenters, ect....I have very little artistic skill and I am a horrible carpenter. The closest I have come to art is music, and I say "close" because I was a drummer. ;D
So, I definitely let the wood guide me but try to influence it a bit. Nothing beats someone I know who has seen me write, draw, paint a house, or murder a stack of 2x4's with a circular saw and hammer pick up one of my bows and having them say to me "YOU made THAT? :o"
Something about following that grain with a drawknife or pushing a fade back with a scraper gets my A.D.D. brain slowed enough to make something cool. I like going more by feel than measurement, but I I was always a "measure once, cut twice" kinda guy.....
-
hey postman i am just the opposite of that
you say your a measure twice cut once type of guy
me i cut it twice and both times it comes up short ;D
-
Sorry guys...I never did the puffing, only the passing. ;)
I did plenty of Da Puffing...and Passing....And Growing........thats what got me to Texas.......No Extraditiion with the North back in the 80's!!!!.......Nuff said about dat!!!!
As for Canadians and Okies working for Beer........SHHHHHHH....dat damned Yooper's gunna hear Ya!!!!!! Aint no Beer safe around a Yooper....not even Da Skunky Ones............ >:D
-
here's one thing that i've ALWAYS had a sense of...puff puff...i can feel the glue setting in a joint. It's hard to explain. ::) ::)
-
your an artist by the sound of this. Your medium is the wood. Try woodcarving you may get the same feeling.
-
Sorry guys...I never did the puffing, only the passing. ;)
I did plenty of Da Puffing...and Passing....And Growing........thats what got me to Texas.......No Extraditiion with the North back in the 80's!!!!.......Nuff said about dat!!!!
As for Canadians and Okies working for Beer........SHHHHHHH....dat damned Yooper's gunna hear Ya!!!!!! Aint no Beer safe around a Yooper....not even Da Skunky Ones............ >:D
Did I hear someone mention beer ;D Preferably the free brand eh ;) As fer da puffing I will plead the 5th ::)
-
Looks like I've come to this campfire at a point where I'm libel to burn my fangers. Oh well, wouldn't be the first time. So don't Bogart my frens.
I've often regarded selfboweryin' in particular (versus lam or glass) as more like a seduction than a process or method, at least once I'd run clumsliy through enough projects to appretiate the difference. Much like a seduction, you get better results when you listen and respond appropriately to cues from your partner.
I reckon that may be the hardest thing to communicate to new bowyers. They seem overly focused on how, how long, how wide, what wood, etc. perhaps out of necessity. Then after some number of projects hopefully the intuition kicks in sufficiently that the wood becomes responsive enough to give up the clues to guide the bowyer's hands... so to speak. An older hand will tell you the mechanics ain't as important as the communication. If I go much farther I may need a shower and a smoke.
Also, I think they say "form follows function" or something like that wrt to design and engineering. I think that holds for this craft as well. I don't impose my predisposition on the stave. It tells me, by virtue of function solely, the necessary and corresponding shape.
Seeep eeep... eeer.
-
Very well put Mr. Mimms! Could not have done better myself laying it out there.as for Pleading Da 5th Dana.........ain't gunna cut it here!!! Good ole Michigan Ditch Weed....ain't got any growing Season..so it's gotta grow fast and gotta grow strong........ >:D
Puff Puff ..............Pass
-
another thing that happens, is that when i start to imagine how something is going to go, but i am nowhere near my tools or materials, my imagination starts to feed me processes and techniques ("i'll do it this way, and then like this...")...i can practically feel my mind extending like a knife into my imaginary material and cutting it.
sculptors say they imagine their artifact in the block, and then chip away the parts that don't belong...this feels the same...
-
Hey I'm so much in agreement... you've got to find the bow in the wood.
A while back I found some old weathered oak gravel board with a 45degree twist in it...I end up making it into a sculpture of a Deer for Mrs Cat's birthday!
Here it is in the background of this video of me shooting my Hazel (that I thought was Birch :-[ bow)
(http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/pp195/Del_the_Cat/th_Birchbow2.jpg) (http://s411.photobucket.com/albums/pp195/Del_the_Cat/?action=view¤t=Birchbow2.flv)
Assuming the link works
Del