Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Ryan_Gill_HuntPrimitive on July 12, 2014, 10:31:25 pm
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I showed the whole set in the shooting thread, but I figured I would focus on the bow more here.
To catch you up to speed, this very bland looking bow is special to me because it (as well as the rest of the set) was made with only stone tools. The bow is made from White Stopper (aka FL Snakewood) it's a sapling bow and 54 inches ntn. It's about 60 pounds. I quite literally scraped this sapling into bow form entirely with a flake of heat treated FL chert. The string is sinew and as you can see I built it for function over fashion. There is no leather grip or strikeplate, only a slight dish carved above the handle for an arrow indicator. Pound for pound it is actually one of the hardest hitting bows I have ever made, likely because it was built so slow and made as reasonably heavy as possible. The tiller is certainly not perfect since it was tillered by feel and by eye of looking at the limbs while braced. Although not fancy by any means, I rank this one as one my all time best bows I've made, shooting wise. Not picky about arrows and just seems to deliver every arrow without wobble within only an inch or 2 if its target. I will take some more photos later and post them up, but for now, all you get is the teaser picture.
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very cool
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Nice work Ryan!
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Good one Ryan, you should shoot a deer with it.
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That is the epitome of primitive archery for me. Great work all around Ryan ! Really like your abo points.
Tracy
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Well done! Good hunting with it.
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Love that bow. Nice work.
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That was nice Ryan, I really enjoy seeing these bows. I hope you come back from a successful hunt with it one day.
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Very good example of Primitive Archery gear. 8)
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Nicely done!
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thatll do ryan....thatll do. :)
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Very cool Ryan. I dig all your bows and ther posts that go along with them. Great job man :).
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Great, I'm sure that's what many of us aspire to doing.
Some time I'm going to walk over to the woods and make a bow, string and arrow in a day using just a knife and natural materials, that's prob as close as I'll ever get.
We all want the FD spic tho' >:D
Del
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Very cool man! :o
Looks like 500 years ago :)
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Way cool - two thumbs up ! bob
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Awesome stuff!!!! Good luck hunting with it ;)
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that's the beauty of the pure!
interesting all around, bow, arras, string - excellent job. waiting for the fd ...
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I love it!!! Totally primitive, very nice work.
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very very very nice !!
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That is Awsome !
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here are some more pictures of the bow. Again, remember that this was all stone tool work and tiller was achieved slowly and by eye of watching the brace and floor tillering of the limbs. Tiller certainly isn't perfect and also notice I am an inch or so short of where I normally draw to. I was worried about over drawing the bow since I didn't use a tiller stick or tape measure to actually measure any of the draw length or weight specs, just going by feel of shooting naturally, 23-24 inches. I guess you can say I am a little worried about breaking the bow, not because I don't think it would take more bend, but more because I have so much work into the bow, I'd hate to break it taking a picture and accidentally drawing it too far while doing a static, standing, full draw photo. estimation of 60# +\- a couple pounds. It's funny how naked you feel when you don't take measurements when making, drawing, and weighing.
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Heck of an accomplishment Ryan. Nice work!
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It's great. Now that is primitive archery!
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Fantastic and amazing.........is all I can say..................................... :o
DBar
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awesome work, cool to see what you can do with so little
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I'm really pulling for you to get a deer with that rig Ryan, that'll be a great feeling for ya. :)
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finally!!!! I've been waiting so long to see this! ;D Congrats dude, that is amazing! Kind of wished you would have gone with side nocks though ;)
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That is awesome! It's as primitive as it gets. Well done
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Nice job Ryan. That should do it. :)
Pappy
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I'll bet ISHI would've been proud of such a bow! Primitive, primal, functional. Go kill something! Congratulations on a fine accomplishment.
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Very impressive!!
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Absolute awesome work!
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That is as cool as it gets!!!!! Hope you get a chance to get it bloody ;)
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Very nice, Ryan.
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Awsome. Like it a bunch.
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i soooo wanna try this...one question..now that you have..would ya do it again...amazingly cool!!
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Awesome bow and accomplishment. It's on my bucket bow list for sure. Is there alot of snake wood around you ;)
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thanks guys
4dog- yeah I would definitely do another one. It's a lot of tedious work but so long as you are not in a rush or trying to muscle through it, it's very doable.
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Cool bow Ryan!
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Beautiful. 8)
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Beautiful bow Ryan. I have always admired you work. I do have question. Did you seal the bow with some sort of primitive sealant like bear grease or more readily available wild pig lard etc? just kinda curious.
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thanks, no I didnt seal the bow with anything, for 2 reasons.. first, my choice is already super dense and sinks in water. So by my justification, if it is more dense than water, I don't think there is too much worry of it taking on excess moisture. Second reason is, it shouldn't see any wet weather anyhow. With a sinew string and non modern sealed sinew wraps on my arrows, like primitive man, I wont be hunting in wet weather. I also have a hunch that sealing bows is more of a modern idea than primitive. I am not entirely convinced that grease doesn't actually add moisture to wood. Although I may be wrong one way or another, who knows, So far so good with not having a sealant on the bow. I've made some whitewood bows in the past without any sealant, more or less to see what happens, and they never suffered any excess string follow than any regular sealed bow... so again, I am not real convinced it does much unless you are actually hunting in the rain. All speculation of course.
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I agree with that Ryan. I never sealed any of my early bows. I also won't seal some of the Plains style bows I make. Texas is pretty dry so I won't be forced to shooting in wet weather as a rule. Never seen a problem with leaving them natural and yours looks great this way.
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Talking about primitive archery! Nice work, awesome bow
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Thanks Ryan for the answer. Sounds sensible and authentic.
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Nice, very nice. I like the bow as well as the arrows. Did you heft the flake you scraped it with?
Thumbs up for just doing tis!