Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Badger on September 03, 2008, 09:25:12 pm
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I recently saw some bows from a young man just getting stated and it sure brought back some memories. I was trying to figure out exactly when I started and my son showed me a photo of something I know was right near the begaining and we were able to trace it to 1997. I know when I started I had no idea anyone made bows since the indians started using guns. I think I had one disaster after the next for several years. If I liked a bow I would put fiberglass on the back just to keep it from breaking. I started off building laminated bows from 1/8" thick strips of wood I would buy at rocklers. I think I would use 3 of them at about 60" long with about a 14" riser and get somewhere around 45 or 50#. Most of these broke but ironicaly one of the very early ones came out a great shooter looking just like a wilcox duoflex with working recurves. That one lasted about 5 years and drewlow 50's.
I tried one board bow after another with no success. I had a few branch bows that shot but were sluggish. ( I had no concept that wood needed to dry) Eventually I bought a computer and found jawges bow sight with full instructions and I was off and running.
The part I am really curious about if anyone else started with no prior knowledge or help was what aspects did you grasp on your own. I know in my case tillering and narrowing the outer limbs came pretty natural. What never did come to me was the concept of one growth ring or selecting very straight grain. I don't think the moisture level in the wood I had ever though much about either. Ash and maple backs at that time seemed about the most relaible from what i had to choose from but I still had a dismal success rate. I was almost content and felt successful when I got one out to about 26". But I never thought to measure draw length either so really not sure. I did weigh up some of my old arrows I made and they were between 700 and 800 grains.
My first really successful long bow was either red oak or ash board. I took it to the archery store to buy some arrows and had the guy weigh it for me. He kept telling me he wouldn't be responsible if it broke. I bought a premade b50 string for it and some aluminum arrows and asked if I could shoot it through his chrono. I probably only drew it about 26" and hit 145 fps, have no idea what the arrows weighed. But I know right from that first bow on I wanted to test everyone of them. Steve
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I have only been making bows for about 6 months, but started without any prior knowledge. I am only a novice, so my response may not help out. The only thing I figured out on my own was that I could get a better tiller if I made sure during floor tillering that the taper was even, with no dips or low spots. I spent quite a bit of time siting down the limb to make sure. But I broke three bows in a row during tillering and was about to give up, when Jawge helped me make two that worked. Without Jawge's help I probably would have given up and bought a bow.
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Badger
I got into bow building about ten or twwelve years ago when my son was ten and screaming bow and arrow for christmas I was broke so a store bought one was out of the question. To shield my son from the reality of the money situation I chopped down a hickory tree and made a bow which failed due to a knot. About then a major outdoor magazine printed an article about making your own bow. I was saved made a bow out green wood which took terrible set but the kid didn't care he had a bow and that was all that mattered.Money got more plentiful and I bought a wheely bow that lasted about one season It just wasn't for me then the quest for a man sized bow led me here. My son is grown and on his own the bow still lives. I still have it I'll take a picture and post tomorrow.
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Badger and NTProf, glad to help. I started around 1989/90 or so. I broke a good 14 over the course of 3 years. Then I finally got a shooter that I could hunt with. Still have it probably because it was really wet when I built it and took around a 5 inch set. It's been a quite an enjoyable journey. I'm happy I've had some good folks to keep me company along the way. Jawge
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I was always a nut about ancient weapons or anything that went ballistic. So bows were a natural thing for me. Never liked the things with wheels on them. Tried it once and thought why buy this when I could buy a gun? Then I though "What $800.00 for a bow and arrows! You have got to be kidding!!!!" Then realized its all a scam by the manufacturers. Break a string on one and you pay, wheels out of alighnment - you pay; Got to get the new one with all the bells and whistles -- you guessed it! You pay!
So I looked back into history and saw the beauty of the all wood an natural bows. A) Cut tree down - price $0 or very little B) Season - no pay c) build bow - no pay d) make arrows - very little or nothing = no pay e) ammount of enjoyment and sence of accomplishment = PRICLESS!!!
To tell the truth that firs bow was prety bad but it still shoots and sits on my wall in a very special place!
David T ;D ;D ;D
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I'm glad that you put this post up here because I really couldn't remember when I started until you made me think hard about it. It was in 89/90. I was working at J's sporting goods in Michigan and shooting on their compound league when a guy come in with a snakey osage bow with rattle snake skins on the back to put on consignment and he let me shoot it. At that point I wanted that bow so bad I could taste it. Then he told me he wanted $650 for it :o I said I can build one for that kind of money!! YEAH RIGHT!!!! Long story short, I sold my compound the next month and been trying to build bows ever since.
David
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Steve, I think it was about 10 or twelve years ago when I made my first one. I cut down a green hickory sapling and took it home and split it down the center. I chopped it out with my hatchet and scraped it down with a little meat cleaver. I made it green and it shot around 45#. I was really proud of that bow and was showing it to all my buddies that were hard core wheelie shooters. My one buddy, the head wheelie Guru, pulled it back, it broke and he looked at me and said " hmm, that sucks" and handed it back.
Pissed me off so much he set me on a mission in life. After finding this site, with people like George, Marc, and Badger, it was like time warping ahead about 5 years. I try to help everybody now and give away a bunch of bows. By the way, I still have that one good limb off my first bow. I made it into an Atlatl.
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George Tsoukalas helped me from start to finish on my first bow. That was a couple years ago and on a different site. I got a shooter on my first try. It was a 65' hickory recurve.
I still shoot it now and then, but it has some frets on the belly so I don't hunt with it.
Thanks Jawge! Because of you and Ryano, my expense for bowhunting has dropped about 98% ;D Saw Filer
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Badger, I still have some of my first bows...They are monstrosity's. I'd be embarrassed to show them to y'all. It was pretty much a money thing (or the lack of) for me as well that got me into making bows. I watched Dan Fitzgerald Shooting a compound bow instinctively and I want to to shoot like him. I tried it with a compound bow but it seemed to unnatural. I wanted a traditional bow so bad I could taste it but I had no money to buy one...so I got on the internet and did a search for making your own wood bow. Printed a couple pages of generic instructions and went out and cut some green saplings and started carving. I to didn't have any idea the wood needed to season and dry, so my first bows took massive amounts of set if they didn't brake first. Then I finally searched out more information and got book about bows and arrows of the native Americans. This help to teach me about following a growth ring which brought my success ratio way up. But still the bows seemed to take massive amounts of set. It wasn't until I found the bowyers bibles that I really began to understand what it was all about, and started to make some half ways decent bows. The oldest one of my bows I have thats dated is from 1999 so I'd say I've been at this bow building thing for almost ten years now. Hard to believe, Time fly's when your having fun. ;D
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Sawfiler, whooa! it being 65' long, no wonder it chrysaled. :o
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I started shooting a bow in 1978 when I bought an old Shakespeare recurve for $5. Hunted that first year and missed a nice 8 point...3 times! :o ::) I wish deer were still that stupid! ;D I switched to a wheel bow(Bear Blacktail, nobody ever heard of it) I bought fully dressed for $50. Then I bought a NEW PSE Nova with all the bells and whistles(lighted pendulum sight, etc) and hunted with it for a few years and killed a few deer. During this time I bought Jay Massey's book "The Bowyers Craft" and that began my addiction. I even sent my PSE back to the factory to have the cams replaced with wheels so I could start shooting instinctively more comfortably. The last 2 deer I killed with the PSE I don't remember dropping the string(my first 2 truly instinctive shots). In those days I was making bows of sassafras and white oak. All had lots of set. I still have my first osage bow(it blew) and one of my better early locust bows ("KILLER" by the way ;D ).
I signed up for PA months before the first issue ever came out, after seeing an ad in Traditional Bowhunter Magazine. When I finally got a computer at home I signed up here on the PA site and have been here ever since, through thick and thin. This site is where I got the knowledge, encouragement and confidence to go from building wood "bow like things" to building real bows. I'm an archer first and a hunter next. I like the idea of making my equipment as simple as possible but still being effective as a hunting weapon.
I built bows for many years just having a few books to read for instructions. I still have all the books and read and re-read them all from time to time. I went through lots of sassafras, white oak staves and locust fence posts, that I could buy for $6 each, in the early years and still drool over some of the cut ends I saved for other projects. Boy, I screwed up lots of good bow wood before I knew better.
My most fulfilling bow building season(after hunting season and before fishing season ;D ) was when a "friend" gave me 3 staves of osage "firewood" with good intentions. I spent that winter learning how to deal with knots, twists, hoop-t-doos and just about any malady you can think of in bow wood. By spring I had 5 shootable bows with lots of character. My skill level and confidence hit the roof after that.
You new guys just getting started, you can see that you ain't alone in your sorrow over a broke or badly bent bows. :( We have all been there. ::) Learn from your mistakes and you haven't lost anything!!! Pat
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You are welcome, Saw Filer. I am glad that you are having fun with this fine pastime of ours. Jawge
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Ya it was the late 80's and I was trying to rehab a dislocated shoulder. I couldn't shoot yet, but figured trying to make a wood bow would exercise my shoulder..so there was this hockey stick in the garage with some guy named "Wayne" ;D written on it, and I cut off the blade and started shaving wood. I ended up wrapping it with fiberglass and it made it though about a hundred shots, and I was having fun...
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When I was a boy my dad had a couple of old recurves, my brothers and I used to shoot arrows straight up into the sky in the field behind our house and watch them disappear. I started out with compounds in 1976, always shot fingers. One of the guys in a archery club I was in got a Bear recurve and we couldn't understand why he would want to hunt with it...I just didn't get it then. Side note: I've tried to get in touch with him several times in the past few years, I'd love to make him a bow...Jan Davis, you out there?
I think it was around 1986 or so that Anthony and I cut some osage behind my parents house, we carried those logs out close to a mile on our shoulders to get them home. Anthony (BigA) had purchased Massey's book, and leant it to me to read. I remember being scared to death of messing up trying to chase a grain on the billets we had chosen to make bows from. I finally gave up on mine, but Anthony kept at it, and after several years of working on his bow and then putting it away for a while, he had a shooting bow. I was lucky enough to see him take his first deer with it while hunting Land Between the Lakes a few years back...man that was special!
I finally got interested again while visiting Twin Oaks during the Classic and a guy was there demonstrating bow making with osage. I had my youngest son with me by that time, and I bought a piece of osage and with Mike's help I made a bow for my son that weekend. I was finally hooked! I became friends with Mike, and he and another friend and I made bows one weekend while staying in a cabin up in the Smokey mountains. I actually got two bows shooting that weekend. I had known Pappy for a long time, but never really knew he made his own bows. With the start that Mike and Scott had given me, I started making bows with Pappy, and you know what a wealth of knowledge he has! ;)
I wish I had stuck with it way back when Anthony and I first started, but I was using a recurve ever since around 1986 and I guess developed the primitive roots I needed to make selfbows. I've been fortunate having great teachers!
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I started in 90-91 I think,had a hard struggle for a while,lot of kinling, :) Then like Jawges I got one
that you could shoot and hunt with,I still have it,Hickory ,stacks like crazy and about 3 inches of string follow.It don't look so good now but back then I remember it was a beauty.It was something
I just had to do then and now it is a very big part of my life. :) I have meet some of the finest
people because of it from all over the country that I would have never known without it.It's been
a blast and hope to keep it up for another 30/40 years. :) Meet a old guy in MI. that was 87 and still
at it,so there is hope. :)
Pappy
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I believe I started in '97 also. I had bought Jim Hamm's book on native american bows... not the one with all the pictures. I bought the book in '91 and had just picked it back up and decided to try it out. Bought an osage stave and found a drawknife at an antique store. I learned to love osage just for drawknifing the back to one growth ring. For some reason I just love doing that. I ran into problems steaming the back on the stove. I ended up boiling all the water out of the pot and charring the back. :o I got into the book and found the publishing company and after a lot of leg work found Jim Hamm's phone number and called him up. He was so helpful. He told me I could probably go down through the charring, telling me osage was very tough. He was right. But, I was still not to be successful. I was checking draw weight on the scale when the limb exploded! :o But it was the opposite limb. ??? I figure I wasn't worried about that limb and wasn't watching it and it was obviously hinged. :-\ Oh well. I did take time off and pursued a bit of bladesmithing when I inquired about making broadheads. I've got WAY too many hobbies. I gleened that bit of knowledge from my wife. She told me so. ::) Fun, though. It is nice coming on here and seeing a lot of names I've been seeing since I started (Badger, Jawge, Mullet, etc)
possum
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One of the coolest things about this sight has been watching ourselves and each other grow and change. Some of the guys I had considered mentors or roll models kind of faded into the background to make room for newer guys who seem quite capable of answering the questions and fielding the posts that need replies instead of just comments. I think the thing that keeps me personaly going hasn't changed from the start. I have always been a mechanic and carried my what makes it tick mentality into bow making. I never dreamed that after all these years I would still be trying to figure out just exactly what makes it tick. Thank god for a lot of you guys out there and the internet or I would have driven myself over the wall and into a nut house by now. I still think the devil created a chrono. I hit my peek in 2007 and have duplicated it a few times in 2008. This will be the first year I haven't been able to hit a new plateau or for that matter even feel driven to do so. I still felt this year to be a rewarding year as I was able to assist a friend in building a modern longbow that shattered the recorded records for modern longbows or recurves for that matter, using primitive bow tecnology. Lots of theories comming from guys like Tim Baker, Allen Case, Woodbear, and then watching the tecniques of several other guys on here in applying them. Handshock and controlling limb vibrations are my latest crusade. I feel confident that some new commer will come along and figure the whole thing out in short order! It has been a great trip. Steve
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I was walking down a road at our hunting club with my recurve in 96. I had started with a recurve, gone to the dark side for 18 years and had been traditional since 89. I ran into a guy I didn't know carrying what looked like a rough limb with a string on it. I asked him"do you hunt with that" he replied, "sure". "Have you killed a deer with that ?" I asked. Again, he said yes.
I had to learn this kind of bow making. He introduced himself as Joe Bogle, invited me to his house and showed me his method of making a bow. We have since become great friends.
I found an old osage board at a backwoods sawmill, made what I thought a bow should look like, even backed it with sinew. I went from floor tillering to full draw in about 10 seconds and it actually shot an arrow, well 30 of them before it blew up.
I then bought every book and video on bow making I could find, cut osage around town like a wild man possessed, and started making bows correctly. My next was a working oasge recurve that is out there some where, probably still shooting today. I have broken very few bows over the years but my tillering skills were slow in developing. Since I came up with the Gizmo bow making has become much easier.
One thing I found out about all the books and videos, they all leave out some crucial information that you can only learn by putting drawknife and scraper to wood.
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fun stories guys - have enjoyed em. I'm still in the madman cutting down trees stage, and developing those when I started stories ;D.
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One of my favorite stories was of my second bow. It was a rawhide backed red oak board bow. I had glued a handle on it but didn't taper it properly. My neighbor was a compound shooter and thought it would be neat to shoot a wooden bow. Sure, OK, I thought. He pulled it back to, God, I don't know how far, and released. Well, he was holding it like he did the compound. I quickly learned why the wear slings on those things now. The bow flew ten yards in front of him and I never found the arrow. :o I told him he was allowed to hold onto the handle with his whole hand. ::) Well, the handle ended up popping off that bow a few days later and the handle broke under the rawhide. :'( But I did learn how to shape a glued handle correctly after that, at least.
possum
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Back in the mid 80's in Jr. high school i had a 45 # aluminum recurve someone made at a machine shop at the local US Steel plant. Found dad's old kodiak in the attic - it broke about the 10th time I shot it. :-[ Went wheelie till last year, when my wife bought me a 2 -day bowmaking class because I managed to build a sunporch that summer. She thought I'd make 1 bow, and be done.....
now tillering my 3rd selfbow, have made a few board bows, broke a few, and have about 10 bow's worth of osage in the basement to keep me busy for a while.
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My story is a lot like Eric's. I had hunted some in Californica as a kid mostly quail with a gun. But after the service I didn't have much desire to do much of that. But when I got transfered to a small town in Illinois, life changed ;D Most of the guys at work hunt, be it bow season, black powder, shot gun, what ever. Then my daughter decided she'd like to shoot a bow, so we bought some compounds. Sorry those ain't bows. At a 3D shoot I met a guy that shot the socks off everybody, and it was a hemp backed hickory bow that was about the ugliest bow I'd ever seen. Nothing like hunting with your own hand made gear. Yep I was hooked, been learnin to make a bow ever since. I have never found anything to beat the fun of building a bow, well maybe one thing. ::) ;D
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I did like many brothers did starting out. I was 11. I was totally oblivious to chasing a ring and seasoning a stave. I took a real nice hickory sapling and decrowned it with my dad's drawknife, waving in and out of rings, made it into a bow green the same day it was cut, turned it inside out, tied a nylon string to some grooves I roughed out with my pocked knife, and was on my merry little way. It went about 48" and 20# at 20" I would guess since I never measured it. For what it was and what I was shooting, it was THE MOST ACCURATE BOW I have shot to date, I could consistently pick the lid off a milk jug at 10 yards, and with the arrows I was using back then that is quite an accomplishment. My fletching consisted of whatever raw material I had available, chicken feathers, plastic, tape, arrows were not of equal length, or spine, the only thing they had going was they were straight. I knew that much at least. But, since it had taken like 3 inches of set, and the tiller was somewhat off, as it dried out it began to crack. One day I just junked it out and got me a Ben Pearson 55# recurve. But as I got older I decided to give selfbows another try.
~~Papa Matt
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Ever since I was little I played with bows. I used mostly junk shrubs with strings between the ends, and my dad had made me a nice little longbow. That thing sure shot- there's still a dent in the closet door where I shot it about 15 yards striaght through the house. That was the end of that ;D.
I played with them on and off. They seemed to fit the sort of "play" we did. About three years or so ago I got into wilderness survival, and hunting with bows appealed more than trapping for food. So I started making the same bow I had before- shrubs with string between the ends. I learned that stronger bows were better for hunting. I learned to deflex the green wood and dry it in the sun to prevent it from breaking, and help with stringing. I didn't know to unstring them though. Eventually, I found primitivearcher.com and Primtive Archer Magazine, and then bought The Bent Stick, and I've been learning ever since. I tried a few fiberglass bows for hutning, but only one ever made it to season, and I missed a nice doe at three yards. I figured I could miss jsut as well with a stick than I could with a $200 fiberglass bow. Thankfully I've gotten a little better, so the deer don't pity me quite as much :D.
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I've been making bows maybe nine years now. Started with compounds before that, bought a Martin recurve and before it even arrived I found out about making bows and got going.
I remember my first archery forum, Field and Stream. I was so worried about anonymity, I thought the animal rights nuts would be stalking me so I wouldn't register. Then for awhile I thought G. Fred Asbell was one of the people on the site, but it was some other guy with the same initials. Boy was I stupid then.
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I started making bows when I got out of high school in the early 1970's. The bows I was making were nothing to write home about so I bought a FG recurve for hunting. When I got the bow I stopped making my own but I still made my own arrows. Then about 15 years ago my recurve got toasted in a house fire so I started building my own again. Didn't have a clue there were people out there doing the same as I. Then a few years later I found the PA message board. The information I gleaned from here helped me improve my bows considerably
Forgot to answer the question. Actually I don't remember that much about when I first started making my own bows as it was about 35 years ago
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I remember switching to traditional archery and pouring through every thread daily on the big trad site at the time. I remember seeing some posts on homemade "selfbows", but dismissed them intially as being silly hillbillly toys for gray bearded mountain men types in buckskin clothes. Further reading, however, showed they were the geniune thing, and required something of a degree of thought, effort, and skill to be made functional. My curiosity was piqued, even if still skeptical. I bought TBB Vol 1 and Hunting the Osage Bow, not far after. Rusty Craine, Paul Haige, Darren Tyrell, Mickey Lots, Jim Fetrow, John Scifres, Bill McNeal, and a host of others were inspirational at the time. (Ha! Little did they know!) I broke my first 3 board bow attempts in short order, before trading a pile of arrows to some guy for a decent osage stave. I turned that into a good shooter that I've taken game with and still use. Thank goodness, for if I had broken another couple of board bows, I'm certain my taste in wooden bows would have soured and I'd still be shooting fiberglass. (I frankly marvel at the guys who say they broke a dozen bows before they got a shooter. They have more persistance than me.) Wooden bows, hands down, now occupy my biggest "recreational" time and passion.
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I have never busted a bow I was building. Maybe that I'm using sandpaper to reduce the bows demensions? ::)
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Beware Tiller,your time will come,ant nothing like it. ;) ;D ;D
Pappy
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I have seen many bows brake that were perfectly tillered bows. Tim Baker had a perfect yew stave he had saved for years until he was realy in the mood, he took his time and did a flawless job tillering it out. maybe a dozen full draws then kablamo. You just never know for sure. Steve
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You'll be in shock for a second when it does happen David - and it kinda hurts, hehe ;D.
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I dont know ......I think David rubs that Magic Soap of His on them Staves before He makes Bows from them.......makes the Wood all Soft and Smelling Purdy......not all tough and Musky!!!! Eben the Obsidian Blades and Point I got from Him smelled Nice!!!!
Dont worry David....just kiddin......but I aint kiddin Here.........when you break one....you better be ready....cause like Cowboy said....it's Scary....and sometimes Hurts too!!! I have pulled splinters out of my Face....forearms and Head before...it does and will happen to even you....so count your blessing so far...and be ready for the one down the road that lets go!!
WEell I have heard a lot of Stories...but no Bows.....so I will start it off with my first Pride and Joy....an Elm Limb that had so many problems I decided to Sinew Back it....when I had no Idea how to work Sinew let alone lay it down....and it shows too....but this Bow is 58 inches long and is 73 punds at 27 inches....and now 6 years old and besides the tons of cracks in the super thick Hide Glue Job...........is still a very good shooter today......it's Ugly ....but was a real Learning Expereince too!!
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Nobody told me that you needed to soak the dry Sinew in Water before you dipped it in Hot Hide Glue to soften it!!!! Live and Learn!! This Bow is so Ugly it's almost Funny!!!! ::)
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My mother gave me my first bow (and suction-cup arrows) when I was 4, but I quickly shot everyone in my family "accidentally" and lost the privilege for a few years.
I guess I was about 7 when I started building my own bows. There were a few books on American Indians in the school library and I tried to copy the pictures. Luckily, I lived near a forest and played there every day. My first bows were made from dead branches...pine mostly...with kite string for bowstrings. I guess it took a full summer to learn that hardwood shoots make the best bows. I don't remember what the wood was that I used but I never tillered the bows and always left the bark on. The heavy (thicker) end of the stick was at the bottom and I held the bow where it balanced on my finger. They were short, I used a pinch grip, and they had very short draws. My arrows were made from very thin shoots that were cut green, peeled with a kitchen knife, and fletched with paper. I made some arrowheads from slate (a combination of chipping and grinding) but I could never get them to stay on so my points were just sharpened wood. I think I put the heavy end of the shoot forward. I did all this instinctively.
I would make a new set every summer until I was about 13......when we moved away from the forest and into the city. I can remember my last set: cherry wood sapling bow, bark on, tillered slightly by reducing the "fat" end of the stick, a piece of a previous bow lashed to the center to prevent the middle from bending too much. The arrows were all dogwood, badly checked, sharpened at the skinny end, and fletched with paper from grocery bags. I used a pinch grip and instinctive shooting. I tried hunting but never killed anything....except maybe a frog or two.
Somewhere in that time frame I learned the "correct" way to shoot from an archery instructor at a Boy Scout camp. I learned the three finger grip and point-of-aim style target shooting. I learned that bows and arrows "needed" to be long and smooth. I learned that archery was something that has very strict "rules" that were developed by very smart guys who were great sportsman. I learned that the Indian stuff I was making was inferior. I didn't buy it.....but I felt the pressure.
When I started earning my own money I bought a compound bow and converted to the Church of Modern Archery. I was baptised in camo paint and supported missionary work in spreading the Gospels of Metal Alloys, Wood Laminates, Epoxy Glues, and Synthetic Fibers. I thought I was destined for archery heaven.
Well, fortunately, a group of strange people from an organisation called the Society for Creative Anachronism rescued me from the cult. I began making English style longbows and I once again regained my connection to green wood, real feathers, linen thread, natural pigments, hand tools, and so forth. I washed off the camo paint and put the wheelie in storage.
To make a long story longer, it wasn't until 2005 that I really started to build archery equipment seriously. There was an authentic bow and arrow set on ebay (Sioux, I think) that I lost to another bidder 15 seconds before the auction closed. That one event made me so furious that I've spent thousands of hours (and dollars) to ensure that I could make my own set. I'm almost there. This forum is one of many resources that has helped my in my quest.
Many thanks to all of you. ;D ;D ;D
(PS Sorry for the religious references in my story...I'll delete that part if anyone is offended....it's meant to be humourous. ;D)
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nicely put jackcrafty... ;D
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Yeah! I know one day it will happen but I still have the record of not breaking one! ;D Plus, they smell good too!!! ;)
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I remember my first and still have it after many attempts and violent explosions six to be exact. I finally got one a 69 inch two inch at the fades 3/8 at the tips meanest teeth jarring, spine shaking ,Bladder ,splatter and liver, quiver Hickory with bamboo backed bow I hope to ever shoot a person learns a lot in a couple of years
Dennis
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I remember when I was 3 or 4 shooting a little strung piece of wood and wooden dowels and me and my brother chasing each other, I shot him in the leg when he was running ;D, Later that day we went to the lake near my house and I tried to shoot a fish! the dowel floated away because I didnt want to get in the mucky area LOL
when I was 6 or 7 I remember listening to robin hood and dreaming of shooting a bow and wanting one really bad!
When I was 8 or 9 I went to my parents to pick up my sisters friend and there was a bow her dad was going to through away and I wanted it!!!!!!!!! I strung it with a piece of cord and got some arrows from the store and start shooting it was probably 20lb draw. Soon I saw a youth compound bow at the store and me and my bro each got one, and that week my best friend got a fiber glass longbow from a flea market and we would all walk around shooting em in the field in front of my house.
when I was 11 I had lost my compound some time before and I got a fiberglass longbow that was a 25lb draw and shot it constantly... I even got a nice target for christmas! which one of my arrows broke in
when I was 14/15 I started really getting into survival stuff ect and I wanted to make my own bow and started looking for everything i could on the internet that I could find.. but alot of it looks complicated and all my attempted failed.
I am now about to turn 18 and for the last 3 years have been focused on Ancient weapons! I find my self fantasizing about bows and other weapons alot LOL! Ive still yet to make a shooter but have had afew close attempts..one was technically shootable but was badly tillered with whip ends so it wasnt worth the effort of making a string.
Ive now made alot of improvement in other weapons such as slings which I find myself being exceptionally accurate after two years of trying ;D and Ive gotten to be a very good shooter with my Shakespeare recurve but I will conquer the bow soon enough!
so the answer is very possibly 15 years.. but I dont want to be that pathetic because ive yet to make a shooter :D
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Keep trying and attend the 12th Annual Tennessee Classic in Clarksville, TN at the Twin Oaks Bow hunters Club. Pappy and da guys there, and a couple Yoopers, will show you how to do it and they're a great group to boot. I came away last year grinning from ear to ear and I swear I got a mix of a southern draw with a bit of the U.P. accent showing up in my speech. Yep! Good times, good food and great folks!!! Must attend!!! Ah, the memories! ;D
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I reread PA vol 1 issue 1 and found the article by Jay Massey to be appropriate to this thread. For those of you new and old give it a look and I'm sure you'll walk away with some new thoughts and ideas about bow making in general.
Tracy
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This is one of the first bows I felt comfortable enough to hunt with. This one was probably built 10 years after I started building wood bows. Black locust, 61"t/t and assymetrical, 1 5/8" at the fades with a straight taper to 7/8" limb tips with pin nocks. With the tips on the floor, back up, there is
2 1/2" from the floor to the back of the handle. The handle is 1 1/2" deep and the arrow shelf cut out goes almost to mid limb. The last pic shows a fret that runs cross the limb and 2/3 through the thickness on the sides of the limb. There are also small chrysals along both limb bellies.
I was so sure of this bow when I built it that I named it "Killer?". ;D At that point it was the best I had made. When this bow was built I had nothing to compare it with except the books I was reading. I've come a long way, Baby! thanks to PA and all involved. Pat
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Pat, every BL bow I have built has at least small chrysals or worse. I think there may be some variation in the wood as a lot of guys have great luck with it. Steve
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Not counting my disastrous early days I haven't had many BL bows chrysal. I agree with Badger. I think Northern BL is pretty good stuff. I've made 6 ash bows. 5 chrysalled. The one that didn't was from a board. It's not the wood. It's the type of bow I prefer. Me thinks. Jawge
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Steve, I cut my bow building teeth on locust because I could buy fence rails for $5 each. I screwed up lots of good locust over the years. Almost all fretted and most took excessive set. A few made it to pretty good bows. I have a very nice locust stave the Alan(Woodland Roamer) gave me for my birthday. I will work on it this winter. Thanks again, Alan. ;)
George, ash is the other wood that I have trouble with. Frets and set. One reason I like osage so much is because it takes all the abuse I can give it and still preforms. 8) That's my kinda bow wood! ;) Pat
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I shot a compound for about 12 years. In late '02 / early '03 I started to get the "itch" to switch to a recurve bow. About the same time my wife and I were having a conversation and she made a statement something like, "Anyone can kill a deer with a compound bow. Now, if you made your own bow, that would be an accomplishment." She has since regretted those words! That conversation set me into a mission to find out how to build a FG bow. I looked at several online vendors, and by chance came across Primitive Archer Forum. Who knew people actually made bows out of wood? I completely ditched the idea of building a FG bow, bought the TBBs, read and re-read this forum, and got really good advice from people like Pat B. I broke my first board bow and then made a nice rawhide ERC that lasted a couple of hundred shots and blew. I finally made a 'shooter rawhide backed Red Oak board bow in low 40's weight. Couple of years ago I got permission to harvest some osage from a landowner (I later returned and gave his wife a gift certificate for $25 to the local sweet shop--cheap gift for the rewards). I have built several osage bows now and will be hunting this fall with one of them. I owe it to this site for steering me down this path and have been a subscriber to PA because of it's website. Bowbuilding is my freetime passion along with hunting and fishing.
The first year I hunted with my own bow, I had a black bear walk within 20 yards of my ground location (he stood on his hind legs to investigate me). Later that spring, I had a curious coyote run about 60 yards from me while I was turkey hunting. I had never seen either while I was hunting the previous 14 years! I think hunting with a wooden bow brings us to a closer connection with nature.
Jason
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I had a cheap recurve archery set like most boys in the 60s I reckon. Shot off and on w/ a compound until I found the traditional archery renaissance on the internet, I'd guess 12 or so years ago looking for tuning instructions. John Scifres' early build alongs got me hooked on the idea of building a selfbow. My early bows sucked heavily, severly, painfully but I was hooked. I found I enjoyed the process of building, from scouting tree all the way up to the final leather work, more than the finished product and to this day hunt with a glass recurve. While I still do mostly self and composite, maybe 5 a year on average, after a handful of projects using glass I've learned it ain't as easy as it looks to get the most from modern matierals either. There's plenty to keep a man busy in this game.
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DCM, I SO remember those build alongs. :D I wish more people did them. I would do some but time to get out hunting is limited and rare, and I need that to get materials. So I can understand why more aren't done. It was those build-a-longs that taught me so much. It's running into a problem and seeing what is done to correct it (or blow it. "OK, wrong technique. check"). OK, I'm gonna sit here and reminisce. 8) OK, finished ;)
possum
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My reincarnation in archery came about 10 years ago. I forged a steelpoint, then I thought: "Arrowhead without shaft? Make an arrow!". You know what happened! "Yes, arrow without bow? Lets make one." No german literature in that time, Douglas Wallentine`s book "Making Indian Bows And Arrows- The Old Way" was discovered in a blackpowdershooting catalogue in US- sorry forgot the name. A friend ordered it with his stuff. Bow too weak. Bow making lessons and then better and better ones going the way with making native craftthings. I started with english longbows and my bowmakerheart was captured by native american bows and still is.
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Since I have been working with wood most of my life, and also interested in archery since a young age, its natural that eventually, the two would meet. And they did when I got a woodworking books catalog in the mail and saw a book by Jim Hamm in there. "what?" I said to my self, "you can make a bow out of wood?" "and it's not a long lost ancient secret?"
The funny thing was I already had a shaving horse, and a draw knife and had been doing lots of old time traditional hand tool woodworking. And to top it off, I lived on the old family farm at the time, and was surrounded by lots of "hedge" trees. The trouble with that was that my father loved to cut 'em down, because they make such get firewood! :-[
Also I dropped out of college, but I managed to pass one class and I have one credit, in ARCHERY :D
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For me this is easy as I have been making bows for a year now. My background did not include hunting or working with hand tools or wood or anything that relates to this passion. Heres how it went for me. Sorry if its a little long winded.
I had become aware of a lot of the things going on in the world that could put us back into the stone age ( natural disasters, terrorist attacks, false flag ops, wars and rumors of wars etc..) and I realized that from a primitve standpoint I had zero knowledge and probabley would'nt do that well at providing for my family so I bought the army survival manual. While reading that I had my interest peaked by the survival branch bow. This would have been around Feb of 2007. I decided to go down to the creek bottom and cut a sapling and carve out a bow with my knife. I whitlled on that thing for a week in the evening and never could get it to bend much ( don't know what species it was). Anyway I realized there had to be a better way. I went online and found this site. I also saw guys talking about the TBB and I immeditaley bought all three volumes and started reading all I could get my hands on. About the same time I started reading everything I decided " Well, I might want to go ahead and buy me one and learn to shoot it so that by the time I learn to make one I'll be ahead of the game". Which I did, I heard about a guy in a town 20miles away that made osage selfbows. I bought a 68" 49# at 28" osage bow that had some charcter to it. That was the origianl "sidewinder" then I had a friend give me Dean Torges book "hunting the osage bow" and decided after reading that , I needed to find and harvest some osage bow wood so that by the time I learned how to make them I would have some materials. I also was introduced to PP and so now I had two sites to go to. In the mean time I decided after about 6mths of lurking and studying that it was time to try my hand at a hickory board bow, but I didn't have any hand tools so I posted a trade request and traded with Orien on PP for one of the choice osage staves I had just harvested,(Aug -Sept 07) then I emailed Tim Baker and told him what I wanted to do and that I wanted a pyramid design and ask what dmimesions he would suggest. He was very helpful. I located a local cabinet maker and purchased a couple nice hickory boards for $5 each. I took my time and before I knew it ( about a mths start to finish)( Oct-Nov 07) I had "The Virgin Hickory" and she is still shooting to this day, after maybe 2000 arras through her. I have it on loan to an ole primitve shooter I met that is rehabing a shoulder and can't shoot his 55# riight now. ( It lost weight...10-15# with the coming of spring...thats hickory in the kansas humidty) I have 3 shooters to my credit and have broken I don't know maybe 6 or 8 in the process I quit counting cuz it don't matter. I have been shooting at least every other day and plenty of 3d shoots this year and have gotten better and better. I am eternally grateful for the fellas that have blazed the trail, for it sure makes it alot easier for those of us that have come along afterwards. The guys I have met in this thing are some of the finest, generous, intelligent and capable people I have ever had the privilesge to know and I am currently in the process of trying to infect some of the cyborg shootin guys at the Ninnescah Bowhunting Club that can't believe my newst osage shooter shoots as well and as quiet as it does. The nice thing about it is I am no longer alone as I have made several friends that have been into bowmaking and knapping a while and I now have a buddy that I meet with regualry to scout/ cut wood and stump shoot etc.... Now if I can just find some where to hunt thats not 50 miles way I will be in tall cotton. I am currently wokring on another 60" osage pyramid that I hope will come in at 57-60#. I am hopelessly hooked. It took me 43yrs of life to finally discover this passion. Its something that has gripped me like no other. You know I liken this to a midlife crisis. Some guys divorce thier wives and go get a trophy wife and a hotrod car... I decided to continue to love my wife of 23yrs and carve out a stick and put a string on it and take walk in the woods. I have actually come to believe that I will make meat with it ( God willin.) The journey thus far has been great and so have all of you. Danny
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My beginnings came believe it or not from a near death experience, about 4 years ago I had my first of 2 bouts with pancreatitis. I spent some time in intensive care and nearly died, I recovered and went home but was directed by my doctor to take the entire summer off due to the heat and my condition which needed some rest to improve. I had seen ads in magazines "Make bows from boards" and really had an interest in the idea. Somehow I stumbled upon the leatherwall site and did some reading. George Tsoukolas(sp) was the teacher I needed and I bounced alot of questions off him and numerous others on the site. I was fortunate enough that my first bow, a red oak backed with denim, was a success. 72" ntn cherry tips a thick leather handle and about 50#. I ordered the string from ebay since I had not yet begun making them. I was thrilled that I could shoot something that I made myself. I practiced shooting it the remainder of the summer into fall and that year took a small spike horn whitetail with the bow. Later that same season I sat in my tree stand with the bow, and the sun reflected off the belly of it, my heart dropped as I noticed the small cracks that we all know as chrysals. I decided to retire it so it wouldn't die and leave me with only pieces to remember my "first" by. since then, I've made about 30 bows, given away, a few sold, all my friends and there sons and some daughters armed with my new hobby. I've backed with brown grocery bag, denim, birch bark, jute, sinew,silk,rawhide,snakeskin,and bamboo. I can't imagine what life would be like if I couldn't make bows, I have numerous in the works and lots of wood that wants to shoot an arrow. it's almost like each new bow is my first. kinda funny.
VB
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I really enjoyed your stories. We seem to have a lot in common. Steve
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Badger,I started much the same as you described,with only a desire from my early youth to build my own outfit and hunt deer with it.I knew no one that built selfbows,then, in '98,saw a small booklet ,26 pages,by Steve Hulsey,called,"For the first time bowyer".I bought a seasoned stave from him,and my first attempt went very well.After that,I started cutting and seasoning my own wood.It took a while to try anything other than osage,but I now build from several whitewoods as well,but nothing compares to boisd'arc.I've been building self arrows for about 5 years,and it's every bit as rewarding as the bowbuilding.I enjoy building my own equipment,even my own hang- on type tree stands,but my real passion is gettin' to hunt with em.There is nothing like the feeling of taking a deer,(or even a squirrel for that matter),with self made tools. I've rambled on long enough, God Bless
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7 years ago I had abandoned a wreck of a marriage and was a trainwreck myself. A work acquaintance asked me if I wanted to finish a bow he had started years ago. It was a green ash stave he had cut years before and it was wonderfully seasoned. 66" n-t-n, pulled 43 lbs at 26", and had a huge knot below the handle. Nite after nite of scraping wood and listening to him blather on and on about every subject but what was on my mind was a healing experience. He's now one of the best friends a man could have and I recently returned the favor by introducing him to building flintlocks. Now we are both nuts for our seperate crafts and heading further around the bend with no brakes and a brick on the gas pedal...
That first bow developed a crack in the upper (the "perfect") limb when I turned my back and a testosterone-laden training-wheel shooter picked it up and overdrew to his claimed 32" draw. The pinhead also released from full draw with no arrow on the string, something I don't think is recommended even for their equipment. The blood running down his wrist was small satisfaction for the grief he caused.
To this day I shoot a sinew and snakeskin backed osage orange bow that my mentor gave me when my bow failed. I have built several dozen bows for others, but am content to shoot "Crack Addict" built by him. I know that some day a bow will emerge from a stave under my hands and I will look at her and say, "I found you, I made you, you're mine."
Thank you all for sharing in this inspirational thread. Makes me wanna make another bow, or 12.
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I was lucky and built my first bow under the watchful eye of master bowyer John Strunk. I still have that hazelnut bow and it's a fine one at that. Bow number two somehow turned into a a shooter but I cringe whenever I look at the tiller. Then I decided that I was going to build a bow out of vine maple and my next 4 attempts ended in failure. I finally made one that shot and it is still holding together - though it is awefully rough by my standards today. I've probably made about 25 bows and it seems like I've made every mistake possible, but something new still goes wrong with each new bow. But the mistakes are getting less and less serious so I think I'm improving. This seems to be a journey that will never end, and I am thankful for that.
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What a great bunch of stories. I hope the moderators leave this thread up till the end. It should be required reading for new members.........they would feel like "family" right away.
Piper
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I started crafting selfbows in 1994. There were no traditional archery sites back then. Heck, the World Wide Web was still crawling out of the primordial ooze at that point. I took a self bow making class, and purchased the Traditional Bowyer's Bible and The Bent Stick, all in the same weekend.
I got into selfbows because I couldn’t afford to buy a traditional bow. I'm not a hunter. I just like archery for its own sake.
I subscribed to Primitive Archer in the first year and I'm pleasantly surprised to see it going strong.
I remember when there was just one traditional site in 1997.
Today, I'm glad to see there are more sites for selfbowyers, and there are some fine craftsmen/women out there. Maybe one day I'll consider myself one of them! I'm still making bows. I write the occasional article, and post about selfbows on my webpage.
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Yikes!
I started about 5 years ago. Aged 9! By myself i quickly figured some woods were better than others. Early on, with no help, i used only a penknife to remove the bark. Often i would leave the cambium on then i would flatten the belly and make the tips slightly thinner. My concept of tillering was minimal but my bows certainly started to improve. I would often notice that after a summer of no use a bow would be much better so learnt dry wood was also good. I also realised some woods wouldn't bend how i wanted them to bend, especially the ones i made from pine. I started to use hazel and can also remember a particularly good bow from holly. I liked these tension strong woods because they didn't break. My arrows were often just straight stickes with a nock and a nail in the front. Fletching was to me very hard but the arrows flew well anyway. Soon i made bows that were breaching the gardens limits. These would be stronger and dryer bows with slightly better tiller.I can still remember jumping over fences into other peoples gardens to fetch an arrow. I would guess these bows would shoot 100metres at best judging on the lengh of my garden. Pretty impressive in my opinion.
Then i got tbb and found these sites. Now my arrows are fletched and bows have better tiller. Surprisingly i broke few bows until i got tbb now more of my bows break.
Josh
I forgot... I also used to put a nail in to my bows as a arrow rest. Apart from the fact it was not very aesthetically pleasing it worked suprisingly well! :D
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Sure I can remember as I am still starting ;D. Well, I did made one 6-7 years ago from green ash, but then I did not know the concept of tiller, draw weight or draw length or anything. So I don't count it.
So far I had seven attempts, one working. I think the tiller on that one is a bit off, but I called it finished and gave it away. At the moment waiting for a new stave to dry out.
I like this thread, as Islandpiper said, I do feel more cozy :D
Boris
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venisonburger, such a great story. All great stories. Thanks for sharing. Jawge
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Short story here, 2003 at woolaroc rendevous, watched primitive bow shoots and everybody was havin' great fun. I didn't like archery. flinters was my game. But someone had a beautiful osage bow for 70.00 so I bought it. It started talking to me, It said "don't you remember dad having you split those osage trees for fence posts? You used to make a bow with cotton string when you were bored on the farm. What happened? I got to thinking what have I got to lose to try and make a bow? I felt a primitive pull that I get when fixing or shooting my flintlock except this was a lot stronger. Is this something engrained in our genes, that just needs atrigger bring it to concious thinking? Yuk, too philosophical, but kinda true I guess. It's all about personal challenges since we as a people don't seem to have these days, so its an outlet for me to be primevil. dismount
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Yep,but now I know what they meant when they said there is a fine line between a hobby and mental instability.
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Well just so everyone knows I'm the best at breaking bows. I can break em all, glass, wheels, and wood it don't matter. So I figured I'd at least try keep up with my destruction. I have been in love with archery since I was a child. Makes me feel like a kid again, just like shootin the sapling bows dad used to make for me so I could shoot with him.
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I feel kind of out of place here sometimes, but there are common threads that connect us all.
There are a thousand stories from the naked city...
I grew up in LA, did some camping and fishing with my dad, but that was the extent of the outdoor life for me growing up. I actually hated camping back then, and so opted out of joining the Boy Scouts, etc. (I was a heck of a great Cub Scout, however, and made some of the best sandcast candles and plaster of paris neckerchief slides you could ask for). Then and now, hunting is not in me, and I doubt I can ever actually go out and attempt to kill a deer or even a rabbit. Not that I dont love eating meat (and venison is my very favorite), and find nothing wrong with ethical, compassionate hunting, but I know my limitations, and that is a big one.
Years late, I got involved in living history, US Civil War, and loved then as now old weapons, the more ancient the better. I joined the US Army as an infantryman so I could play with some really neat toys, and sometimes still regret not staying in for 20. I had damaged my leg too badly to remain in the combat arms, and so I got out and went to college.
Years later, having moved to Western Massachusetts, I saw the first volumen of the TBB in a favorite bookstore. After picking it up and promptly breaking my first attempt (a Holmgaard), I went to a Ren fair with my wife. This guy was selling badly made red oak "long bows," but they were cheap fun, and I shot that for a while. I decided I wanted a real longbow, but no way could I afford the prices I was seeing, and knew too that I didn't really have the knowledge to understand how to tell the junk from the good stuff.
Thus, I picked up the other 2 (at the time) TBBs and got to work. This was about 2 or 3 years ago. I found out that the ELB was not the only kind of bow out there, and began gravitating toward the ancient European flat bows and other designs.
And that led me in other directions. The atlatl is one, and so is the hand and staff sling (yeah, not archery, but I never would have discovered these things any other way). Primitive painting and pigments is another interest, as is Asiatic composite bows. Paelo skills are yet another area to explore and discover.
And for the last year and a half, I've been captivated by Greek and Roman torsion and tension artillary. This has caused me to learn traditional jointry and other woodworking skills, expanded my range of hand and power tools, gotten into bronze casting and limited metal working such as hand riveting, and it has been an amazing trip. Right now, I have a new hand held catapult I am working on, and definately my best work to date. This little machine is based on Vitruvian's principles (dont worry, I wont go into it now!), and is an oversprung machine that will shoot an 7.5" arrow with far more force than can be produced by a hand bow. "Sharp Little Teeth" / "Denticula Acres" will have curved arms and will be plated entirely in steel and brass around the spring frame. Once it is done, I will start a new thread and show anyone interested the entire process from design through testing. The frame you see has 16 mortise and tenon joints, and challenged my chiseling skills to the max.
And that is where I am now in this strange and wonderful journy. I have a number of bow projects in different states of completion, and will get to them eventually. Why rush? The building process is the best part of making bows and all the rest.
Dane
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Cool story,thanks for sharing Dane. :)
Pappy
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Started building bows as a kid in South Missouri out of Hickory saplings and leather boot strings and twig arrows with duct tape heads and vulture feathers. I was surrounded by hundreds of acres of Oak, Walnut, Hedge Apple (Osage), Ash, Hickory, Cedar, etc... I had no Idea what I was in the middle of.
I am enjoying renewing my old love for wood bows and I can't say thank you enough for all the help you guys on this sight are willing to give. Hope I get good and learn so I can it on myself someday. Discipleship so to speak.
Thanks,
Rob