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Around the Campfire / Re: Life on the Farm
« Last post by bjrogg on January 13, 2026, 04:17:09 pm »
Burnsie we grew up very much the same.

I grew up on a dairy farm. My grandpa shipped his milk in the old milk cans. My dad switched over to a bulk tank with a cooler and agitator. We still carried all the milk to the tank by hand and dumped it in through a filter. I remember when we got a “modern “ pipeline. That really helped. The milk was carried to the tank by the pipeline and it saved a ton of work. In the summer you could look in any direction and see Holstein cows grazing in a pasture. 30 to 60 milk cows per herd.

We raised sugar beets and edible beans. Both of which had to be cultivated and hoed by hand. Believe me. I know where the saying “He got a hard row to hoe “ comes from. Of course we had hay to bale and straw to. We learned really young never to complain about being bored. Dad could always find something to do.

We were pretty good at finding things to do to. Didn’t take much to entertain us. We got rid of the milk cows in the 90’s and raised beef cattle until 2012. My son still has beef cattle and I help him out to.

Same here. A few Dutch farmers started up much bigger operations and now they are pretty much the only dairies around. I guess they can have it. I certainly don’t miss the cows. Did I mention it was twice every day. Plus all the other stuff. Cleaning pens, feeding calves, breaking in heifers that had never had a calf and been milked before. Dehorning and casturating calf. Not to mention the very important job of getting the cows bred back so they would have another calf and produce milk again. I honestly don’t know how those big operations do it.

I much prefer the crop side now. It’s still a lot of work, but I enjoy it. I find it challenging and rewarding. Not so much financially, but it’s good for my soul.

Bjrogg
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Bows / Re: Short staves- draw length and draw weight trade off
« Last post by jameswoodmot on January 13, 2026, 04:01:46 pm »
Fingers crossed. Good job I have a lot of faith in cascamite. I used a 24 grit 2.5 meter long belt so it’s a lot of abrasive surface area and very aggressive. The bits that come off are more like saw dust than sanding dust, I think I got it off.

It’s got a stupid amount of reflex, I ended up with more than I expected in the elm stave, and I expected the bl backing to straighten it out when I glued it up but it didn’t much at all

If I can get 30lb at 20” I’ll be very happy with it. Then I’ll probably get too over confident and break it 😂
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Around the Campfire / Re: Life on the Farm
« Last post by Burnsie on January 13, 2026, 02:31:23 pm »
Brian,
I grew up in the NW portion of Wisconsin where dairy farming was king. Families were raised and thrived off small 80-200 acre dairy farms with 50-100 milk cows.  My grandparents had a small 80 acre farm and produced grade B milk that was still picked up by the creamery in milk cans - (I'm aging myself).  I basically grew up on that farm, its where I learned work ethic and how to be thankful for the little things in life. Dairy farming is a hard life - those cows had to be milked twice a day "every" day - holidays, weekends it didn't matter "every" day (up at 4:00 am for morning milking, back in the house by 8:00-9:00 pm after evening milking). Did I mention it was every day.  In between you got to go work on your crops, or treat the herd for pink eye, or one of the other 50 things that can affect a cow.  Most farmers didn't trust anyone else to take care of their herd, so they never took a day off.  As a teenager during the summers I milked for several farmers so they could take off 1 week for a vacation - they trusted me.  Milking wore out a lot of good men constantly bending/stooping over to put on milkers. I went off to college and never became a dairy farmer.
Sadly, none of the small dairies that dotted the landscape exist anymore where I grew up.  2-3 mega dairies have scooped up all the the small farms, and opened up fence lines to create bigger fields.  The old barns and silos are dilapidated or gone.  The big players now have huge high tech milking parlors and run over 1000-1500 cows, basically around the clock.  They are impressive operations, but I sure miss the simpler times. 
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Bows / Re: Short staves- draw length and draw weight trade off
« Last post by sleek on January 13, 2026, 02:21:47 pm »
Elm makes some of the best bows. Its not a common wood only because of the Dutch elm disease.  Its has an interlocking grain so id wager it makes a fine backing. That silicone spray may be the death of this though, as once its on, nothing removes it. It coats sandpaper when you try to sand it off, only making you grind it deeper into the wood. Perhaps a scraper can scrape off the layer the silicone is one to remove it all the way. Im watching with interest.
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Bows / Re: Short staves- draw length and draw weight trade off
« Last post by jameswoodmot on January 13, 2026, 01:11:45 pm »
Too slow I did it anyway


One heat treated elm/ black locust stave.

I’m have zero investment in this, I might work but I’m not 100% about the backing strip, got a pin knot in it that I didn’t realise until I was flexing up was on the back side of the strip not the belly side as I had intended for it to be. Just got mixed up.
Glueing with cascamite and I scraped the mating surfaces with a hacksaw blade.

I use silicon spray on the bed of the thickness planer, I ran the glue surface over the belt sander and then scraped and then cleaned with isopropyl. Silicone spray is possible the worst thing for a glue joint so I hope I got it all!

The new elm stave is going to need some work to get it straight


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Bows / Re: 2025 Junior Bow Trade
« Last post by stuckinthemud on January 13, 2026, 12:58:22 pm »
Big thankyou to Aaron for going above and beyond, all the loose ends are tied up, so, please PM me to confirm your shipping addresses and we'll be good to go.
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Flight Bows / Re: Flight Archery Projects
« Last post by loefflerchuck on January 13, 2026, 12:56:56 pm »
I love the hickory. You may get a first appearance record with that bow. 46# may be 50# in the Utah desert. I always have plans to make a few new bows every year for the shoot. Last few years I’ve been busy and time got away and I show up with one new one a year. I’m going with old school hybrid designs in my near future. Short and strained. Like Sleek, I’m also going for the 400 yard goal and 300 with broadhead over records right now. I’m just going with different designs than Kevin.
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Bows / Re: Short staves- draw length and draw weight trade off
« Last post by jameswoodmot on January 13, 2026, 12:16:21 pm »
Couldn’t help myself, got a slat of black locust cut and planed. Any reason that’s a terrible idea?

I’ve also cut another piece of elm, a little shorter than the original, to continue with the plan. I’ll just not be heat treating it with gas 😂
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Shooting and Hunting / Re: First deer with my Osage bow
« Last post by bentstick54 on January 13, 2026, 10:55:48 am »
Great buck. Congrats on a great shot.
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Bows / Re: Short staves- draw length and draw weight trade off
« Last post by jameswoodmot on January 13, 2026, 10:34:55 am »
Well, that didn’t last long! I’ve been trying to get this gas burner heat treating method sorted but it’s being a real pain. There are so many variable to getting it set up I’m finding it hard to work out how long to cook stuff. Also, with small diameter staves there is that gap where the back can get cooked.

I started with these western red cedar slats. Smelt like a sauna until it smelt like a burning sauna. They didn’t last long.

I had the burner on the ground and then realised at ground level there are all sorts of gusts and breezes blowing the glaze around.

Then I lifted the whole thing up and balanced it on various things. (Which is what I was trying to avoid) and then it worked better.

Then I cooked it all the way through!

Ive decrowned it as I wanted to see if it was the hot air getting to the back or if it was cooked through and it looks like a combination of both.

Just cooking the other limb to match now.

I’ll back it, options are; Ash, bamboo, sinew. What do you reckon?don’t think the bamboo will work without deflexing it in the middle.

The last photo is of the decrowned back
. The photo of the burner is just when I set it up, it was about 6” away in the end

I’ll get this thing sorted one day. I think I need a larger burner with more hole, there or four rows, and less flame per each hole.
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