really old Firestone Olympian

[mudfish]

my friend inherited this bow from an estate and asked me if I could find out anything about it.  based on the memory of old timers who remembered shooting it as teenagers, he thinks it has been around the house up in Maine for 70 years.  it is 66" long nock to nock.  the only marking is a Firestone Olympian decal.  there is no shelf, and a small dot of leather as a strike plate.  the wood is a fairly tight grain and somewhat lightweight, maybe lemonwood?  it is backed with some kind of white material.  any help would be appreciated.

now let me see if I can attach some pictures

 

[mudfish]

hey - it worked.  here are some more pics
 

 

 

 

[mudfish]

just took another picture of the backing

 

[d. ward]

yes they sure did back around the 1950's most likely made from lemon wood with paper macarta backing.And not all of them but a good many Firestone bows were but by the late great Ben Peason Archery Company cool bow bd

[JJB]

Here's a few pictures of a Ben Pearson that is my Dad's that we believe is from the early to mid 1940's.  It looks very similar to your friends.
-Jay
 
 
 

[d. ward]

Those old lemon wood long bows....the ones that are still around from the 1950's and are shootable are actualy not bad shooters at all.Fact is the 50-60 year old lemon wood bows I have and do shoot shoot as well as any new model of equal value type bow.As the good doctor would say you gotta love em huh ? bd

[mudfish]

thanks bowdoc, thanks JJB.  that was my initial reaction too, an old Ben Pearson lemonwood.  JJB, your Dad's bow looks identical, except for the backing, of course.

I used all the search engines and found a few references to the bow, but nothing on when they were made, which is mainly what we wanted to know.  early to mid 40's would put it right at the age it's purported to be.

my buddy shot bows when he was a teenager, and was all fired up to get back into it, using this bow.  I fixed him up with a modern r/d glass backed longbow and told him he would be much better served using that as an everyday bow, and hang this one on the wall as a family heirloom.

I made a flemish string last night, yellow and brown B-50 with a red nylon serving, I hope that will look authentic for the age period.  It is stretching out right now on a HH bow I have that is the same length.  I am giving it back to him with some cord, show him how to tie a bowyers hitch on the bottom limb and string it up gradually increasing the brace height over a week or so.  then we will put on the bowstring when it's at 6".  if he wants to try a few shots then, it's his bow and I want to watch.

thanks again for all your help.

[oldbohntr]

I'm betting it's an American Archery bow out of IL.  Saw lots of them when I was collecting in MI. That smudging will clean off of course.  You're already on the right track to shooting it.  I made a number(at least a dozen) of ancient lemonwood bows shootable by repeatedly slathering them with heated Wood Rejuvenator by Wood Medic over a several day period and letting it soak in.  Then I'd brace them at maybe 4" overnight, and then increase it to 6-8", and so on.  Kept adding the Rejuvenator all through the process.  When I got it to 24", I just took the plunge and shot it.  Never broke a bow that way -but I can't say every step was necessary.  Don't know, as I stayed with what worked.  I did recently find that Wood Medic is out of business, but I think some other company still offers the product.

[oldbohntr]

relooking at the pics, I think old bd is probably right, and it's a Pearson.