I've been building bows for one year. My black locust hunting bow is #6.It's not perfect, but I love it and I'm sure #7 will be even better.
I am lucky to still own bow#1. Like many bowywers my first try was reduced to a kids bow because of bad tillering resulting in multiple hinges.
#1 has become my six year old son Matthews bow.He's not as into it as dad is,but he still enjoys having "his own" bow.
I was watching him the other day, shooting his bow. Its awful, it doesnt even look like a bow! More like a....I don't even know what to call it.
I got looking at it after he was done. It was obviouse to me now what went wrong. I could easily see where and why the hinges were created.
If only I could add wood back where I had removed too much. "Why not try" I thought, " nothing to lose" I told myself.
#1 is made of ash, so I cut some 1/8" strips and glued and clamped the in the areas of the worst hinges. After drying overnight I worked down the exess wood. It was imediatly obviose that it needed two more "patches"
After the 2nd repairs dried. I worked it down again. Much better. As I worked in the "new" tiller I realized that It was easy. My eyes could see things that they could not see a year ago. My hands could feel things that were hidden from me before.
The bow was the same, but I had changed. Cool.
The new #1 looks like a classic long bow now. Not perfect, but perfectly fine.
I don,t imagine that this repair would hold up on a 50# bow. But this bow is only 10-15# at best.
Another example of the magical learning curve: Matthew wanted a back quiver (like dads) to go with his re-furbished bow.
I quickly built one out of christmas paper tubes and duct tape. As I was fitting it to him it beacame apparent that his arrows were too long for him to pull out of a back quiver.
Come to find out he has little short arms like a t-rex, and his draw length is only 15". I cut his 5/16" youth arrows down to 16" long and he could draw them out like Howard Hill !!
I took the combination out back to shoot a few myself. At a 16" draw the 5/16" arrows were way too stiff, hitting way to the left every time.
As I made plans to build him some 1/4" arrows I realized that I might not have understood so easily a year ago that his arrow spine was too stiff. Arrow spine has been a crash course for me in the last year right along side bow building.
So, to all you new guys out there, Keep the faith. Your skill will increase with your experience. Just keep building bows and asking questions.
And for all you experienced old timers out there.. I know I'm still a newb.. and I'm so excited to learn what I don't know. Thank you for being there and sharing your wisdom.
Good luck and God bless,
Scott.
P.S. 3-rivers sells 1/4" points and nocks.how cool.
Topic: The magical learning curve (Read 296 times)
