Self-bows

[PEARL DRUMS]

Originally posted by fishone:
I have one on Pearl Drums all osage. It not only looks good, it flat out shoots an arrow.

Mr. Craig, don't forget that picture you owe me this fall    

[PEARL DRUMS]

Originally posted by Jim Wright:
I have one of Jim Rempp's Yew self bows and don't know how one could be better.

Jim, I will just say this. The "underground" self bowyer world is astonishingly large and ridiculously talented. You just don't see their names in magazines or books.

[Jim Wright]

Chris, I know there are a lot of guys making fine self bows that people have never heard of. I wouldn't consider Jim Rempp an underground bowyer. A number of years ago he was featured in an article in Traditional Bowhunter Magazine by his friend Paul Bruener and he has been making bows for quite a while now.

[Jim Wright]

I can't find the "edit" feature so I will just apologize for misspelling Paul Brunner's name. I don't know if he ever posts here anymore, I believe I remember that he moved to New Zealand?

[Davt]

I have a rather large collection of self bows and have shot and hunted with them almost exclusively for the past 20years. A few that have not been mentioned are Ted Fry at Raptor Archery, Jay St. Charles and John Strunk, Spirit Longbows. When shopping for self bow be careful to not be drawn in by only finish work as the quality of tillering, wood selection and working the stave/billets up carefully cannot be overstated in insuring the quality of shooting and durability. I have seen and shot some self bows that looked beautiful but when strung it was clear that tillering was a secondary thought and when shot it was rather harsh. My oldest self bow that currently gets shot regularly was made for me in 1992, can't even imagine how many arrows have gone through it. Also, a good self bow does not come cheap as there are many hours of work that go into making one.

[PEARL DRUMS]

Couldn't have said it better myself. I always say tiller is everything, the rest is just frosting.