You Gotta Have Faith

[mangonboat]

Part 1: A few months ago I found a block of Indian rosewood in the bottom of my old carpenters hand-tools chest...I had bought it 40 years ago to make a golf putter...made the worlds prettiest, worst putting golf club from it and threw the rest in the chest, a block about 5" x 5" x 2". When I found it I recalled a comment a TG member made on a post about an old recurve that couldn't be repaired, but that beautiful rosewood riser would make some mighty nice knife handles.So I floated it out for trade for nothing in particular. A TG member, ScaredMt, was interested but he had nothing in particular to trade. So I sent it to him on spec..told him the muse would hit him someday and when it did I wanted photos. Today I got a package with a note from Tsosie that he still hadn't let a saw touch that block, but in the meantime he enclosed a gorgeous skinning knife with a Bolivian rosewood handle, brass rivets and a blade cut from a piece of an old giant circular saw blade from a sawmill in Flagstaff, polished to a mirror shine and sharp as a scalpel. If this is what Tsosie does while waiting for his muse to stop by, I cant wait to see what his inspiration looks like.    

[mangonboat]

Part 2: I am addicted to browsing the boards and the auction site for bows. A week or so back I made a deal with a fella selling a 1969 Bear K Mag. The photos weren't the best but the bow looked to be in decent shape and had the less-common black limb tips. I had to go out of town for a death in the family over the weekend and while I was gone the mail-lady also left another package, a 1969 50# KMag in great shape, no holes, no twists, and maybe the prettiest "tigerwood" riser I've ever seen ,complete with multiple exotic black stripes in the grain.  I am going to refinish it ,not because its too rough to shoot, but because it will be a stunner.

[mangonboat]

Part 3: I got a bit obsessed last fall when the 2009-10 St. Jude's Faith bow, a Dryad Orion of rare beauty and deadly hunting mojo, showed up on the big auction site...offered by a pawn shop. When I could not confirm how it ended up in said pawn shop, I watched it go round three times and somebody finally bid on it. Turned out that somebody was TG member huntnelmo and he put the bow in the TG classifieds where I failed to see it until he bumped it. Long story short, he's a Texas State Trooper, that eliminated any misgivings I had, we made a deal and that package was also waiting for me today.
After I explained all these packages to my wife and the story of "Faith", she asked me why I wasn't outside shooting this legendary bow. I took the hint and my first 3 arrows reminded me that Faith weighs about half what most of my bows weigh, but when we got that first bit of jitters out of the way, I hunkered down on the next three arrows..aiming for a tiny dark spot on my worn out bag target from about 21 yards.  
   

The first arrow hit the dark spot, the second arrow hit the first arrow and wore the nock like a crown as it buried into the Beman ICS Hunter shaft, and the third arrow hit 1/2" above the first.
   

I should mention that Steve reported that he bought Faith last fall hoping to develop into left handed shooting and that didnt work out so he put her on the classifieds. As reported in other threads, I shot lefty for 45 years, discovered I'd become RED and started shooting righty last fall while still shooting left handed once in a while, but now I typically shoot much more accurately right handed.

So a little Faith in the Trad Gang goes a long way.