What is a traditional bow to you?

[fish n chicks]

I have a conundrum brewing in my head, so I've turned to my brothers and sisters of the string for opinions. I can't tell you how hard the trad bug has bitten me, but i'm sure most all of you can relate. However, I have an issue figuring out what the limits of traditional archery are. I see STUNNING traditional bows all the time, but with sights, super lightweight quivers, carbon arrows with fake feathers for fletching, and then we can get into the discussion of shapes, sizes, styles, laminated, heat bent, the use of METAL, yadda yadda...

It gets my head spinning. I ask for your opinion because I have had these two bows in my mind for about 4 or 5 months now, but they would most certainly NOT be considered traditional based on their design. Their shape would look like an alien's bow, but they would be made from wood only. One bow I have in the back of my mind (unlike the two I mentioned taking over my sleep!) would have a machined aluminum riser, with wood recurved tips. That doesn't sound traditional to me, but it doesn't have any wheels, and would be made in my little garage shop. The objective for one of my fantasy bows would be a totally tool-less, bolt-less, fastener-less, 3 piece take-down.

Basically, do you consider bows like Horse bows, take down recurves, bows that use any type of metal in their execution, sights, etc, Traditional? I'm not sure where the line is if one was to want to keep it "traditional".

Thanks in advance for your help gang!

[Stiks-n-Strings]

Trad to me is anythign with out sights or wheels.

 Shoot what you like fish

[KellyG]

Heck fish guys are making warf bow out of old compounds. Heck Ruddy just made a two piece long bow with a steel and metal sleeve, I don't think anyone would say that is not a trad bow. Make it and see what they come out like so you can at least get some sleep.
Kelly

[Pat B]

On TradGang a traditional bow is any longbow or recurve. Doesn't matter if it has a metal riser, sights or what have you. As long as it doesn't have wheels it is considered traditional here on TradGang
  For me recurves and longbows are traditional but they get farther away from traditional as more gegahs are added. A naked bow with no sights, stabilizers, etc would be traditional for me. I guess a traditional target bow would have sights, stabilizers, etc. Even back in the days of Fred Bear he was experimenting with aluminum risers, limbs and limb cores. He, and a few others,  popularized FG in bows. In those days I guess only wood bows were considered traditional. Traditional means following tradition! In 100 years compounds will probably be considered traditional because of their 150 years of tradition.
  For me, wood bows, preferrably selfbows, wood, cane or hardwood shoot arrows and homemade points, stone or steel, is traditional. I guess it all depends on when "traditional" begins in your mind.
  There are many comfigurations in archery. A simple stick and string, complex composite horn/wood/sinew bows, horn or antler bows with sinew , Eskimo driftwood bows with a sinew cable backing, Penopscott(sp) double bows, pebble bows from the Far East, long bows with longer, unfletched arrows from South America and other places, minature Pigmy elephant hunting bows and the list goes on. We, as humans, have to keep messing with stuff. It's in our DNA! That is what has gotten us to where we are today. Without that we would still be like our cousins the great apes. Where is the deviding line between modernism and traditionalism?
  So, fish, if you think about something long enough I guess you could consider it traditional, but in the whole scheme of things, does it really matter. After all, these are only words and it is up to each of us to decide what they mean to us.

[Dick in Seattle]

Oh, boy... an argument!          

Just so happens this is my hot button.  Let me begin by saying that modern bows are wonderful... R/D's, carbon, ILF, etc...   all good and all made legal by adaptation of rules designed to enhance control of competition.   None of it, neither the equipment or the competition rules, has much to do with tradition.

Traditional means to do something the same as it was done at a specific time, place or period in the past, using as close as you can to the same equipment and techniques that were in common, repeat, common, use at the time.   You can always find the cutting edge example to just justify what you want to consider traditional now.  For instance, you can find a breech loading rifle in use in the Revolutionary War (Ferguson)... doesn't mean a Weatherby is traditional!

If you want to think of the way we shoot today as traditional, it is, in the sense that that is the name that has been given to our style of shooting... it's a label.  It opens things up to any kind and degree of modern development as long as the style is maintained, i.e. no sights.  When someone offers new limbs made of molymacromarsidium a rare metalic spring material that will be discovered on Mars, that will be considered, under the rules, as traditional.

If you want to shoot traditionally, that's another story.  Pick your period, do some research to see what was being shot by that time's average hunter, equip yourself as he was equipped and see if you can do as well as he did.   That's shooting traditionally, as opposed to shooting traditional style.

This is the same conundrum facing muzzle loading...  The traditional weapon of the frontier was a patched round ball rifle.   Yes, there were exceptions, but they weren't common.  The stainless steel, primer ignited, scope sighted, sabot shooting rifles in the woods in muzzle loading season today bear the same relationship to "traditional" rifles that carbon limbed ILF bows and RD bows bear to earlier bows.

It's all labels, but I like to see words keep their meaning.  I have all kinds of bows, except compounds (can't hold them up, but consider them marvelous machines).   I shoot them all and enjoy them, but I know in my heart which ones are traditional.

OK, the grumpy old man will go away now...........

[bigcountry]

Goodness, this is one thats beat over and over in the powwow section I bet 100 times.  Guess I am not sure what it has to do with bowyers bench?

[hova]

fish , i too have contemplated a larf bow (like a warf , but with longbow limbs instead of ilf stuff) . trad is what you feel gives you that connection to the past.

i personally dont like sights , but i might work a little contour into the wife's bow , so she has a kind of guage of distance. i also have drawn up a "trad" whisker biscuit ,with a wooden ring , and bucktail for the whisker part.  so i can use alum's with vanes.  this is probably far beyond trad for most here , but i dont care much for confines.


i do however , dislike my bear compound with wheels and sights. for all that , i'd bust out the savage bolt action 12g thats good to 280yds.


i guess im saying i like trad because a: i can build my own bow B:i like the connection to the past and C: im cheap , i like to build my own stuff..


did i mention im cheap?


lets see some sketches of that futuristic bow fish. i still have a dream of a triple penobscot.


-hov

[Roy from Pa]

If I build a traditional crossbow, like the ones used thousands of years ago, would ya all still love me? LOL

To me trad is stickbows. I like BBO bows, but if I go to a primitive archery site and post pictures of my BBO bows, I get shot full of holes..     I just smile and leave.  

Back in the 70's when I shot. Sights and stablizers were the normal for some. Others shot bare bow. There were classes at shoots.

Just make and shoot what makes you happy. That's how I view it anymore.

[JamesV]

wish I was a modarator, would yank this nonsense before the first post.

James.................................

[Ricky Wallace]

What Dick said!!!  "grumpy old guys" know lots more than us semi old guys! Well said Dick!

[fish n chicks]

Originally posted by bigcountry:
Goodness, this is one thats beat over and over in the powwow section I bet 100 times.  Guess I am not sure what it has to do with bowyers bench?

Because my question is relative to bows I would like to MAKE, which I learned to do here, on The Bowyer's Bench.

But thanks for the input.

[fish n chicks]

Originally posted by JamesV:
wish I was a modarator, would yank this nonsense before the first post.

James.................................

Wow. Totally not what I was expecting to see when I came back to this tonight. Guess i'll keep my freaking  thoughts to myself next time.


Maybe some of you haven't figured this out but not all of us "bowyers" spend our days and nights in the Pow Wow section to know this is a subject that has left a trail of dead horses. SOME of us are over here trying to advance our skills in the art of bow making, while at the same time truly understanding the art itself.

But I guess you've clarified this for all of us already James, so if you'd be so kind as to enlighten me with a link to your response to this "nonsense", I'd love to also gather your input as well.

Thanks for checking out the thread bud, i'll be keeping an eye out for that link.

[KellyG]

Fish don't take it too hard. It is like asking rifle hutners what is the best caliber and such. I think Dick said it best. This site admins and mods have set the rules of what trad is here. The do a great job of policing up thread that are meant to be just a troll. I am sure that is way yours was not yanked. You asked simply to help for your design. I thinks some just skim over the topic post and leave and have know I deal truely was asked or said. I unfortunalty read to much of the info and as you can tell write on it to much also.

Roy From PA I would still love ya and heck beg for you to build me one, so I could have one to try out.    
God Bless and Happy Building,
Kelly

[JamesV]

Fish...........

Sorry if I got your tailfeathers in a ruffle. You asked for my opinion and I gave it, again sorry if it isn't what you wanted to hear. Suggestion...............make you posts debate free if you don't want to hear both sides.

James.....................

[fish n chicks]

Originally posted by JamesV:
Fish...........

Sorry if I got your tailfeathers in a ruffle. You asked for my opinion and I gave it, again sorry if it isn't what you wanted to hear. Suggestion...............make you posts debate free if you don't want to hear both sides.

James.....................

If you think traditional archery and bow making is "nonsense", what are you doing here? I'm not one to get his tail feathers in a ruffle easily, but the only opinion you gave was about what you would do if you were a mod. Which, fortunately for us who truly care about the soprt, you're not.

[hova]

i think james was just saying that this is one of those sort of things that gets someone going and can cause an argument over sides. like dick said , some places that are primitive dont want to see eveen two pieces of wood glued together with hide glue. while places like home(here) dont mind if you want a little carbon or metal in your bow.

i think as long as your bow does not give you a significant mechanical advantage , beyond the scope of launching the arrow quickly and accurately , its trad.


to me , as long as you still have that trad aspect in  your heart , even a trad crossbow is something i'd like to see. its not something i would make or hunt with , but if its hand crafted by a member , then of course i want pics.


just cause its not for me , doesnt mean i wouldnt be interested in someones method for makin something like that.


as for tailfeathers , you guys are the first in a long time (since joining) that seem to disagree , and its still not even an argument. it just seems james has seen where somethign like this leads , even if he did come across a little gruff.


no harm no foul i say. shake hands and agree to disagree...

-hov

[Pat B]

I gave my opinion of what I consider traditional. Some might agree, some might not. You know what they say about opinions...we all have one!
  Roy,which primitive site were you reffering to?
PA, PP?

[Stiks-n-Strings]

Hov said it right, agree to disagree and move on. I've been here a little while and this is the first time I've seen even a little arguing started between two members.

 If you guy's want to hash it out do it in pm's and leave it off the bench. I spend alot of time here and have no issues with anyone so James and Fish don't take what I'm saying personally.

 Just stick to the topic or don't post.

 Stiks

[John Scifres]

What you are planning to make is within the bounds of traditional archery.  Just do it if it makes you happy.  And show us if you'd like.  If it doesn't comply with the rules of this site, the mods will pull it.

[va]

I have never run into anyone (trad, compound, rifle...) who questioned what I shot.  Showed interest - Yes, but no discussion/arguing.

I am convinced that each of us in reaching for personal achievement.  My advice is "Never let someone else determine the value of a Personal achievement."

example - I used to run a lot.  Somebody told me that some folks run farther than the standard 26.2 mile marathon.  So I thought - "hey! let's try it.'  I trained for and entered a 50-mile footrace.  Just to show how out of the mainstream this is - there were 6 people running the 50.  Anyway, due to some people dropping out and me being too stubborn to stop I found myself winning the durn thing.  Never won a race in my life up to then.  I was EXSTATIC!  as I walked past the timer table, one of the timers leaned over to another timer and said (Wow, 9 hours 45 minutes.  That's the slowest winning time ever."

I was crushed until my wife reminded me the timer was not the one running.

Never let someone else determine the value of a personal achievement.