Originally posted by Roger Norris 2:
I don't like the term "overrated" in this context....it neve makes sense to me to insult another fellows bow. Bows are very subjective, what one man shoots well with can be unuseable to another.
Quality of workmanship matters though. I have shot just about every bow that is "main stream"....bowyers popular enough to have a booth at Compton or Kalamazoo....and while some of those bows didnt shoot for me, they were all well made.
As an aside, I just spent a few days down at Black Widow, and watched every aspect of a bow build. Anyone who say they aren't worth the money, or refers to them as "plywood" doesn't know squat about bows or manufacturing. A#1 quality. And no, I don't own one.
What is a thin flat piece of wood clued to another one uni- or undirectional?
Plywood. The so called- SA laminations and riser blocks are unidirectional plywood.
When we speak about custom bows, these bows should reflect someones personality or workmanship. CNC is manufacturing, so please keep the price according to a manufactured product or call it customized factory bow or whatever.
For example:
Jim Belcher took over SKY Archery, which is a bow manufacturing business,but they're made out of the same plywood material than the BW and don't carry such an overpriced custom bow price tag.
And I am not affiliated with SKY, because of the example. It is easily judged by their pricelist.
I know one of the bow builders which is almost as long in the business as BW and I like to glue one up by myself from time to time. So I know very well how to build bows and as an engineer I know enough about manufacturing also....