Dinged up

[LongStick64]

Guys,

How gentle are you with those high priced custom beauties. Do you cringe when you ding em up or do you not care.

[Jack Whitmire Jr]

They are to be used but not abused, I take mine in the woods where they belong and use them . Yes I would cringe if I ran into a barb wire fence in the dark , but not enough to not use it again .

Jack

[2treks]

I take pretty good care of my stuff.About 8 years ago I had a brand new SALUKI from my good friend Lukas, and I took it out to Wyoming to hunt antelope. Barbed wire and sharp stones did a job on it and my knees. I can still look at the biggest scratch on the bow and recall in vivid detail that trip. I don,t mind those scars. I treat my bows today way worse. I call it "Field Testing" Thats ok tho, I know the guy that makes em.    
Chuck

[Mudd]

I own them and they don't get treated any better than I treat myself and I might add that I feel like I've been ridden hard and put up wet more than once in these past almost 60 years, so not that old but fairly high mileage..lol

I was reminded this past week that there are "dings and then there are "dings" and not everyone sees them the same way. I send a bow out with a small ding and the new owner is sending it back because he saw it(legitimately) differently than I did(also legit).

God bless,Mudd

[MercilessMing]

I think all bows were created to be used in the field by their makers.  Not that I will be careless about them, but occasionally things happened.  When so, just have to said to myself be careful going forward and try not to let it happen.  Bows have scars like us and  through that proofed we are no babies.

Ming

[Big Ed]

I use them as needed.Never over abused but definitly used!!!

[LongStick64]

I like that "Bows have scars like us" nice way to think about it. Good one Ming.

[bornagainbowhunter]

I too use my bows.  They get scars.  I don't mind much, but it does seem that the first one on a new bow does hurt a little.

[Wolfkiss]

Got me a new Border, for the first few weeks used to wipe the riser after I handled it. Anyway, got a string sorted for it and set it up on the side of a big plant pot to take a pic,  It proceeded to slide off and I was too far away to catch it...Ahhhhh!

Big scratch!, in a way it did me a favour, it meant from the begining I could treat it like the rest of my bows and not worry about scratching it.....use them but don't abuse them. At the end of the day, I bought it to hunt with..

[Sharpster]

I don't mind normal hunting situation dings/nicks/scratches but when sombody knocked my Brack off a bowrack right onto the concrete floor... yea, that made me do more than cringe.  :mad:


...BYW, that somebody was me!  

Ron

[Wolfkiss]

I know that feeling Ron!!

[RocketDog]

Anyone that shoots the bow rather than keeping it for looks has to be willing to risk a ding or scar.

If it is a legitimate, well earned ding or scar from the bow working with you, it is not heartbreaking.  When it comes from carelessness or clumsiness (we all do it), that ding or scratch will haunt you the life of the bow.

[kung fu kid]

I've got two used bows - Pronghorn and a Morrison Dakota - that I don't mind getting nicked up.  But my other bows - BW's, Centaur, A&H, and a Kabekona are like new.  I shoot them in my yard, but hesitate to take them afield.  That's just my personal preference.


"All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedon; justice; honor; duty; mercy; hope."  Winston Churchill

[WildmanSC]

I've put serious dings on two of the 150+ that I've owned.  The first I put on a real nice one piece recurve while traveling the mountain roads of WV and having the bow laying on a buddies comp***d.  I laid a jacket over his bow and then laid my recurve on top of the jacket.  The vibration of the truck on the road resulted in marring of the finish in the sight window of my recurve.

Then last fall while hunting in WV I went to step down off a boulder, actually between two boulders, and reached out to support myself by a "tree" growing between the two boulders.  Unfortunately,  the tree was long since dead, but I couldn't tell it in the dimming light of the rapidly approaching darkness.  The tree snapped, I fell down astraddle of the portion of the tree in the ground and the upper limb of my T/D recurve scrapped along the boulder to my left.  I was heart sick when I saw the scrape.  I've since had a new set of limbs built for the bow.

Bill

[KentuckyTJ]

It's only the first one that hurts.

[Frank V]

I have a favorite long bow from Fox Archery that I scratched up a few years ago in a canoe during a 3D shoot requiring we ride in the canoe & shoot at targets. I rested my bow across the gunnels of the canoe & it scratched my bow. I was upset that I'd been careless in where I lay my bow, but sent it back to Ron & he refinished it. Bows will get scratched when we use them. But we can usually get them fixed.
Frank

[Curveman]

There was a great truck ad awhile back that said: "they're not scratches they're SCARS!" That's the way I view it too. I confess that I hate the ones where I've been careless, at least initially, but I have been known to block a flinging branch with my bow as my face is even prettier!    The Real Bowdoc will make any bow purdy as ever if it bothers you!

[bolong]

I try to take care of them and never abuse them. I do use them a lot though, so they always end up with some dings and scratches. If I wasn't gonna use em I wouldn't buy them.

[Buckeye Trad Hunter]

I take good care of them but on the same token I buy them to use them so if they get dinged up or what not through the course of normal use I don't get too worked up.

[Jim's Mom]

The first ding hurts the worst. I was at our archery range with a VyperKahn I had owned about a week and tripped and dropped the bow. Dinged the riser.  Man, that hurt. Then a small scratch on the upper limb from a barbed wire fence. O'well, it's going to happen. Usually, not if but when. A few scratches and dings are part of the game. I prefer to call them "Character Marks."   Jim