Bill Sweetlands "Battleshafts" get my vote also, that is if they were still
available today. Bill has past on and took his "Battleshafts" with him to
that happy hunting ground in the sky. Bill was a very good personal friend
of mine whom I miss dearly. He taught me a lot about archery and life in
general. Many stories could be told about the man, but since the subject of
his compressed cedars have been brought up here I think this is a good place
to let this one be told.
Around 1990, give or take a few years, I ran across and old rotary dowler
that had been sitting behind a church on the otherside of town. It was in very
poor condition, it had no motor, no knives and was begining to rust very
badly, this is Oregon you know. Long story short I traded the gentleman in
possession a brand new custom made recurve bow for this broken down weary
machine. Many hours were spent totally dismantleing every nut, bolt, washer
spring etc. Got it all spit shined, re-painted and a new motor on her. I had
plenty of old planer blade stock to make knives from but I had no idea of the
shape and angle they should be ground to. So I give my old friend Bill a call
and we set a date two weeks down the road for a saturday in the shop in hopes
of bringing this thing back to life. He shows up and very meticiously looks
the machine over and states "you know I think this is one of my old dowlers!".
Wow!
We spend the whole day shaping/ grinding knives and swaping stories. Of
course the conversation at some point in the afternoon had to include some
history of his manufacturing days and techniques of his compressed cedars. I
asked him what ever happend to his old equipment? and how come it was not
still being used to make those famous compressed shafts everybody loved? Well,
he said," a couple young fellas up in Washington bought the machinery and
they never could figure out the process or how to run it". "They put it in
storage somewhere and as far as I know its still there". Woh! now I said!
let me get this straight?. You mean to tell me you sold these guy's all this
complicated machinery but didn't teach them how to run it?..His reply was
simple and so Bill, he said. "I would have been more than happy to...BUT THEY
DIDN'T ASK!!!" .. simple as that. They just didn't ask..
PS. We did get that dowler up and running that afternoon.
Topic: What's your dream shafts? (Read 985 times)
