a new friends old bow

[sailordad]

            last night after the wife got home from work we drove up to Brainerd,its about and hour north of where we  live.
i managed to get a hold of a guy from another web site,a state local trad hunters site.he was cutting down some iron wood and
was willing to give m a few logs.
i have never met this gentelman as of yet.he dropped them off at another guys house,this guy is also from that web site.
so we set up a time and i picked them up.
when i got there my eyes popped out of their sockets
5 really nice logs,two smaller and 3 fairly large ones for iron wood.

the guy whose house these were at used to make selfbows and now makes and sells laminated bows.real nice looking stuff.
i never got  a chance to shoot any of his bows last night,but he did show me 4 or 5 he had just finished spraying the finish on earlier in the day.
he then proceeded to show me some of his selfbows that he still had.
he made some realy nice bows.
he then handed me an old iron wood selfbow he made years back.he said that had just been siting for that last few years and he hadnt even thought about it
untill the other guy dropped of the logs for me.
he then told me to take it with me and if i wanted i could retiller it as he thinks its over built.feels like it could be a pretty stout bow.i am guessing 65lbs maybe.

i played around with it last night and part of this morning.just flexing it on the ground little at a time to let it get used to moving again.
then i looked around and found a string that would give it a short brace.i proceeded to string it and its got about a 4" brace,and yup feels stout..

i am going to cal this "old yeller",as the finish he put on has turned that color.
well heres some pics







i will post a ful draw when i fell confortable enough to give it a try.

thanks for looking

                                                                                            peace,
                                                                                                    tim

[DanaM]

Great story Tim but ya forgot to take pictures of the logs

Sounds like ya had a great B Day

[John B.]

There's a lot of wood just waiting to come off of those tips and outer limbs.

And yes, we weirdos like looking at pictures of logs. 

[sonny]

my suggestion is that you don't change it much, as you'll lose some of the character that the original bowyer built into it.
tiller it to a reasonable weight for sure but don't change the style of nocks for instance.....
simply food for thought.

[nickf]

seems I'm to late commenting as first on those tips. removing some wood there will give a smoother cast and less handhock. Really promising stave/bow.

Goodluck!!

Nick

[sailordad]

well thanks everyone,

i gave it a try and pulled and could only get about 3/4 draw,way to stout for me to draw as is. i can pull 60 lbs
with a little grunt .however i cant get this back no matter how many grunts i give it.
i will retillr to reduce weight a little to make it shootibale for me,however i will not change the profile at all. it is what it was
intended to be by the original bowyer.

as far as the pics of the logs go,well thats for another post that i will be doing soon

                                                                                  peace,
                                                                                       tim

[nickf]

that's what he had wanted...
well, when I start a stave I keep the tips wide. But after tillering out, I narrow them to less than 1/2", giving a way smoother release and better cast.
I've thought the same as you, 'I like those wide tips' but now I removed some wood on those old bows anyways, since I don't like them at all.
too bad for the finish :p

Nick

[sailordad]

   well over the weekend i played with this bow for quit awhile untill i felt
it was safe enough to bring to a 6" brace.so i went and found a string that would work.i have a lot laying around.
try as i might,there is no way on this planet that i will ever be able to draw this sucker back to full draw.
i put it on the scale yester day and pulled to about 20".
at 20" its pulling 55lbs,maybe 57.my draw is 26.so i figure this is probably about a 70lb draw right now.
i know he said he orignially had it tillered to about 55lbs,as far as he could remember.
he did say it say in the rafters for that last few years,i guess the wood dried out some moore and pcked up weight.

so over the summer,time providing,i will reduce the weight on it and make it a shooter again.

                                                                       peace,
                                                                               tim

[Pappy]

Great story and good looking bow,you should get a lot of years of service from that.
   Pappy