Yew Bow..

[bigcountry]

Big, I had a coworker ask me about building a bow for his 12 year old son. The first thing out of his mouth was how much it would cost and he didn't want to spend a lot. I told him I'd think on it and get back to him, (That's a common ploy used by engineers and lawyers when they don't know what to say)

  I was sooo happy today when he asked me again and thought I could build his son a Compound. I directed him to the Bass shopping center up the road that has a Pro shop. He could get a compound youth bow for him there, cheaper then I could build him a bow. It's for school and that's what they have to shoot. I'll win him over for free if he get's into shooting.

 Also, people that can afford custom built Flintlocks can afford $1500 bows. That's about the same price as a tricked out Martin Compound, I think.

I can't afford either.  Only reason I like trad shooting is the building and shooting.  I myself couldn't imagine paying. Espeically 8 bills to someone to do it for me. I mean my bows suck.  I got one I feel is a hunter.  And I hunt with it.  And it has its issues.  But if I just wanted a bow that kills, I would buy a 300 dollar compound. 

[bigcountry]

Big, even though you do it for the love of it shouldn't mean making pennies for your work. Money is not the only goal in life for most of us here, but still, Johnson said only a fool writes for free, and he was right.

I agree, hey if you can get some rich dude with more money than he knows what to do with to fork over 8 bills for a bow, all I can say is God bless ya.  You the man.

But if you are making pennies doing what you love, don't come crying to me when I hate what I do to do what I love.  Crabbers here in MD cry the freakin blues all day about how little they make.  I look em all in the eye, and tell em, I don't want to hear it.  I tell em, you want to change your life, get back into college, get an engineering degree and sit in traffic with the rest of us rats every day. 

We all make our choices in life and we all have to sit in that bed we made.  I have.

[AncientArcher76]

Cheers Del I'll taske 2!!!  Dont they have Yew on the west coast.  I dont know why someone would pay $800 for a strip of wood.  I can give u a whole truck load of staves for $800.  Dont get me wrong to each their own.  I know it is amazing wood to use but that is a bit much.

AA

[Pappy]

I think 800.00 seem's pretty cheap to me, One thing for sure you ant going to get rich building selfbows.I have had a lot of folks wanting me to build them one, I will sometimes for free but
cost ,I just can't figure out what they are worth so had rather not sell them. The money I spend of my archery stuff and hunting is money I make on the side in different ventures,so I don't have to look her in the eye bigcountry.    I had a guy at a shoot in MI. worry me the whole week about building him a bow and what I would charge, After a few day's of that he finely ask if you did build me one what would you charge,I shot him a price of 400.00,thinking I would get rid of him
He said when can you start before I got 400.00 out of my mouth good,That is when you KNOW
you priced it to cheap. 
   Pappy

[JW_Halverson]

I am at both ends of the spectrum.  On one hand I just got paid two bucks an hour for an English Longbow for a 13 yr old kid in Minnesota.   He shovelled sidewalks all winter for the cashAND I threw in a guarantee that if the bow breaks and he wasn't at fault, I will replace it at no cost. 

On the other hand, I just inked a contract with an Armorer for the film industry for a set of Sioux horse bows and I'll be making $40 an hour for the time it takes to crank them out.  Pity he only wants a few bows for now.  Oh, and before you feel sorry for this poor guy trying to make a living and frown at me for "putting the screws" to him, just remember that the last 12 bows he bought were purchased at 3x the price that I asked.  Yeah, that's right.  And if that ain't enough, the "traditional" bows that he purchased at that price all broke during two days of filming!  Betcha mine don't break like that!

All that being said, the average person, be they a kid or grown-a@@ man, comes to me to build them a bow can expect me to cut them a pretty sweet deal because I wanna see more people out there shooting full traditional stuff.  Even better, I'd rather have them come over in the evenings and scrape shavings with me so they can make their own.  And for those of you out there trying to make a living at this, I don't begrudge you a bit, get anything you can for a bow.