remember your early bows?

[bubby]

do you remember first starting out, brokin bows, bad tiller and seeing how far you've got skill wise, we was camping and the kids got out the bows, and got to looking at heathers bow and thought how i would build it differant, about the 5th bow I had stay in one piece, first rawhide{dog chew} and first skins, anyone else got pics of their early work, Bub

[gstoneberg]

Yup, my first ever self bows came out of the bowmaking class I took in Montana from John Strunk, I believe it was 1995.  Here's a picture of our group and our staves.  John is in the first row (kneeling) on the right.  He was never without that hat. I'm second from the left in the back.



Here is the bow almost finished, just lacking it's handle wrap.  I must be at least 30lbs lighter and still have a dark mustache.



The other bow I made in Montana was a vine maple longbow and the only picture I have of it is with the mulberry bow above and the holey osage bow (my first osage bow).  Pay no attention to the f-word bows on the outsides (which I was also making at the time).



George

[George Tsoukalas]

I sure do. I have constant reminders of my early breaks. Those were fun years. jawge

[gstoneberg]

 

[wvarcher]

My first bow was a 70" hickory bow.  It has about 3" of string follow, probably more if i would have kept shooting it. I was very happy with it.

[sonny]

I wish I had pics of a couple of my early attempts at ERC flatbows. I had one or two unbacked heartwood bows that had terribly violated (decrowned) backs (still shot though!) but I kept screwing with them trying to make them better. I narrowed the handle on one of them to the point that the next time I drew it it folded up in the handle. I can smile about it now but was none too pleased at the time..........
 

[Matt S.]

Ah yes, I have fond memories of my first bows. Sometimes I'm amazed I came back to the craft given how difficult it was for me in the beginning...

I made my very first bows when I was a little kid. They were sticks, with bark left on, bent and spanned by strings made from whatever material I could find around the house, sometimes yarn or string; tied to each end of the "bow". Arrows were any straight sticks or shoots with small nocks cut into one end and, if I were getting fancy, dart heads stuck onto the business end.

By the time I was in high school my interest in archery was rekindled (after several years hiatus). I made a couple of stick bows but quickly wanted something a little better, a "real" bow. Towards the end of high school I discovered the TBB series but could only get one at a time through an inter-library loan. It was probably too much information to soak in, but it was the pilot light that kept the love of making bows alight. My very first bow was made from a sapling of an unidentified tree I cut down. I decrowned it and backed it with red yarn (you really must realize that I didn't have much to work with and a budget you could easily carry as coins). The tiller was horrible, one limb had a hinge, and the bow barely out shot my best stick bow, but I saw the potential.
I spent the winter of my senior year outside working on the next couple of bows. I didn't have a workshop so I would prop one end of the board into a corner and lean against the other end and work one limb at a time in this fashion. I also had two tools, a dull pocket knife and an extremely expensive ($8, BIG money to me back then ) rasp. I didn't even have sand paper!

I made a douglas fir board bow that survived a while. I thought it was amazing! My 5th bow was a red oak board bow backed by cotton fabric. I still have this bow. By the end of high school I was getting frustrated because the only string material I had was cotton which had way too much stretch. It was very demotivational to practically get a hernia stringing a 45# bow just to watch the brace height go from 6" down to 1" as the string stretched.

As a graduation gift, my parents bought me the TBB series (Vol 1-3). That was huge for me and is the reason I got back into making bows 10 years after high school.

My bows now are so much improved from then. Heck, the bows I'm making now are MUCH improved from the ones I was making just a year ago when I got back into this addiction.

Phew, I could go on and on but I'm sure this post is getting too long for anybody to read So many good memories!