I can tell from your response that you are NOT READY to take on a full time bowyer position. I sincerely suggest you think of what type of bows you want to offer......all stave/billet bows, or lumberized bows. You stated you are not sure where you are going to get your materials (staves) that would be my VERY FIRST concern if you want staved bows. People can order a Vine maple bow, and see a knarly cool looking bow they seen on the net, and expect what they seen......people are very picky, and can expect a unique piece you are unable to produce. I took custom orders at first.........but I will NEVER, EVER do it again....what a fricking pain! What you picture a person describing can be a world of difference of what they have in their heads.....infact sometimes what they want is just plain UNREALISTIC! If you decide to sell make the bows they way YOU want, then let them pick from your stock.
Although not as glorified.....lumber is a much better choice in my mind when it comes to a bowyer business.....you have cosistentcy, availibility, wood is dry......most importantly you can make a consistent product, that can "look" the same , but vary in draw weight.
Don't forget the robertson pittman tax..... http://www.ask.com/question/the-pittman-robertson-act-places-a-tax-on
VMB
I once had a guy ask for a seven foot, 125# mollegabet after seeing the bad-but-pretty ash thing I posted a while ago. I managed to get him to settle for a recurve I had to reduce to fifty pounds for him to control, but the guy swore I would have been better off getting the experience and giving him the bigger bow. I'm not even sure I could pull a bow like that off
I'm actually not taking custom orders. I'll reduce weight on a bow, but I'm working on organizing my bows on my site for easy browsing and ordering online, while I'll just have four or so bows in the shops. I have about forty BL staves reduced and drying from a single tree, eight trees where that came from. Fifteen VM staves, obviously need a couple more hauls. I deny Grays Harbor's ability to exhaust my stockpile in one year; it's if I'm still getting orders after that that I'll have to start buying wood.
I used to do board bows and I'm going to pick it up again. I knocked my last board out in three hours and had the finish drying, and decided I was bored of boards. Maybe if I hadn't stuck to maple pyramids I'd still be interested? You are right though, being able to pull out a consistent bow is going to be
very important. I'm going to have to buy some more rawhide and sinew.
I didn't know about that tax. Should have guessed
Maybe try stock piling 6-8 bows and see how fast they go, or don't go. Don't get depressed if they don't sell. Build them for the love of it and not the money. And PLEASE be honest about what your selling, it has all our names on it.
That's basically what I plan on doing with the help of the local shops before I go to the clubs. I put
at least two hundred arrows through each bow to be sure it's safe and smooth-- should I do more? Maybe when I have a working camera I can rely on you guys to pick the bows from my stock?
And yeah, I half expect there to be maybe a dozen people interested and that's it
To be clear, I didn't think about making this a business until I had seven people asking for bows at once. I can't afford to do this for free and making that kind of money is illegal without a business license, so I've been looking into it as a business for several months-- but I'm still just getting ready, lots to learn besides consistent building, lots of mistakes to iron out, lots of time to get there.
Edit: And you know, I don't think I'll take it on before I can post enough bows of high quality to gain your guys' confidence. You all haven't steered me wrong thus far