Thanks Primitive Archer Mag for all the great articles, beautiful art and photos, and a great way to connect with local vendors! I'm new to this site as well so this is kinda an intro post for me.
I've been on and off in making bows and my success hasn't been as good as others but I still LOVE it inspite many bow failures. I've had two successful bow makes, -an English long bow and a Plains style type bow,(longer than normal with no backing). The Plains bow broke a while back and the long bow I sold off and I believe that bow has lasted. I therefore plan to get back into making more especially with picking up some really good books recently. I've been very busy and not able to devote consistent time to making bows over the many years. Therefore I've been passed up by many more incredible artisans who only recently got into primitive archery, what incredible talent some of these people have! I however have been interested in primitive archery for almost 20 years, ever since I picked up some books by Jim Hamm and my first intro to reading about Native American archery in a book by Reginald Laubin I found in a library in 1998. After reading both Hamm's books and Laubin's book(some of Laubin's techniques are possibly questionable but still great book), I decided that primitive archery is the way for me. As I've said I haven't had the greatest success at bow making but will continue to learn. I currently own a great long bow that I purchased from a vender and I did final work on. I love to shoot it and hope to make a long bow to hunt with in the near future, as well as continue pursuing more Native American type bows, arrows and quivers as they are the most impressive of all primitive archery to me. My main interests specifically in primitive archery are Native American bows from coast to coast and the plains and west inbwtween, I love all the beautiful styles and associated quiver designs! I also really love reading about Viking longbows and would love to make some! In the past its been harder to find info on Viking bows but hopefully that has been changing.
Thanks for hanging in through this long post, very happy to be here and its great to know that primitive archery skills are exploding in popularity over the past few years! Its encouraging that more and more young people are looking to making their own bows, its a sign of self reliance and self-actualisation and interest in individual freedom growing among the youth during a time when "quick and easy foreign made" products are increasingly seen as more expensive and less reliable junk!
Take care!
Jon K
