Jay Massey Medicine Bow

[Pat B]

Brad, I'm starting a new thread so not to step on your thread anymore. 
 I built this bow in 2005 after reading about a bow Jay made in memory of his brother. It is 60" t/t sinew backed hickory with a rawhide back covering. The arrow design was painted with acrylic craft paint. The handle wrap is brain tanned leather and the strike plate in horn.
 This bow was a community effort. Every part of this bow was donated by someone else here among PA members, all I did is build the bow. As a reward for contributing I gave any participant a chance to hunt with or at least have the opportunity to use the bow for a while. There were 2 successful hunts with this bow. Jamie Leffler from Connecticut shot a doe with a horseweed arrow and stone point in Oct/06 and Eddie Parker(Mullet) killed an Osceola turkey in Oct/07. I have the names of the contributors listed on the belly as well as the kills.
  Interesting thing about this bow is when I first built her she pulled 58#@26", a month later in our humid climate she pulled 45#@26". Kenneth Gorman(Little John) from SW Colorado wanted to try it out as a horse bow so I sent it to him. A month after Kenneth got her the weight had raised to 65#. She always shot sweet, no matter what weight she ended up at, obviously much better at 65#.
 Here's a few pics...

[Stixnstones]

What an awesome representation of primitive archery community, thanks for sharing Pat

[BowEd]

Great post Pat and nice bow too.

[wooddamon1]

Very cool!

[bradsmith2010]

thanks for posting ,, beautiful bow,, and what a good hunter,,

[Pat B]

Thanks guys. This was a fun project. We used to have other fun projects a few years back. We did a few Community Bows, one was North vs. South. Each team would start with a stave and build a community bow, each person on each team would do one part of the build like one  person would chase a ring, next would floor tiller, next would do any heat adjustments or manipulations, next would tiller and so on. The finished bows were donated to the National Turkey Federation and the other to the Elk Foundation to be raffled off at their annual convention in the name of Primitive Archer to help support their cause. Another year we did the same but for an East/West project.
 I'm sure others here remember these projects and some probably participated. Lots of fun and great team spirit.   

[bradsmith2010]

I think mine is coming in at about 58 at 26,, crazy right,,

[Parnell]

That’s something, Pat.  Never saw that.

[George Tsoukalas]

Beautiful memories, Pat. Such a nice bow. Thanks for sharing. Jawge

[Will B]

Very cool bow and an amazing story. Thanks for sharing

[Don W]

Great post.

[Kidder]

What a great bow and what a great story! I’d be honored to donate to a community bow if anyone were to do something like this in the future.

[RyanY]

I think I had only heard about this bow. So cool to see some pictures of it. What a beautiful story. Thanks for sharing Pat.

[Pat B]

This was a fun project. The story about this medicine bow is part of my old archery notebook that Russell got in a drawing here. I started the notebook before I had a computer. I'd make copies of How To from archery sites on the computer at work during the slow times. I was a Realtor.
 If anyone is interested in starting a community bow project I'd be interested too. We could start another thread and get the discussion started.

[SLIMBOB]

Great looking bow Pat and such a cool idea. I would definitely be interested in the 2021 version of the community bow if we get one started and I get an invite.