Rand, like Pat said...we're probably not going to be paying much attention to a start time this year. We don't want to put pressure on folks to get finished if they don't feel comfortable being in a hurry. If folks show up early Monday/Tuesday prior (or the weekend before) and want to get started on a bow on their own, that's fine. There may not be as much tutoring help earlier in the week prior to the actual weekend event. Like Pappy has said, some folks actually have arrived in past years the weekend prior.
How does this sound for starting the Self Bow Challenge...from as unworked as a split stave, to a roughed in bow WITHOUT string notches cut in it yet...starting as early as sunrise Thursday morning and no later start then 10am Saturday morning. Any working on a bow prior to Thursday morning is fine, just stopping short of cutting the string notches. Hopefully folks will understand that the Self Bow Challenge is for fun and learning, not a real competitive event. Basically you shoot the course with your new bow and the top score win's the Challenge. If you don't get your bow finished...hopefully you've still had fun and learned some new bow building skills!
If you wait until Saturday morning and have limited experience, you probably won't get the bow shooting before the weekend is up. We would give you directions on what to do to finish it. We usually have a few bows that break during the making process each year. With new people trying to make a bow, that's to be expected. I don't think there are many bowyer's on this site that haven't broken a bow during building before...just learn from it.
