I spent the whole day with Dan Perry talking Bow making. He passed a lot of information to me. He is just one of the nicest people you have ever met. He looked at my all my boards and I knew he was thinking "we're in trouble" But didn't say anything because he is too nice.
I was surprised that he choose the hickory over the red oak that had perfectly parallel grain on all edges of the board. Even the ends were nearly parallel because of the size of the tree it was cut from. The hickory had some run offs on the edge of the board, that we ended up treating with kid gloves.
We choose a bendy handled pattern because of my size and the board was only 6.5 feet. we laid the pattern out and I cut out half after Dan showed me the first half. Dan cut down the thickness and we took turns smoothing that out. Dan would put the stick on the tillering tree and ask me "Where's it bending?" "where does it go flat?" I would mark the limb and he would remove the wood. One of the most valuable things I learned from him tonight is his perspective of the relationship of looking for the hinge or bend first and then the flat section next to it.
Turns out my Draw on this "Flat Handled" bow is 29 1/2 inches and the draw weight ended up 51.5 pounds. But I gotta tell you this baby draws nice! It slams the arrow to mark and the hand shock on this 72" NTN bow is more like a wobble. It's 1 3/4 wide at the fades and tapers to 3/8 tips.
Dan gets credit for this bow, because he did all the sensitive wood removal himself. My graduation depends on teaching this to my son, while making a twin of this bow. That bow I can call my own and show whether or not I learned anything.
Wow what an awsome Day. The sunburn might be worth it.
