Going back a few years

[Dvshunter]

 Hunting get the Osage bow for me. And then trial and error.   Broke a lot from simple mistakes and moved on. Still break Em all the time. I love hate this stuff.

[paulsemp]

This definitely isn't my first bow but one of the first that held together. Made plenty of green sapling bows with butcher twine strings before this one. I believe I made this bow in 93 or 94 which would have put me at 13 to 14 years old. Started subscribing to primitive Archer a few issues into the start of the magazine and it certainly help get me off on the right path. I believe this bow is Elm or at least that's my best guess. As you can see it nocks are cut through the growth ring,  fat limbs and tips and a severely violated knot. But she held together and I shot many shots out of it. For some reason always hung on this 1 and I'm giving it a good retirement.

[paulsemp]

Forgot to add these

[rossfactor]

I built my first (serious) bow after reading Saxton Popes writing on "Ishi's method of hunting," back in 2001.

http://www.archerylibrary.com/books/pope/hunting-with-bow-and-arrow/chapter03.html

I don't have a picture of the first but it was rawhide backed.... made from cypress, 48" long and drew 26" at about 30 lbs. Way under built with lots of set.

Here is one from 2004-5... so only ten+ years ago. Its from incense cedar which is not a good bow wood, and somehow the thing survived for several hundred shots 50+" long with a 28" draw.. and a really nasty tiller.



Gabe

[Pat B]

Here are a few of my older bows.


 The first one(on the left) I don't have a date on but I'm guessing it was built in the early 1990s...this is "KILLER", the first bow I felt comfortable hunting with although I didn't hunt with her. She is black locust with frets and lots of set...




Next is "Phoenix", also locust with some frets and some set, built in 2005. I did finally realize a better design for locust with her. She is in the middle of the group shot...





...and finally, "Cinco De Mayo". She is a hickory backed red oak bow, probably my best red oak bow. She was built 5/5/2005(cinco de mayo) and still shoots well today. This bow has been shot by many different people with different draw lengths. I wanted to see if she could take it and obviously she has. She still holds a little over an inch of reflex.

[JoJoDapyro]

I am still a baby in the game. I haven't had any break, but I have had a few that would have due to mistakes. This community is something else. I have never met a group of people from so many places, so many backgrounds, that are all working to the same end goal. I got my first bow in about 90 or 91. It was a red bear. I shot it till the string broke. Then made a new one from bailing twine I found in a hay field. That led to wheelie bows, and then hunting from there. Since joining this site a little over a year ago I have built several bows. Knives. 2 quivers, several dozen arrows.  Aquirred lots of tools, and best of all have gained relationships with lots of people. Also the knowledge of my heritage. Knowledge is the best survival tool. It is weightless. Thanks to all of you who have made, and continue to make this a great place to learn. 

[GB]

Geez, Pat, just when I've moved on to "better" bow woods you post a killer red oak bow.  Very cool 

[Pat B]

I just corrected 2 of the pics.
GB, it all in the design. This wide(about 2 1/4") pyramid distributes the stresses over all of the working limb. I probably put about 3" of Perry reflex in at glue up.

[Granite Mtn]

What a great thread!  I have been away for to long.  I made my first successful bow in 1990 after taking a class from Dave Kissenger in PA. I was going to college at Kent state and guided outside of Yellowstone for trout one summer. One of the other guides had a bow Dave had made it was incredible to say the least. He made works of art. Before his class I turned a sixty foot hickory tree into shavings without a single bow to show for it. I remember shoveling the shavings into a corner of a three car garage til you could not walk in or out,  my landlord was a little irritated😁. I still have the bow he helped me make it was nothing to write home about but at the time I was on cloud nine. I think the books like The bowyers Craft and TBB1 ignited the flame and the exchange of ideas and knowledge brought about by the Internet was a forest fire.

[Joec123able]

Awesome thread, come on guys post some more no matter what they look like I'm interested in seeing them!

[crooketarrow]

  My first 2 bows were BL and sinewed in 89,90. I built those 2 bows from a boy scout manel build a indain bow. At the time I though all indain bows were sinewed. I still have those 2 bows along with a couple others I built in the mid 90's. I use one that I built in the mid 90's today and have killed 3 bucks and 2 gobblers with it.

  I have a vine maple I got a few years back is my next bow. After I finish a osage snake bow and a IROQOUS long bow.

[Chadwick]

I switched to all-wood bows in 98 when teaching high school in an Eskimo village. I wanted them shooting with me, and had to teach a woodworking class anyways. TBB and other books came in handy, my first elm bow blew up in front of the class and I got to practice the art of 'starting over'. I shot a nice caribou in '99 with a 58" osage selfbow, 55#... And then it 'ticked' and blew up while practicing with it a month later, also in front of other shooters. Shot my first selfbow moose in 2001 with a 60# osage semi-recurve 52" stacking stick. I gave my dad a hickory bow in 99, and now I want to re-make it so bad when I look at its full width all the way to the tips. He won't let me touch it, though. I also remember going on a drawing hunt for brown bear out of Brown's Lagoon on Kodiak Island in '99.... And my dad raising a skeptical eyebrow at the osage bow I hauled around on that hunt. We had horrible weather and I got to spend a lot of time in the tent, twice reading my first copy of Witchery of Archery.

[gifford]

This is a great thread so here's my humble addition.

I had shot a lot of archery as a young 'un, lemonwood bows and solid fiberglass bows, arrows made. Eventually a Damon Howatt Hi-Speed recurve

I was shooting black powder quite a bit in the 80s and saw a couple of osage pony bows and then a few more. Hmm, I wonder if I could do that, I think I should try. I was at defunct The Mountain Man store in Manitou Springs, CO in the early 90s, 93 I believe and saw Primitive Archer, what a great magazine. Bought the two different issues they had. Later I picked up Hamm'. s Bows and Arrows and Quivers and made a couple of bows. Scraped, whittled, chopped a couple of primitive bows, broke 'em. Found a copy of the Bent Stick. Let's approach it with a bit more forethought I says. So I measure, take my time and it worked.

Built a nicer shootable hickory flatbow in 1995 or so. Certainly overbuilt, slow, but it's still shooting. Tried some osage, fence post quality, made another overbuilt, slow, flatbow. Took some set but it too is still shooting. Both reside on my rack now mostly. A year or two later made an ELB style osage bow. It was an easy bow to make, fell into nice tiller at once, didn't take any set, and I took that one to the first MoJAM. All were mid 40s or so.

I'm not a prolific bowyer, maybe one or two a year average, sometimes more, sometimes less. I'm sure not in the class of most bowyers I meet at MoJAM. I'm firmly in the camp of 'It flings an arrow and hasn't broke yet" Most I've gifted to others or traded occasionally. I actually shoot bows made by others at MoJAM more than my own. I admit it, they are a lot better.

The internet really opened my eyes to what could be done, even in the halcyon days of Web-TV and dial up. Several internet sites saw my regular patronage.

MoJAM keeps me going, year after year.

[gifford]

A slight edit to correct an oversight.

MoJAM keeps me going year after year and Primitive Archer fills in until the next MoJAM. A couple of years ago I donated my entire Primitive Archer collection to the Marshall Bow Hunters MoJAM committee for their use.