There was local guy named Jimmy Taylor who started out selling hickory bows at a local flea market for $20. He was a native American and sold his bows at NA gatherings and craft fairs. He started selling bows on line and used mostly hickory backed cherry for his bows. He was the nicest guy you could ever meet who would give you the shirt off his back but the worst compulsive liar I ever met as well.
He had a shop set up to make bows that had a line of milling machines to complete the bows step by step, start to finish; 15 minutes. He would string the bows, tiller them on a balloon sander and pull them to 31", if they didn't break on the first pull he shipped them. He had a huge 5' tall pile of broken bows next to his shop.
He had his own sawmill and cut all of his bow wood himself.
If you ordered a 50# bow you might get an 80# bow or a 30# one, he shipped what ever he had. He had a few guys that worked with him but they all quit when he started taking the money from people and companies that may order up to 100 bows at a time but he kept the cash and never sent them the bows.
He made bows for Dan Quillen for a while but got Dan in a bind with his customers for Jimmy's shoddy work ethics as well and split from having contact with him.
Long story; I shot some of Jimmy's hickory backed cherry bows, I told people to order a high poundage bow, retiller them to what they wanted and they would have a pretty good bow that would last. Jimmy's one shot balloon tillering in less than a minute was was pitiful. I saw a lot more people shooting the hickory backed cherry bows and found they were light in the hand and held up really well if someone was lucky enough to get one of the good ones.
I drove to Jimmy's shop one time to visit and watch him crank out bows, it was a sight to see.
Jimmy made and sold at least 10,000 of the hickory backed cherry and hickory backed with a strip of hickory bows, he sold them all over the world.
Jimmy died of cancer about 15 years ago, he was one of a kind for sure.
