Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Around the Campfire => Topic started by: Danzn Bar on December 05, 2013, 09:36:03 pm
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I was noticing that members are from all over the US and World. I would be very interesting how you discovered PA?
I had just about had it at my job on day and left for lunch, wasn't planning on coming back for a while and stopped by a bookstore. I had build custom fishing rods of all kinds and three different muzzleloaders. Been doing a lot of clay target shooting (Skeet and Sporting clays), But hadn't built anything in along while (4-5 years. I saw a PA magazine and bought it. Been hooked ever since.
What is your story?
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Came across Billy's 4 part how to video then started googling stuff and I thought I could do it.
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I can't even remember. When I first got into making a bow I was buying the traditional bowhunter magazines.
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Was walking through Wal-mart, doing some shopping. Saw the magazine and picked it up. It took several years before I got it on a regular basis.
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Was searching how to make a bow out of different types of wood and this site had (and still has) the best information. Plus, it seems folks around here actually want to help, rather than just squashing ideas. I had that problem in certain knife making forums. Glad to be apart of this!
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Was searching how to make a bow out of different types of wood and this site had (and still has) the best information. Plus, it seems folks around here actually want to help, rather than just squashing ideas. I had that problem in certain knife making forums. Glad to be apart of this!
I would say about the same for me. I allways seem to search for various styles using Google Image search. Try it you'll be surprised what you find.
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Google
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Like Clint I was reading a Traditional Bowhunter and saw an ad for a new magazine; Primitive Archer. I mailed a check for a subscription that day. I think I waited a few month before the first issue came out but I knew when I read that ad I wanted it. That was over 21 years ago. :o
I still have every copy and still go through the stack and pick out an older one to read.
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I can't remember exactly how I found about this site, but it has been invaluable in helping me make better bows, and that is just the tip of the iceberg. This is a special place and I appreciate everyone that is a part of it. The information that is exchanged, the free access to true artisan, master craftsmen's advice, the friendships, the humor, and the decent way that people are treated on this site, make it a cut above anything else I have experienced on the internet. I don't know when I first found about it or how, but I am really glad I did.
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About twenty years ago, I was helping Gary Davis steam/straighten bow blanks in His basement. He mentioned that He's heard about a new magazine totally devoted to Selfbows - wow pretty cool >:D.
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friend of mine (ink) started to build bows...watcged the process was intrigued..he told me about PA..then my dad gave me a copy of the mag...and here i is!!!
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Got tired of all the glass building on TG and I think either Pat, or maybe Art, told me about this place. I call it home now and hope to for the rest of mine, or it's years.
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Back in 06' is when I first attempted to make a bow,and all I had was deans book,and no internet or anyone else around to help...so I thought osage was the only wood you want to build bows from...I struggled in the dark in frustration for the first couple years unsuccessful basically ..then in 08' I saw a magazine on the rack in the grocery store id never seen before ..PRIMITIVE ARCHER... and then it was on like donkey Kong...it opened my eyes to everything out there,and that there was other folks out there,and I can make bows from other woods....so off running I went trying every wood I could,and guess what....Dean was right...all I need is osage ..lol :laugh:
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'94 or '95. Curt (tipi stuff) and I struck a bargain. I had little interest in making an inferior "Indian Bow" and he had little interest in deer hunting. But I agreed to let him show me how to make one of these "toys" if he would agree to go hunting with me every weekend with them. PA mags were part of the curriculum along with the Bowyers Bibles. I was fooling with him as I never intended to actually hunt with these toys. I was gonna bring along the wheel bows as the real weapon. When that first bow was finished, so were my days of bow hunting with anything else. I still snicker at how lopsided that deal was!
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I had a subscription to a little mag called "The Longbow and Recurve Digest" which went belly up. Shortly after the first magazine stopped publication I started receiving PA in the mail even though I didn't subscribe. Don't know if the PA folk had a connection to the L&R Digest but the free subscription to PA got me started.
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It's been so long ago I don't remember. :)
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About 12 years ago I was building my first bow and the guy guiding me thru it had copies tattered and dogeared laying in piles everywhere. I bought copies off the stand for years before getting a subscription. I sometimes include a copy from the newsstand when I sell/give away a bow. Yeah, I get a little evangelical about spreading the affliction!
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The add in Traditional Bowhunter !
The price seemed kinda high at first cause it was just a Quarterly but I would have sold gun to get it if I had to ! So giddy waiting for it to finally happen ! Since there was no one that really around to talk about self bows with !
Loved it to death when it came then about the third issue I spotted an add for a shoot in Marshall Michigan , could it be true ! Yes there are others out there just as crazy as I ! I had heard of Norm Blaker but had not met him till then ! Thought he was some kind of myth !
We have been friends ever since !
Then a few years back The Marshall Primitive Archery Rendezvous hit a snag and attendance fell off , we discussed our future and wished we knew someone on the computer that could help us get the numbers back up ! So I began a new adventure trying to learn how to do it myself ! Barely able to read and no skill at talking let alone writing , but here I am today still the pusher man for one of the best events ever and so in love with everything about this forum ! Just proves you can be anything you want to be on the Internet !
The good Lord ,this forum, and that shoot will be just about all there is for the rest of my life here on this earth so you best not get in the way of any of them or I will be after you like a mad mama bear !
The worthless old nut !! (Guy)
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I had a friend tell me about it around 98' one day I happened on one at the local grocery store and bought it. Was intrigued but not enough I guess, later I subscribed to T.A. for a couple of years and just bought an occasional P.A. off the stand. Late 99' I decided to try my hand at building a bow came up with a couple not so cool exploding toys. 2000 I seen an add for a John Stunk class March of 2001 and joined up. Built a few good bows and some real crap bows, felt kind of like I must be about the only fool around that would rather carve on a piece of wood than go to the bow shop and buy a bow. About 2011 I finally subscribed to P.A. and with it came this site, wow! boy there is a lot of us fools out there >:D This is pretty much the only thing I do on a computer browse around this site lots of good advice, good folk, good stories and oddly in helping me be primitive rather than modern it has also forced me to learn to use this computer ???
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Found a copy on a rack at a tiny truck stop (hwy 30 hayfield mn) could not put it down ...got a smart phone and check her out on the inner tube 8) Time well spent!
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I took a class where the main objective was to build a hickory self bow. I did that, but what they didn't tell me was that you don't make just one and quit. The instructor spent a little time in the first session talking about books that had helped him and highly recommended PA. I started checking out posts here and then subscribed.
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"Hatchet Jack" Keener turned me on to it. Jack lives here in Lakeland and wrote some of the very first articles in PA.
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I saw something on TV about homemade bows,got curious about how I would go about making my own. Started searching the net and found Paleo planet,didnt care for that place but saw a mention about PA. Here I am!
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Was in Kroger last November and was looking for a magazine. I had picked up Traditional Bowhunter a few times, but noticed a different magazine. It was PA ( volume 20 issue 5)and I picked it up and bought it. I noticed on the cover it said it was in its 20th year, but I had never heard of it. The first page was "from the editor" and it said starting with that issue they expanded into several new stores and Kroger was one of them. I knew nothing of or about primitive archery, but really really enjoyed the magazine. I thought about ordering a few back issues to read when I seen you could get them all for a very reasonable price. I went ahead and ordered the complete set, and I loved them. We had a long Ohio winter last year and I was very glad I had those magazines to read.
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I got lucky and found PA surfing the internet when I first got a computer, this is back in the mid to late 90's. Things were quite a bit different back then. I remember there were not many members but Glenn and Pat M were 2 that are still with us. I sure would like to be able to peruse that old board.
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Was handed a dog eared second hand magazine from a co worker. Had been knapping for several years already. Have had a subscription ever since. Can't remember the year.
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I was searching something about bows on google I believe and found this forum and decided to sign up. Im sure glad I did.
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Christian Soldier posted a link from another website(slinging.org) to his 'sassin(sassafrass) bow.
I found this and was like YESSSS!!!!! A FORUM FOR BOWS!!!!!!
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For most of my life the only Good Bodark was a Dead and Burned Bodark.
As a youngster I cut the stuff outa fences and pasture edges of our place and several ranches I worked on. I hated the stuff. Get a thorn in my finger and it would make my whole arm sore.
Then in 2010 my Uncle handed me a Tiny piece of Heartwood an said "see what you can do with this".
As a Woodcarver I looked this Ugly Baby Poo Yellow piece of Bodark and said "Burn It?".
My uncle convinced me to give it a chance.
I'm sure y'all can guess how shocked I was once I got that Ugly little piece of Bodark under a proper finish.
From there I discovered it was also called Osage Orange, then a Prime choice of Bow wood for the Ancestors.
So I bought a Yeller stave online and the Cherokee Bow book and a Drawknife and tried to get going.
but I needed to now more.
I kept digging deeper online until one day in 2011 I ran across this Forum.
Then from here I discovered the Magizine...
So I guess I discovered PA Back Arsewards. :)
And I been here ever since.
-gus
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When I retired I moved back home to Wyoming I don't remember how I met Mike "Hawk" Huston but we became friends and make several hunts together. I found him to be the best primitive hunter I have ever known. He told me he had written some articles for the PA magazine and brought a couple of issues for me to read. I was amazed to find so many like minded people there. While teaching and coaching in Reedsport Oregon my wrestlers and students made 50 some glass backed recurves using materials from Bingham Archery. For several years I lived and worked on a cattle ranch just out of Yellowstone. I had an old brown glass bow made by Herter's and with stone points I made from spalls, managed to harvest a lot of game animals. No real source for help so for several years I went to knappins all over the country. I met some very skilled knappers that way, but as a group found them to be very standoffish. No idea that you could really make a self bow out of a stave. The first time I went to the Classic I was amazed at the welcome I found there. Greg B. met me when I first stepped out of the truck. Never treated better with more respect even if they did not know me. I had made some kind of trade with Cowboy for a couple of staves. With the best of the two I managed to scrape enough material off one limb to cause a hinge. That was one of the most disappointing experiences ever when trying to make something. That was a real setback. When I left there the fellows at Twin Oaks gave me a trophy wooden bow. That Classic experience was the best thing that could happen of an old Indian. I think I have made a few good friends since getting on the PA site. Joe
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Late 90's i saw an add in a magazine for a book Bows & Arrows of the Native Americans, by Jim Hamm. I showed the add to my wife and she surprised me with the book for my birthday. I had two osage logs laying by the garage by nightfall. One failure and two years later i made my first successfull bow. The next year i killed two deer with that bow. Around then a guy at work showed me a copy of PA magazine and said there was a website also. I started checking out the site from time to time but didnt get a subscription untill they changed it to where you had to have one to get on the website. Finaly got something better than dial up sevice almost two years ago so since then i check out the site everyday.
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Thanks guys!!
All the stories are all unique in their own ways. Love it. Let's here more, If you can remember ;D
DBar
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I was searching around for information on making your own bows and found a Youtube series by Mike from Borriorbows (sp) and in it he mentioned a bow that he made was featured in the mag. I've been here "under cover" for the most part for about a year.
Paul F.
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I first saw the PA mag. At Barnes and Noble. Couldn't put it down. This was back just a couple of years ago. Then my wife got me a sub for Christmas last year. Got on the site around the same time. It has been a busy year at the house with our new son who arrived just a couple of weeks after I joined the site. Can't say enough positive things about this place. I wish there were more people in my neck of the woods. I have met one who I taught how to become an addict two weekends ago. His bow is now finished and he's been hunting with it all this week. We will see if he shows up on PA, I hope so.
Matt