Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Badger on June 05, 2014, 11:33:06 pm
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Has anyone ever heard of the 10 commandments for bow makers? I could swear I saw something on that years ago but can't find anything on it now. I wanted to hang it on my wall for new bow makers.
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I'm sure someone posted something like that on PA.... in the last 6 months.
Turns out it wasn't in the last 6 months, maybe that's when I read it :D
Here we go: http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php?topic=39116.0
Jack Crafty's Ten Archery Self Bow Commandments
1 Thou shalt not worship a standard bow design.
2 Thou shalt not claim that one wood type is best.
3 Thou shalt not take the name of any wood in vain.
4 Remember archery season, and keep it holy.
5 Honor thy mentor and forum.
6 Thou shalt not create set.
7 Thou shalt not dry fire.
8 Thou shalt not overdraw.
9 Thou shalt not fully draw the self bow of thy neighbor.
10 Thou shalt not excessively cut across wood fibers on the bow’s back.
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Is there something like this in "the bent stick" as well?
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I just recently sarted teaching guys in my area bow making. I am not used to teaching. I seldom use a tape measure, I tiller on my lap, and I eyeball everything. I am trying to teach the newer guys more standard tried and true methods. Everytime I turn around I catch myself saying something like, "never do this" or "always do that" and it got me to thinking there must be some kind of commandment written by somebody.
I can think of a few things that I would like guys to rememeber right from the start.
1. Never draw a bow any further than what it takes to expose an area that needs work.
2. Never draw a bow past its intended draw weight or length.
3. Keep the bow in a finished state once tillering and refinements stage have begun.
4, The weakest part of your imb is the most you can expect from a bow.
5. Wet wood behaves like wet wood, badly.
Feel free to add
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Well I have a lot more to learn but from my short bowyering career I can add the classics:
1. If you ain't braki'n you ain't maki'n.
2. No.1 rule for tillering- If an area is stiff, take wood off it. If an area is bends too much, take wood off anywhare else.
3. The bane of the bow maker- speed and impatiance!
Take too much wood off and you can easly screw things up. If you think things are going too slow, fill a bucket of water and dip yor head in it.
4. Don't be afraid or too proud to ask for help.
These are things I try to keep in my mind.
Hope it helps.
Dor
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Thou shalt not fully draw the selfbow of thine neighbour. :D :D :D
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Not that I'd be an expert, but here's what I tell the beginners I give instructions:
At any time, know, mark and leave alone the weakest spot on your limb.
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I tell all the beginners, Never fall in love with a piece of wood, and it ant a bow until it shoots arrows,it is still just a piece of wood. :)
Pappy
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As a beginner, this is all very good information. I have to fight the urge to just keep working on my first bow (still just wood, hasn't shot an arrow yet).
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Yup, Paul Comstock has a list in his Bent Stick flyer. Not sure how many I obey? Very few.
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Love all the ideas so far, but Pappy's rule is inspired. Until it flings an arrow, it's just a wood carving. Bubby in a post the other day said it well, there's no room for fear in bow making.
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I'm with you Pearl, I have figured out over the years that that their are a few that HAVE to be followed,a few more that NEED to be followed or could cause problems and a few that are BS or folklore. :) Soarting them out is sometimes a problem,this thread should help with that. Thanks Steve,you are coming up with some very interesting conversation and threads . ;) :) and are especially good for people starting out. :)
Pappy
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3. Keep the bow in a finished state once tillering and refinements stage have begun.
I'm not sure I understand this one :P :P
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3. Keep the bow in a finished state once tillering and refinements stage have begun.
I'm not sure I understand this one :P :P
Sometimes guys will get so involved in tillering they ignore how rough the bow is getting. I like to see them after each session with a rasp take the scraper and smooth it back out. Sometimes little dips develop and the end of the v's that form on the belly when tapering the thickness. I like to see those little dips disappear every time one starts to form. After I floor tiller a bow I sit down with a rasp and a scraper and pretty much get it to look about finished. As I make corrections to each limb all I need to do is use the scraper on any tool marks as they appear. I have seen guys loose too much weight or create hinges on bows that were supposedly finished tiller and all they needed was removing tool marks. Best to remove them as you go in my shop.
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Got it now!
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Something I like to do but not sure it would fall under a commandment or not, a lot of guys consider it a waste of time. I like to clean a stave up real good before I even decide what I am going to make out of it. I usually take the full length, clean up the sides square and smooth chasing the twists and turns following the grain, then I clean up the belly and then I chase a ring. It just bugs the sh---t out of me when somebody wants to saw a bow out of a stave they have no idea what they are even dealing with. This is a stage I really enjoy for some reason. I call it keeping myself oriented to the stave for lack of a better phrase.
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For me, the First Commandment is: Thou shall not be in any kind of hurry. (Haste does indeed make waste).
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For me, the First Commandment is: Thou shall not be in any kind of hurry. (Haste does indeed make waste).
That should be the first and most important.
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thou shall not burn thy bow whilst heat treating.
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To badgers point, once I begin scraping the belly with whatever tool, I then rasp out any rough spots and sand it smooth before I string it and check the tiller. If the tiller is near perfect, I don't mess it up by rasping and sanding again, changing the tiller and taking more weight off. That can be an endless loop.
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I'm not sure I have ever thought of this in terms of "The Ten Commandments" of bow making, but I like the idea. The first commandment for me personally, is to walk away if I'm not sharp. I can recognize it. The closer I get to the finish line, the more important it becomes. I will set everything down and pick it up the next day with a renewed sense of purpose, greater cocentration and more energy.
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1. Always take off half as much as you think and make the bow at least 2" longer than you think you need.
2. When doing any bending or heat treating spend at least as long thinking about it and jigging it up as you do heating.
3. If you are not pig sick of the heating process you ain't done it long enough!
4. Leave the tips wide and the grip full width until you are well past brace height and the string line has settled.
Del
Bonus commandment! (when in doubt, leave it and have tea and toast! or you local equivalent ;) )
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I'm not sure I have ever thought of this in terms of "The Ten Commandments" of bow making, but I like the idea. The first commandment for me personally, is to walk away if I'm not sharp. I can recognize it. The closer I get to the finish line, the more important it becomes. I will set everything down and pick it up the next day with a renewed sense of purpose, greater cocentration and more energy.
Yup I like that one. Could add... never work on a bow 'cos you feel you ought to... do it when you want to.
That's my excuse for not finishing the one I started at the Classic ;)
Del
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Del, I like the number two, I hate to admit how many times I have put something in the steamer and while it was steaming start putting together my jig. When I take the time to do a trial run first and then heat or steam it always comes out better.
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I made a bow for a fellow a while back. Custom made to his specs. Cash money. Hated every minute of it (except for the cash money part). I want to work on these when I can enjoy it, not when I need to or have to. No thanks. So no disagreement from me on the "when you want to" time frame. Totally agree.
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9 Thou shalt not fully draw the self bow of thy neighbor.
This implies that I can string it, short draw it, take it to archery tournements (out of town of course), take pictures of it on my cell phone, spend time at his house with it when he is out of town, and generally cause untold mayhem!
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I made a bow for a fellow a while back. Custom made to his specs. Cash money. Hated every minute of it (except for the cash money part). I want to work on these when I can enjoy it, not when I need to or have to. No thanks. So no disagreement from me on the "when you want to" time frame. Totally agree.
I don't mind giving bows away but I hate building a bow for someone. The longest trip I have ever taken was from my house to the post office, I hate shipping. I do bows strictly to relax. I realize there will be times I need to do this but I keep it at a minimum.
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Great stuff, guys! As a newbie with only 4 or 5 under my belt. I have definitely learned to walk away if i'm not sharp and enjoying myself. Me rushing= a cluster****!!!
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If someone wants a bow make them buy from the rack ;D Way less stress.
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in a post one time Patb told me never work on a bow in a bad frame of mind, that's about the only thing I stick to
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JW, I should have included "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's bow", but I thought it unnecessary since we can have as many bows as we want. I guess I was wrong, you randy bugger... :P
Steve, keeping the bow surface in a near finished state and "cleaning up the bow" before you start is excellent advice. I've worked very hard to make these two rules second nature in my bow building. Now, if I could get good at predicting weight from a particular piece of wood, I'd be home free...
Lots of good points here. Maybe we could make "The 12 Points of Success for Bow Building"? When I suggested the commandments above, I intentionally left them vague and not too specific. I think I've seen the list of commandments that you mentioned at the beginning of this post but I can't remember who wrote them either.
How about, Master the art of "training" the wood while it's drying? I've got a few bows in the preliminary drying stage right now and I have found that tying or clamping the stave to a form works a lot better than steaming or heat bending later. In the floor tillered state, I clamp the bow in various positions to take out the severe twists and bends. I leave the bow in each position for a few days and then check on the progress. Sometimes a bend will be corrected in a few days but sometimes it takes weeks.
I like the Never be in a hurry commandment but this is made much easier if the person receiving the bow is also not in a hurry. ;)
My number one rule has become, Try and find the most perfect piece of wood to start with. This is what the ancient masters did and it saves more time and frustration than anything else I've ever tried.
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Yep the cleaning up of a stave,back slick and belly in good smooth shape is very important to me,keeping all tool makes out as I go is something I always do also. The set up before bending/heat or especially steam is also a very good rule
to follow. I usually spend a lot more time on the set up and being sure of just what I want to accomplish than I do the actual heating and bending :)
Pappy
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My number one rule has become, Try and find the most perfect piece of wood to start with. This is what the ancient masters did and it saves more time and frustration than anything else I've ever tried.
Totally agree with that one....I'm getting more picky as of late as to what I pick up to start with...if it ain't mostly clean,and straight I don't want nothing to do with it...I'm sick of wrestling staves into submission...and the clean straight stock makes better bows in the end as well..n that's a fact jack.....on the flip side tho it is nice and fun at certain times to take on a true character stave for the heck of it
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I agree with you Blackhawk, character staves are fun now and then but I would much rather have as little character as possible. I buy most of my sage on e ebay so I have to put up with what I get but if I lived in osage country I would go for the cleanest I could find.
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I like that term 12 points for successful bow making that Jackcrafty used.
Not sure how you would write this into a one liner but if you are building a 50# bow and you notice one area is allready bending more than it should at 35# then you now have a 30# bow, believe your eyes!
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Thou shalt not fully draw the self bow of thy neighbor.
;D ;D ;D
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thou shalt not advance to next stage of pull before excercising thy limbs 20 to 30 times for training thy bow..lest thy bow breaketh and tears flow from thy orbs.
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The only character should be in the bowyer, not the stave.
I have fiberglass mentality when it comes to stave selection.
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The only character should be in the bowyer, not the stave.
I have fiberglass mentality when it comes to stave selection.
Let me quess Pat, your a engineer
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The only character should be in the bowyer, not the stave.
I have fiberglass mentality when it comes to stave selection.
Let me quess Pat, your a engineer
Not even close. I just know that near perfect staves are out there and I like the results that they give.
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Nah, I'm on the other side of that argument I can't resist that snakey stave lying beside the uninteresting straight one. That's a big part of what keeps this interesting for me. Try and find the best bow possible in that twisted stick. But there is a big difference between good quality character staves and junk that will never make a decent bow.
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Thou shalt have no other bow woods before thy __(insert name of your fav bow wood)___.
Thou shalt not attach unto thy bow thy wheel our thy cam and thou shalt not have respect unto those persons that choose this darkened path and so pollute the primitive ways of thy forefathers.
Thou shalt eschew and detest all other ways of bowery not taught to thee by thy mentors all the days of thy life.
OneBow
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I don't mind character as long as its solid, as Bob mentioned. I cant tell a difference in performance if they are built well (right)......<---- and that's a period.:)
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I am a huge admirer of well made character bows. I will admire them all day long, they are beautiful! I just hate making them myself.
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Still finishing it up, but shooting it now. 50 lbs at 27 inches dead nut. Shoots as good as any I own.
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That is really cool Bob, I can appreciate the challenge and admire the artistry.
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Just want to show some love for the character bows after all the h8ting. 8) >:D
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The only character should be in the bowyer, not the stave.
I have fiberglass mentality when it comes to stave selection.
Let me quess Pat, your a engineer
Not even close. I just know that near perfect staves are out there and I like the results that they give.
just messin with you Pat, lots of comments on here from guys that are engineers or architects that cant stand crooked lines