Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Kidder on June 01, 2023, 05:49:16 pm
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Welcome to the 2023 Primitive Archer Bow Trade! The purpose of the trade is to share our skills with our community here and make the BEST bow you have ever made for your recipient, and to have a lot of fun along the way! It really should hurt a little to send out your bow. This trade is about the bow you build, not the bow you receive. If you do not share this philosophy, then please do not sign up. If you do share this then, let's get building! The rules for the trade are listed below.
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Please read this entire post before signing up so you know what you are getting into. Here is how to sign up:
1. Send me a PM with the following information:
Full Name
Full Address
Email Address
Telephone number
Which Country(ies) you will ship to
ALSO PLEASE INCLUDE A LINK TO A SUCCESSFUL COMPLETED BOW YOU HAVE POSTED HERE - IT WILL MAKE MY LIFE EASIER!
2. Reply to this post with, I'm in and include bow specs preferred
Example: LH or RH
Draw Weight 45-55 pounds
Draw length 27 to 29 inches
Here are the rules:
A. In order to sign up, you must have posted at least one successful bow on this site. Please don't be offended if I ask for verification. NEW THIS YEAR - if you previously participated but were unable to provide a successful bow in that trade, you must provide me with proof you have completed one successful bow since.
B. All participants in this trade need to participate in the thread and post pictures of their progress, Start out by posting a picture of the stave, staves, board, billets, etc. that you plan to use for the build. then continue to post progress of your build. If a participant does not post the progress of their build then it is up to my discretion to remove them from the trade (I only do this after several failed attempts to communicate with you several different ways!)
C. No bows should be shipped to someone that is not making progress on their bow. If you are done with your bow and ready to ship, please be in touch with me to help decide if you should ship or not.
D. Any participant that chooses can also build a second bow to be used as a reserve. The reserve bows will be used to ensure that ALL participating members get a bow. Please let me know if you plan to build a reserve bow so if it is needed I know who to contact.
E. Deadline for signing up will be the end of the day, June 30th
F. Shipping deadline will be Wednesday, January 1, 2024.
G. Have fun.
H. Communicate with me. I understand things happen that can keep you from building a bow. If this happens, the sooner you can let me know, the better. I can then reshuffle the trade and everything can work out.
I. As an incentive for your hard work, if you finish your bow on time and meet the shipping deadline your name will go in the hat for a drawing. I haven't decided what it will be yet, but it'll be exciting - maybe a book, or a hand tool, or arrow shafts, or a jar of honey from my bees...we'll just have to wait and see! Two years ago Selfbowman graciously agreed to build a bow for the incentive raffle and it
turned out beautifully! Last year I donated a dozen sur-wood shafts. If anyone would like to build an incentive bow please let me know!
I’m going to participate and here are my stats
RH
26” draw
45-65 lbs
Let's make this a great trade!
Thank you.
Brendan
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I’m in!
RH
26” draw
45-65 lbs
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I’m in
Rh
29”
48-55lbs
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Exciting news for anyone who is entering the trade this year…Superdav95 has graciously volunteered to build a bow for the “on-time bow raffle”! Sounds like he will be building a heat treated bamboo backed hickory bow. So if you are on the fence about signing up this should get you into the ring! To be considered for the draw you have to enter the build, complete your bow and be ready to ship by the deadline. That’s it! Thank you Dave!
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I'm in.
Lh
50lbs at 25in
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You beat me to it Dave. Well if I was in the trade I’d make sure I was on time. Nice jester Dave. Arvin
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Hey guys here’s some pics of the boo backed hickory and some stats on it. It finished out at 47lbs at 27”. At 10gpp it shot 181,183 and 185fps. My chrono was acting up again so it was a struggle to get consistent readings but did eventually get some consistency in my readings. It shoots fine at 28” draw too I just wanted to keep my gpp arrow weight at 10 so I pulled to 27”. Good shooter and shoots very straight. No weird arrow flight. It’s near center shot shelf. Very happy with this bow. I kept it narrow on advice from others on here. 1.3” at widest then eventually tapered to the tips. I kept my boo strip quite thin too on good advice from kidder here. I also toasted the boo strip belly slightly too. Not too much to change much in Color but to rid most of moisture. I had to flatten it again after this as it will swell a bit. Whoever gets this bow will be happy with the way it shoots. The handle area on this sliver of hickory was very narrow. This is why I decided to build up the handle area with some rosewood. I book ended the rosewood to get its grain to match and look good similar to what would be done with knife handle scales. I ripped a solid piece down the middle and basically glued it to the handle area. I had prepared the handle area with a taper as can be seen for visual effect. I got luck with the glue up of the boo strip too and ended up with almost non existent glue lines. Thanks for looking and figured I’d post this here to get those on the fence to sign up! ;). Cheers.
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Few more…
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What a beauty Dave! Someone is going to get really lucky this year!
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Looks great Dave!
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Sign up is almost closed. If you’re on the fence, now is the time!
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Well it looks like there is only 3 of us this year. No sweat - we’ll have fun regardless. For the trade this year I’ll be building another Boo Yew I think. Once I get going I’ll post up some pictures.
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So here is the belly blank I intend to use. It’s starting as 71” long and 1 3/4” wide. Not totally sure dimensions I’ll go for yet. You can see that it is plain sawn, which I try to shoot for on boo backed bows if there are any knots. This way all the pins will run from belly to back and be protected by the boo instead of running off the side of the limb creating a potential weak spot. Just my preference.
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Lookin like a good plan kidder.
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Fellas. Here’s my piece of wood I’m using for my bow trade this year. It’s a very long piece of yew with very tight grain with great Color. It’s fairly straight with a little deflex which I will steam out. Here’s are some pics. Suspect this will be around 67-68” in length final bow ttt. Shooting for around 50lbs. Here’s some pics of the piece of wood.
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Got it roughed out to basic rough shape with drawknife. The Color on the sapwood is a caremel Color. The rings are good and tight and the heartwood has a rich reddish brown Color. I’ll do some more thinning out and shaping to floor tiller before I get to taking and twist minor as it is and any remaining alignment issues. Here’s a few more pics.
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I’m gonna be watching this one Dave. Want to see how you handle a few things with this yew stave
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String alignment time! Here’s my fix for this issue. Hopefully. I like to correct just a hair past the direction I’m wanting to go with yew especially. I find it springs back more then other woods. I use a string as can be seen in the pics and heat up he handle area (on this particular bow). I just use a heat gun and heat it up in handle area and let it cool. It may need another heat session but hopefully not. It seemed like a fairly straight piece of wood but when shaping and laying out the bow the grain had other plans. No matter this should work fine. Fingers crossed.
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Got tips aligned good and got it bending evenly to 23” at 50lbs. This was before adding any reflex to the limbs and flipping the tips. I will throw back on tiller tree tomorrow after leaving it clamped and heated in reflex cools overnight. Here’s my reflex form for this one. My goal for this bow will be around 50lbs at 25” draw. Things went well so far. We shall see how it progresses.
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You're work is exceptionally clean and your shop in a dang mess :) I expected more, Dave.
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You're work is exceptionally clean and your shop in a dang mess :) I expected more, Dave.
Lol. Too funny. Thanks PD, my wife says I’m the worst kind of ocd. Not the neat and tidy kind. 🌝. Every once in a while I’ll tidy up a bit as it’s too much chaos even for me.
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Here the bow out of its form this morning. No surprises. All looks good and alignment is corrected. The only thing I am not sure about is the Color of my sapwood. Like I mentioned earlier it’s a caremel Color. You can see the two tones that are predominantly dispersed throughout the entire back. I’ve made efforts to carefully card scrape down to a single sap ring which is next to impossible and still a Color variance. Is this a concern beyond aesthetics??? Anyone ever see this before? This is my first encounter with this much. In the past I’ve have the odd spot with this sort of thing but usually able to scrape down a bit to remove most of it. Open so suggestions here. Should I just leave it and carry on with it or is this a performance issue? Thanks
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Gonna be awesome! Nice work Dave!
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You're work is exceptionally clean and your shop in a dang mess :) I expected more, Dave.
Lol. Too funny. Thanks PD, my wife says I’m the worst kind of ocd. Not the neat and tidy kind. 🌝. Every once in a while I’ll tidy up a bit as it’s too much chaos even for me.
Mi exactly the same. I'm OCD when it comes to prying a bow from a stave. I have a one track mind and nothing else around me matters until I'm holding a complete bow. Tools and wood curls everywhere.
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You're work is exceptionally clean and your shop in a dang mess :) I expected more, Dave.
Lol. Too funny. Thanks PD, my wife says I’m the worst kind of ocd. Not the neat and tidy kind. 🌝. Every once in a while I’ll tidy up a bit as it’s too much chaos even for me.
Mi exactly the same. I'm OCD when it comes to prying a bow from a stave. I have a one track mind and nothing else around me matters until I'm holding a complete bow. Tools and wood curls everywhere.
So true! My wife has to force feed me basically as I get hyper focused sometimes in what I’m doing I forget to eat. It’s a good thing she’s around or might starve. Lol
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I took down a couple more layers off the sapwood to clean things up a bit and little better on the Color. Still has a little caremel Color. It’s now at 50lbs at 15” draw. I had taken most of the deflex out of the limbs and flipped the tips with longer sweeping recurves. Still have some scraping to do off the belly to get the weight down. Bend still looks good just too heavy yet. The last two pics show a couple clusters of small knots at the edge. I left a few layers of sapwood around them in hopes to prevent future issues.
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Got this bow drawn to 25” today and bend looking good. It’s at 53lbs at this moment at 25”. I’m going to keep it there, sand it and finish her up. It should finish fairly close to 50lbs when all done I figure. Tips lined up very nicely considering. It took a tiny bit of set but very respectable. I was toying around with an idea of staining the back possibly and then exposing some of the lighter sapwood with some lite scrapes. I’ll put in a shelf and shape up the handle in prep for a leather wrap. I put Buffalo horn tip overlays on this one. I think I’ll use a d97 string for this bow should work well.
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Few more.
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I am so amazed and envious of how fast you make new bows Dave! I feel like evwry week I see a new beautiful bow of yours! Can't wait until I get to see this one all finished up! Whoever gets one of your bows in this trade is going to be a lucky guy. :)
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I guess I am behind... here's the stave and my plan .
I'm using some dense hickory and am going to do a shorter slight bend through the handle design. I'm going to do some work on it this weekend.
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Can’t wait jake! I’m sure it will be sweet.
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I am so amazed and envious of how fast you make new bows Dave! I feel like evwry week I see a new beautiful bow of yours! Can't wait until I get to see this one all finished up! Whoever gets one of your bows in this trade is going to be a lucky guy. :)
Thanks Airkah. Much appreciated. Very kind words. I’m recently retired so this new found fetish of mine keeps me out of trouble 😆
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Went to work a bit more on this yew bow. I’ve decided I’m going to back it with raw hide. I shaped up the handle and dished out the fades a bit. The shelf is minimal. I’ll add some width when adding the leather wrap. I’ve added a about an inch of backset as it was natural deflex stave. We shall see what it retains if any. Yew can be funny with reflex retention with heat. Any preference on a stain on the rawhide? Let me know and I’ll do my best to oblige.
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Just applied my rawhide. I used some old work t shirts cut into strips to wrap up. I used tb3 for my raw hide glue up. I find it work well. I’ve used hide glue also with good results too but wanted the waterproofing of the tb3. I pulled my bow into a reflex with string. I’ll leave the wrap on for an hour or so then pull it off and work out any bubbles that may still be there. The glue should hold it on pretty good by that point. Also included a couple pics of the handle shaped up. Cheers.
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Here’s couple pics of the hide after set up of glue. No bubbles. All good. I think it’ll look decent when stained.
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That’s really nice Dave! Love the ridge on the fades. Yew is so nice to carve like that. Did you decide on a color yet? I always gravitate to cordovan. Black on yew looks pretty sweet too! Keep having fun.
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Thanks Brendan. I was thinking of a fade of dark Color to light out towards the tips. I was gonna poss do a black leather handle wrap.
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is it too late to sign up? i have a hickory stave im wanting to try out for the bow trade. if not its all cool.
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is it too late to sign up? i have a hickory stave im wanting to try out for the bow trade. if not its all cool.
I think we are pretty far into it to move things around much. Bummer. But we’ll be done before the new year and I will make sure to hit you up directly on next years.
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Got My bow is done with 4 good coats of true oil finish on the belly and sides. I ended up covering this bow with some thin strips of rawhide I had left from another project. Worked out great. I got this idea from Simk here on his latest yew bow posted. It’s a great combination as it somewhat protects the soft sap wood. I gave it a dark transition from black and tan and yellow out towards the tips. I made dabbing sponge to give it some dimension with the dabs of tan and black fading out towards the tips. I call this pattern lava rock. The pattern of the sponge light dabbed over the yellow gives it a molten lava with cooling dark rock exposed. This bow has horn nocks which are durable too. I took kidders advise and went dark on this one and matched with black leather handle wrap. It came in at 50.86lbs at 25” draw. Dang close to my goal of 50lbs. I’m gonna leave it there. I only tillered it to 25” and as such took very little set. This bow stave if you recall had a natural deflex thru the handle which was addressed later in the build and tiller. Once I got it bending nice and close to my weight I added the flipped tips and backset heated in. Then back up on the tiller to remove more weight. This worked well for me and no major issues. Bow has a bit of character like most yew does. I put about 60 shots thru it yesterday and shoots well. I may make a new string for it as I’m not happy with one of the loops being a little large for the nock. I’m gonna mark it up with some stats and my recipient and call it done. Here’s some pics.
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Few more…
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That’s beautiful!
I got my trade bow going but as usual am making it overly complicated and chasing my tail a little bit.
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Close up of pattern
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That’s beautiful!
I got my trade bow going but as usual am making it overly complicated and chasing my tail a little bit.
Thanks kidder. I’m sure your on it and all will go as planned for your build.
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Sweet looking bow Dave. I’m sure someone will love it. Like the colors on the back and the fades.
Looks great all way around
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So I made some progress on my trade bow this week. Scrapped the original belly lam and started over. But I got a decent glue up done I believe. Holds 3 inches of reflex post glue up. I’ll lose some but still come out ahead. It’s 69” ttt, 10.5” powerlam, 8 inch handle and fades, 1.38” wide at the fades straight taper to the tips, and slightly asymmetrical. After unpacking I decided to scrape and sand the rind, dye it, and then clean up the edges and trap that back a bit. That’ll ensure a clean line between the back and the belly and no runs in the dye. Next step, tillering.
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Can’t wait! Looks great
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I've been really busy lately. I did however get it close to size. Planning on getting it bending this weekend. Decided to just do a bend through the handle native american style. Also plan to do a nettle string.
It's not much to look at yet. But it will...
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I can see a bow in there Jake!
I got really going this weekend. Tillered out to about 25”. Shaped the handle. Had a blowout on the shelf. I think I was too into my music…but I fixed it by building it back up with leather and soaked it in CA. It’ll be covered by the handle wrap so it’s completely fine. Here’s a sneak pic of the roughed out tips.
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Lookin sharp.
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Almost done! Shooting great. Shot it through my chrono. Consistently in around 165 fps pulling 27-28” (whatever I can pull) with heavy hunting arrows (29 inch Easton xx75 2016 and a 175 gr tip). Not amazing but acceptable.
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Love the black finish on that one. Can’t wait to see more of it. Decent numbers too
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Well I managed to get my trade bow finished. It’s a 68” NTN bamboo backed yew. Pulls 50# at 29”. It’s got a 10-11” powerlam of I believe che Chen. Bamboo is dyed with a single light black coat that appears to have a slightly greenish hue. Tips are mammoth tusk over Buffalo horn. String is 8 strands of d97 with fisher fur silencers. Leather grip. Finish is 3 coats of tungoil finish. I hope my recipient likes it and that it lasts a long time.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53206934003_a059fa3189_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2p4HrM6)2023 primitive archer trade bow (https://flic.kr/p/2p4HrM6) by B Kidd (https://www.flickr.com/photos/192182575@N03/), on Flickr
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53207143340_22a75b5346_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2p4Jw1m)2023 primitive archer trade bow (https://flic.kr/p/2p4Jw1m) by B Kidd (https://www.flickr.com/photos/192182575@N03/), on Flickr
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53206937033_aba4e96746_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2p4HsFk)2023 primitive archer trade bow (https://flic.kr/p/2p4HsFk) by B Kidd (https://www.flickr.com/photos/192182575@N03/), on Flickr
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53205755222_216439de1b_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2p4Bpnh)2023 primitive archer trade bow (https://flic.kr/p/2p4Bpnh) by B Kidd (https://www.flickr.com/photos/192182575@N03/), on Flickr
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53207016194_270db5efd7_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2p4HSdb)2023 primitive archer trade bow (https://flic.kr/p/2p4HSdb) by B Kidd (https://www.flickr.com/photos/192182575@N03/), on Flickr
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53207018604_45e2f98d70_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2p4HSVJ)2023 primitive archer trade bow (https://flic.kr/p/2p4HSVJ) by B Kidd (https://www.flickr.com/photos/192182575@N03/), on Flickr
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53206936273_56521d1f59_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2p4Hsse)2023 primitive archer trade bow (https://flic.kr/p/2p4Hsse) by B Kidd (https://www.flickr.com/photos/192182575@N03/), on Flickr
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Nice bow, Kidder. I'm sure your recipient will love it. Very well done. I especially like the finish work and tip overlays.
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Looks fantastic kidder! Love the look of this one. Tiller looks spot on too! Well done.
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Hey guys sorry for the MIA. Had some family issues come up. So here's where I'm at. The bow I was building I was not happy with. I tried rushing bringing in the sides and got it a little too skinny. So I decided to start over.
I plan to have it done by the weekend. The bow is sugar maple. It is 62in long. I'm doing a strait forward design. 1.5in wide at the fades and strait taper to .5in at the nocks.. I got it all roughed out and starting to bend.
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Sorry to hear that man. Hope all is well now. Looks good so far keep us posted.
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Got the bow heat treated and I decided to rawhide back it just to be safe. Moving right along...
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Nice work Jake - looking great!
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I got the sides cleaned up tonight. I'll be starting to tiller tomorrow. I think the rawhide is dry enough. I used tightbond 3 and it was out in the sun for the past couple days
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Got the bow to short string. I'm going to finish tillering it out today and get a finish on it and handle wrap.
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Lookin good jake! You made quick work of that one. Can’t wait.
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Got the bow finished. Im not good at taking pics so i hope these are good enough. I put a dark stain on it and used my tallow mix finish. Heating it up slightly as I applied it. It took a little longer than I would of liked but I wanted to make sure it met the standards of my ability.
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I will get a full draw Pic when my wife gets home. On the tiller keep in mind there are some areas where the wood gets a little snakey (like up and down if your looking at the back of the bow)
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Sharp! Nice work Jake!
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I shipped this morning. Jake and Dave you are both good to ship at this point!
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Looks good jake! Looks like a good shooter too.
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Full draw pic. Ready to send it out!!!
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Good lookin bend on that bow.
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Well I had my wife do the draw for me and kidder won the draw bow! Congrats Brendan. I’ll ship yours out the same time I ship out jakes bow on Tuesday. Jake I made up a new d97 string and added some calf hair rest to yours. It’s removable if you don’t like it. I’ll ship both out Tuesday.
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Well I had my wife do the draw for me and kidder won the draw bow! Congrats Brendan. I’ll ship yours out the same time I ship out jakes bow on Tuesday. Jake I made up a new d97 string and added some calf hair rest to yours. It’s removable if you don’t like it. I’ll ship both out Tuesday.
Whoop whoop! I’m pumped! Thank you Dave!
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Here are some full draw and unstrung pics of the trade bow and the give away bow.
Shipping them out today.
The yew trade bow drawn to 25”
The bbh bow drawn to 26”-27”.
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Those are incredible Dave!
Jake - received your trade bow yesterday- thank you! Haven’t had a chance to shoot it yet but I’m thoroughly impressed. A nice thing about the trade is getting a bow that from a design perspective is not what I build. So there is lots I can learn from it! Thanks again.
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Thanks! I forgot to sign it sorry. I usually do that. It shot pretty good though. I hope the weight is good because I don't have a scale to weigh the draw weight.
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Got my trade bow from kidder! I love it. Nicely done on this bow. It looks great and shoots very well. As discussed here are some stats and few pics.
It’s so stinking light! Must be that yew wood. It shoots very nice. Well done. It’s very humid here so speeds were I’m guess at least 5-10fps slower then normal I suspect. Here’s the numbers I got using a 500 grain and a 400grain arrow.
I consistently got between 168-171 fps at 10gpp(500grains) 169.5 average speed.
I got readings ranging from 177-186 at 400grains arrow. (8gpp). 181.5 fps average speed.
Several shots taken before I started writing them down then took three shots and took average at both arrow weights.
Very impressive numbers. You did something right with this one.
The mass of this bow is 532.5 grams! My hickory self bow I compared this one to is 649grams for reference.
You nailed it kidder! Very happy with it.
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Couple more…
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Really glad it arrived safe and you like it! Hopefully it’s a good shooter for many years.
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That is one FINE bow. Lucky man, Dave.