Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: bassman211 on December 08, 2023, 10:30:29 am
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Many of us build bows as a past time. Guys that do it successfully to make a living are to be commended. Weylin Olive, and a few others comes to mind.
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Not an easy way to make a living, especially when the average guy thinks they can make one with $5 worth of wood and an hour or two of spare time.
I've seen many people over the years try to do it and stay competitive, and fail after a couple of years. It's definitely not due to lack of talent, or the quality of the bows they produce. Most of the time their prices are too low, for the time, skill, and materials that they have invested.
It means the bow must be expensive and that turns most average buyers away. If you try to keep the price at low levels you get burnt out really quickly.
The successful ones are either very efficient, and or offer a luxury product, a work of art as much as a functional weapon or sporting goods.
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Well put Hamish.
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Yes, it is well put, but I would add that to command the premium you also need a reputation and the ability to generate publicity- you have to be good at sales
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Absolutely. The "business" side of many businesses are often lacking. Most of us creative types like to make stuff, we don't necessarily want to do the promotional stuff.
I think the best way to do bowyering is semi professional. A regular normy job, with a serious hobby sideline done at night or on weekends. The trick is you have to charge like a real business, all the overheads, power, shop space, consumables, retail stave prices(even if you cut them from a "free log"). Don't subsidise your selling price with your day job money. Work that pays for your materials is nice for a short time, but you will lose the will to keep going when you are flooded with orders, because you have underquoted a fair price
Then if you keep getting so many orders and can fill them in a timely manner, you can give up your regular day job.
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I’d be interested to know the man hours that most, including those who make them for a living and those who don’t, have into a bow. I’m a hobbyist and I would say I put in between 20-40 hours per bow. Probably closer to 40 on most of them. But I also spend a lot of time staring at them waiting for them to come to life and inspire my imagination.
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I know some guys that can rough out and tiller a good bow in one day(I can't, or at least it wouldn't be a good bow). They don't normally sand it, and finish it until later. All that sort of stuff, plus putting on a nice grip, arrow pass, flemish string etc can take up a lot of time too. Straightening, heat treating and recurving can add a lot of time to making a good bow.
I'm more of a 40hr guy. I prefer not to rush it. I like to leave a bow for a while, and come back to it with fresh eyes. I believe it makes a better quality bow, less mistakes, but its probably too slow for a business.
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It's very easy to suck the joy out of a hobby by trying to turn it into a business.
I sell the occasional bow, which pays for tools and the like.
But even then it's for people who will come to visit, or make contact from recommendations.
I just make what interests me... it would be no fun churning out endless 40# ELBs. Not to mention dealing with breakages, shipping, accounting taxes etc.
Be careful what you wish for.
Del
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A few years ago I was made redundant and looked carefully at wood working for a living. It’s a complex undertaking but many spend only one third of their time actually making stuff. Things like admin, meetings, travel, social media, phone calls, maintenance of tools, premises and vehicles, all soak up a huge amount of time. A 40 hour bow might take 100 hours. Will you be able to make and sell 3 bows a month at enough to pay you a living?
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I agree with Dell; I loved carving duck decoys, I took art classes to learn how to give them a realistic paint job, after a few years my ducks looked like they could get up and fly away.
At first it was gratifying that someone would want to buy my work, I sold them too cheap but I was in it for the craft, not the money.
Word spread; orders piled in from coast to coast, I was carving ducks after my regular job, on weekends and even had to spend my vacation time carving ducks.
My fun hobby had become drudgery, I grew to hate it. In 86 I thought "that's it" and put down my tools, canceled my huge backlog of orders and never carved another duck.
I keep these shop-worn examples of my unfinished work on a shelf in my shop to remind me to never turn a hobby into a business again.
(https://i.imgur.com/Ym4NVwP.jpg)
When I started making bows, I made 40 bows before I thought I was good enough to sell one. I made them when I wanted to, if someone ordered one, I told them it would be 6 months even if I could make the bow in a couple of weeks because I didn't want any deadlines to meet.
I had a good following of people wanting my bows, I turned down a dozen orders a month when I was at my peak, I made bows one at a time and didn't want any backlog orders.
I didn't make any serious money, I just liked making bows. The down side was replacing broken bows no questions asked, I even replaced bows that didn't belong to the original owner.
I gave away far more bows than I sold and quit selling them about 10 years ago, I only do charity donations now.
When I started building flintlock rifles, I remembered my lessons learned and decided to never sell one, or custom make one for someone. Life is simpler that way.
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I also agree with Del and Eric on this. My experience with this comes from making musky fishing lures and not bows though. I use to fish for them a lot and lures for muskies are not cheap. Custom lures can cost $100 bucks and up. I thought to myself, I could make them, so I did. Before long people started asking me to make them one. Of course before long I was making way more than I wanted to and finally decided to quit because it took all the fun out of it for me. Like Eric and his ducks I rarely made a lure anymore. When I do make one it’s a gift for that person and I make sure that’s understood and that I don’t sell them. For anyone that wants to do that for a living and can make money at it, that’s great. Just not for me.
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I love making art. That outlet has come in different forms over my life with bow making being the longest lasting. I made my first bow in the early-mid 90’s. I have sold a number of bows over those decades, and given away and traded others. Only a few were “custom orders”. All the fun was sucked completely out of it for me, on those few, and I can’t foresee doing any others that way. I have a room full of bows. Come over and see if you like one. If so, we can figure out a price. I’m happy with that arrangement.
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I’m also more of a 40hr guy. I love details. So for me building bows and putting my energy and creativity into them is an outlet that checks a lot of boxes for me. I sell bows too but only word of mouth. I haven’t had any warranty issues yet fingers crossed but when it happens I’ll take the approach that Eric does. I can rough out a bow and brace in a solid full day depending on the style but its far from done and all the finish work in the details are what take the time. I do much like kidder in that I’ll stare at them to be inspired as to what to do to finish them up. It’s funny I’ll have like 5-6 bows on the go all floor tillered and some fully tillered for quite some time and crap one and start on finishing it as I got an idea on how to finish it up. My ordered are all custom bows and all different. This is where I find joy in the labour of bow building. To make it a full time business for me would take that away for me and make this a chore. I learned my lesson too with making knives for 11 years. I got so into it and at first loved it even obsessed over it. I got so many orders though that it killed it and now I only make the occasional knife. The last blade I made was a custom proper chefs blade with feather Damascus. It took me a week to build this knife and although I enjoyed aspects of the build I was glad when it was done. It was a $1000 knife that I let go for $750. The only reason I agreed to the build was for a work buddy of mine spouse birthday gift. If I absolutely had to I could make a decent living making knives. Even just custom chef blades. The same for bows I believe. I’m fortunate in that I don’t need to and for me it’s more then just the money I can get for my bows. I like doing word of mouth sales for friends of family or the like. What I get from building bows is priceless.
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Ok for me it’s a hobby that sometimes help pay its way. I only spend about 25-30 hrs on one normally. Is that why I only charge $900. 🤠🤠 The guys like Weylin earns there money. It’s hard running any business but these guys hopefully are living there dream while making a living for their families. Good bows don’t come cheap.
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I sold a sinew backed plains Osage native horse bow with a red fox quiver, and knapped heads with home made shafts, and turkey feathers. I hung it in a bow shop, and it sold in 3 days. A women bought it for her husband's man cave. I made less than 5 bucks an hour with that bow. Sold it for 400 bucks, and 30% of the money went to the shop I sold it out of. To much energy building bows at the time, and dumber than a sled track.
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I mis-spoke; I made a really nice flintlock rifle from a kit; the precut rear sight dovetail was the standard distance from the breech. Being an old guy, I needed the rear sight halfway down the barrel so I could focus on it, I didn't see anything but a blur for a rear sight when I tried to shoot this rifle. I could have plugged the original dovetail and cut another one down the barrel but that would have left a visible scar where the original dovetail was, I just couldn't do that to this fine rifle.
A wonderful rifle, all the best parts money could buy but I just couldn't shoot it so I sold it. That is the only one that has ever left my stable, I have a gun safe full of these fine rifles and love every one of them.
On the ducks; one of my great regrets is that I was so sure I was going to make ducks for a lifetime that I sold all of my very best works as I made them. When I soured on making ducks, I only had a few of my early ducks that were not of the same quality that I would sell later, nothing to leave as a legacy of my art to my grandkids.
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It's fun to make a little money doing something you enjoy doing anyway. I wouldn't want to put myself in a situation where I had to.
I doubt I'll ever be proficient enough at bow-making to sell bows. But I have a few other hobbies that pay a bit: I maintain an aquarium for a local business, and that's kind of fun: I get to play with a huge tank while someone else pays for everything; my work makes lots of people happy, and the extra money is nice. I occasionally get a paycheck from writing, and sometimes my music almost pays for itself. I sure wouldn't want to depend on any of these things to make a living, though.
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Chasing the market is gonna be tough. And by market I mean the demographic that pay a price that keeps you afloat.
I sell bows. Not often. Always undervalued and underpaid. But I have a certain reputation with a couple movie prop companies and now and then I get a call. Right now I have a 5 curve upper Great Plains sinew backed bow in the works for one. The agreed price with 20 functional arrows is less than a weeks wages at my job and I bet I will have close to 80 hours into the project when I am done. Chokecherry dogwood arrow shafts still need to be found, cut, straightened, cured, straightened, shaped, straightened, hated with trade points, straightened, and fletcher.
Those shafts will take days to find and a couple hundred miles of driving. Mind you, they are often in prime cottontail hunting territory so chasing shafts does double duty. The stave was $150 with transport because I do not dare use anything but perfect grain osage with the ways day labor extras on a movie set often do everything they can to break equipment...not even joking, have caught them doing it several times on set.
All told, when you total up the costs of material, mileage and gas on my vehicle, I am dow to a dollar or two an hour. Honestly, I am glad I get few commissions like this because the stress makes it miserable. I am doing this one as a thank you to the buyer for a massive favor he did me years ago. I have a debt to him that cannot really be repaid.
And if you are curious about where you may have seen my work, check out the Yellowstone prequel, 1883. Most of the gear of the Sioux war party was mine. And yes, the fateful arrow that pivoted the story was mine.
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That’s so cool JW! love that show. It must be awesome to see your stuff on the big screen!
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One of my dreams was to open up kind of a coffee shop where people hung out and built bows. Customers could come by drink coffee and watch the bow makers. I would sell supplies for bows, knapping and arrow making and maybe a few other primitive type products. I had planned to fly different guys in about 1 time a month to hold seminars. I wanted a live web cam going all the time where anyone in the world could tune into the " Bowyers Bar"
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Badger I like that idea!
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My cousin was a turner. He ran a successful craft shop and cafe with his wife and family, he was the turner in residence, standing in a corner in the shop turning all day, chatting with customers, running demos and the like. Badger’s idea is a great way to do it. As they say, to make a successful cafe, all you need is a brew (nice cuppa tea/coffee) a loo and a view
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Badger, I'd stop into your place for a pot of tea. Especially if you put a 30 yard shooting range out back, too...
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Badger, I'd stop into your place for a pot of tea. Especially if you put a 30 yard shooting range out back, too...
That is all in the plan! The Bowyers Bar!
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Super cool JW. Love a good western with really authentic looking stuff. I did kinda hate when the young lady was shot but, that’s Hollywood (SH)
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I stopped selling bows years ago - there just isn't any money in it when you factor in labor and what most people are willing to pay. Now I just make bows for friends and raffles. I've made grown men and women cry when I surprised them with a bow that I custom made for them - you can't put a price on that.
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I stopped selling bows years ago - there just isn't any money in it when you factor in labor and what most people are willing to pay. Now I just make bows for friends and raffles. I've made grown men and women cry when I surprised them with a bow that I custom made for them - you can't put a price on that.
Well said Gordon
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I have become active in black powder rendezvous and primitive archery has become a popular event. Most people who participate in the archery shoots are not inclined to make their own bows and there are a lot of substandard bows in circulation. Now a days I find that I spend more time reconditioning existing bows than making new ones. It starts when someone tells me (or I observe) that their bow is too stout to handle comfortably. If the bow is salvageable (and not all are because some are junk) I'll offer to reduce the draw weight. I'll then fix the tiller as best I can (tiller is always off with these bows), remove excess wood (most are overbuilt), bring the bow to the desired draw weight, refine the handle and tips, add a handle wrap and arrow pass, personalize the bow, refinish the bow, make a new string, stress test, and make them a proper stringer. And when I hand them back their newly reborn bow, the look on their faces is priceless.
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And if you are curious about where you may have seen my work, check out the Yellowstone prequel, 1883. Most of the gear of the Sioux war party was mine. And yes, the fateful arrow that pivoted the story was mine.
Dang John, you were the one ultimately responsible for Elsa's demise? She was my favorite character!
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I have done a lot of the same Gordon, usually after I made a comment at a tournament about someone's bow and they asked me to fix it. I had to quit fixing bows because some of these bows were such a mess that I would end up bamboo backing them and making a complete bow with their old bow as a core. I could have made two new bows in the time it took me to resurrect some of these substandard bows.
I learned my lesson and have turned down every request to straighten out something on a B/P rifle, there is often a lot more wrong with them under the surface that you can't see by just looking them over.
The strangest thing I found on a B/P rifle was that the builder used finishing nails for barrel pins, which is normal but he left the heads on the nails. When I tried to remove a pin to take the barrel out the head of the nail took a chunk of wood out with it as it came out. I decided to leave the barrel in place and not mess with it.
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Eric, so far, I have been successful determining when a bow is worth salvaging without excessive effort (like gluing on a bamboo back!). What I look for is a tiller that isn't completely jacked (hinges, compression fractures, excessive set, etc.) and, of course, a clean back. If the bow was made from a board, I look for runoffs that might cause problems when I narrow the limbs. I actually prefer bows that are overbuilt (and many are) because that leaves me with more wood to work with. It doesn't matter if I end up with a 30 lbs. bow because most of the BP folks prefer lightweight bows. If the bow is junk, I tell the owner as much and that it is not worth the effort to fix. A downside of all this is when the owner receives a refurbished bow that they can now handle, they want arrows and I don't particularly enjoy making them. I really wish there was a good arrow smith in our group.
I've built three BP rifles and know enough that I would never attempt to fix an issue with someone else's rifle. As you pointed out, there are just too many things that can go wrong when you get into it. Fortunately, there are folks in my BP club that are more knowledgeable about making guns than I am, so when I'm asked, I refer them on.
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I enjoy making bows. The arrow making, not so much. I put far more time in the arrows than the bow that shoots them.
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I used to make beautiful wood arrows to go with a bow for a beginner, although I have made thousands of arrows over time, I find the process boring. The last few traditional bows I set up for folk, I bought carbon shafts or cheap Walmart carbon arrows in the proper spine, stripped off the vanes and re-flectched them with feathers to go with the bows. Less work, better matched and no wood arrow breakage for a beginner to deal with.
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I stopped selling bows years ago - there just isn't any money in it when you factor in labor and what most people are willing to pay. Now I just make bows for friends and raffles. I've made grown men and women cry when I surprised them with a bow that I custom made for them - you can't put a price on that.
Well-said. I really hope to someday reach a level of proficiency where I can build bows for people as gifts, or to donate to good causes. A labor of love, and any money made is a nice bonus, not a necessity.
There is a place for the mass-produced, carve-em-and-serve-em bows, though. I might never have gotten into primitive archery if not for Rudderbows/Crowshead archery and a fairly cheap "custom" bow from a fairly well-known maker. Some of these bows were junk, but Rudderbows' bamboo-hickory ELB was one of my favorite bows of all time...right up until it delaminated. ;D And I didn't realize how terrible that "custom" bow was until I made a better one myself. But those bows were an affordable gateway into bigger and better things, and I've never looked back.
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One of my dreams was to open up kind of a coffee shop where people hung out and built bows. Customers could come by drink coffee and watch the bow makers. I would sell supplies for bows, knapping and arrow making and maybe a few other primitive type products. I had planned to fly different guys in about 1 time a month to hold seminars. I wanted a live web cam going all the time where anyone in the world could tune into the " Bowyers Bar"
I would happily drink coffee and make bows in a shop like this! Sounds like a great place to me.
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And if you are curious about where you may have seen my work, check out the Yellowstone prequel, 1883. Most of the gear of the Sioux war party was mine. And yes, the fateful arrow that pivoted the story was mine.
Dang John, you were the one ultimately responsible for Elsa's demise? She was my favorite character!
Yeah, I literally came off the couch shouting obscenities at that scene.
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Yeah, I literally came off the couch shouting obscenities at that scene.
Yeah, that was really messed up. Thanks bud!
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Ya that was bad JW >:( :( :( I have sold a few bows over the years but really don't like the dead lines or having to do anything I ant in the mood for at the time, I mostly give them away to someone that needs a bow or someone I think will use and appreciate it, I do like Gordon and Eric, I repair some that are a mess or take weight off and adjust the tiller for people, usually do 1 or 2 every year at the Classic each year and a few through out the year.I enjoy making something that is not usable into something that is. For me it's all about what I enjoy doing and most things I enjoy doing don't make me any money, Just ask Miss Joanie. ;) :) :) :)
Pappy