Hi all, I recently joined the site and recently completed my first bow. It is a hickory bow made from a tree we cut down on the farm. It has a lot of set and is only 26 pounds with a 75 yard max shooting distance.
It was a blast to make though and a great learning experience. Since then I found bowsite and this site and met some great guys that have hooked me up with an elm stave we're working on and now an osage stave! It's really nice to be reminded that there are good people still out there.
Lil about me:
I'm 36 and just got started hunting 4 years ago, though my dad and brother hunted their entire lives. I love the woods and spend a great deal of time in the PA woods fishing, hiking, mountain biking etc. I instantly fell in love with hunting and still feel more at home in the woods than anywhere. It's a nice contrast to my job as a computer programming geek for Dell.
I'm a big beliver in things we earn we hold most dear. I love a challenge and I love to live off the land. My uncle was looking at my carbon element compound bow (ya I love the high tech stuff also) and commenting on how when he was a kid they made their own bows to hunt with. So I said, "Ok, let's make some bows". I read the Bent Stick by Paul Comstock and we picked a hickory log from the farm. It had sat outside a year and the bark was smented to it. A fact I found out after trying to remove it with a rusted draw knife made of a metal wagon wheel and a large knife. I probably took me 60 hours to get off that bark! After many hours with an axe I finally got a hoof rasp which I absolutely love but got predictably agressive with and ended up with a 26 # bow. I cared little about that and am just happy it didn't break yet.
My goal is to make a bow that I can hunt with and get a whitetail kill. I killed 5 deer this year with a compound and crossbow and it was a great time but I think it won't even compare to the satisfaction of getting a kill with a weapon I make myself.
I post some videos to YouTube just for fun and I'll be sure to put some of my progress with my new bows. I'm also getting some better video equipment to film my hunts with. Hopefully I can get my first selfbow kill on film! That is really my goal this year.
http://www.youtube.com/user/VictoryBeforeCombat?feature=mhee I've already really enjoyed a ton of the information on this site and hopefully I'll be able to contriubte to it eventually and get to know many of you. Maybe I'll do a build along with my osage bow, after I finish Dean Torges's book.
Take care,
PAHunter
Wexford, PA
