How did you get in, why do you stay?

[jeffp51]

This primitive archery thing started for me about 2 years ago.  My son started an archery merit badge and his scout master found a how to on an oak board mollgebet on youtube.  I was helping them and I thought it would be cool to make a bow, since I shot when I was a kid.  None of the boys finished their bows, but I have been hooked ever since.  I have always liked woodworking, and creating things that are beautiful and functional.  My day job (teaching) is almost entirely cerebral, so I like to come home and create with my hands something concrete.  I am also a perfectionist and I keep thinking the next bow will be the one that is just right.  creating matching arrows does the same thing--as does hitting a target with the hand made arrow and bow.  I would rather miss with my own creation than hit with an expensive factory job.

What is your story?

[wizardgoat]

I started making bows 2 winters ago. I had been shooting FG bows and making my own arrows for about a year at that point.  I had made some furniture and skate ramps and stuff, but as soon as I started on this path, it's been full on for me.
Looking back, I had been going through a tough time, grieving the loss of a loved one, and this hobby was exactly what I needed at the time. It continues to be my meditation, I'm sure many of us agree it's very therapeutic. I get inspired nearly everyday from guys here, I've met so many cool people.
I wonder how I got by before I was into this

[jeffp51]

I can't believe how good your bows are and how prolific in such a short time.  I really admire your stuff, Ryan.  I also enjoy the time to think that scraping a limb or heat straightening a shaft can give me.  there is something very zen about all of this.

[Del the cat]

Robin Hood & Cowboys and Indians....visiting castles... history all by the time I was about 11
The second part of the question is just silly .
Del

[JEB]

It kind of started when my wife and I were out on the desert hunting for artifacts and I found my first point. I have been shooting a bow for 60 years most of which was with traditional equipment.  Dad owned an archery shop back in the 60's and my brother and I worked in the shop so I grew up shooting a bow. So after that first point find I thought to myself, I can do that.  I took up flintknapping about 5 years ago and have probably one of the best mentors  around, Mike Cook, living just 50 miles away so after spending many lessons at Mike's, he taught me the basics of knapping.  I got good enough to kill one deer with a stone point and a Steve Turray longbow.  But that wasn't good enough so two years ago a group of us started to get together on thursday nights making self bows, arrow shafts and a few of us flintknap.  I am on my 4th self bow with just one failure (so far) and that is the way I hunted last year. Self bow, self arrows fletched with wild turkey feathers and stone points. 

[riverrat]

 i was 7 or 8. had this friend named Johnny. we liked to go out to the field near his house. there was rabbits, squirrels and pheasants at the time.this was before the city in all its wisdom started cutting the grass. now its devoid of life. but there was a time.... anyhow, he had this fiberglass/plastic kids bow. pulled about 25 pounds. well we made some arrows from a couple old c.b. antennas that we found laying around. cut them, sharpened in a pencil sharpener, and we tried real hard but couldnt get anything. one day we spotted a turtle.yep arrow went in the shell. we were estatic untill his dad seen it. then it was back to the drawing board. he took our bow. lol well i read indians made bows from trees. there were lots of saplings around and Johnny and i tried. we broke a few, but in short order we made bows out of japanese honey suckle. did not know what it was at that time. just that it made a springy bow that lasted a few shots before it broke. lol my tillering had a long way to go. then one day we got a rabbit. it played dead when Johnny shot at it but i took a nother shot just in case. i thought he missed it. i didnt. . it took off with that c.b. antenna sticking out of it like a rabbit with a c.b. antenna sticking out of it. we were about 10 at that time.we found it.  sometime before i was 12 i got a lucky shot at a pheasant. got its wing as it took off. that was from a locust sapling bow. never heard i had to remove sapwood so i didnt. it lasted untill i joined the Marines. i dont know what ever happened to it after that. never realy thought about it until many years after i got out.after i did get out 1985, a couple years went by and i started doing a lot of reading on Native American culture which included bows { i had done a report in school on this subject when i was younger and it never quite left my mind}. thought back on them stick bows and thought hmmm. wonder if i could make a "real" bow. a yellow locust tree later and a 50 pound bend through the handle bow with sapwood in tact made from that tree and i was hooked! had a little help from a book wrote by Jim Hamm.got away from it for awhile. life sometimes does that. but im back. lol Tony

[Aaron H]

So about 2 1/2 years ago my wife and I were on a day trip to a small  town with a lot of neat little shops, naturally my wife wanted to go into ALL of them.  One of those shops sold an assortment of local art, and there hanging on a wall were a few handmade arrows that peeked my interest (thinking back now, they were pretty poorly made, and not very primitive).  Now I'm the kind of guy who really enjoys making things, and I thought to myself "Why would I pay someone to make something like this, when I could make it myself" (you can also interpret that as being a cheap ass).  This is where my journey began

[Tracker0721]

I started at 6 or 7 with a longbow my dad had bought at a yard sale. I'd play Indian for hours everyday. Went to wheels as I got bigger but at 14 I could hit a chipmunk at 30 yards. So I switched to recurve at 15. At this time I was wanting independence so I got the bingham kit and made my own. Also made my own arrows from then till now. Doing that got me in the woods with a deeper sense of connection and I started wanting to be like the natives in the movies. My mom brought me home a flintknapping stater kit, same one by 3rivers(not really any good) and I loved it but by the time I was getting good I left for the army. While sitting in Afghanistan I walked into a bizarre and a guy had arrowheads all over his table! Dating from the first people that tried conquering afghans all the way patches from us. Seeing those re sparked my interest so I started knapping glass with a steel nail. When I got home I was 30 minutes from Curtis Smith and he gave me my first ever lesson on how to actually hit a stone right. Also gave me a 5 gallon bucket of georgetown flint. Seeing him make that andice point so skillfully got me hooked. I was dealing with issues from my time away too so it was like meditating when I knapped. It still helps me, feels like I have a better day when I get to make something from stone. Made my first selfbow with a lot of help from members here a few months ago and am ready to start number 2! Last couple weeks of last season I hunted primitive by my house. Obsidian points by me, arrows by me and finally a selfbow by me.

[Pat B]

I started shooting bows in the late 1970s or early 1980s. I'm sure I played with bows and arrows before then when I was a kid. My first was a Shakespeare recurve. From there I went to compounds with a $50 used Bear Blacktail Hunter I got at a flea market. I sold it for $50 after killing a few deer with it. My next was a PSE Nova. About this time I was thinking about building wood bows. I got rid of the compound and bought a takedown recurve made by Jeffries, a few years later a Mike Treadway long bow. I was building selfbows and a few hickory backed bows then, that was 1999. Since then I have made used mostly backed or selfbows to hunt and haven't looked back....but I have still not killed a deer with my own homemade gear. 

[PEARL DRUMS]

To answer that question. I'm frugal and now addicted.

[JoJoDapyro]

My first bow was a Red Bear, I believe it was fiberglass, It was an ambidextrous model with a shelf on both sides of the handle. Later in life I got a browning compound, followed by a few PSE's. Started MAy of 2014. Still getting there. 

[bubby]

I shot a solid glass recurve when i was a kid, in fact i still had it in my 40's till the wife sold it at a yard sale. Had a used browning compound with the lam wood riser and it delammed and i was to cheap to buy another one and got online and found that old poplar science how to build a long bow, been making them ever since

[Ed Brooks]

a lot of things got me here, I'm a registers Choctaw "its in my blood", my gr gr gr grand parents(white side) settled on an active (at the time) Indian Camp,  in the town i live grew up in and still live here, so always looking for artifacts. The only bow I had was a 20lbs fg as a kid, i killed a carp. I have rifle / BP  hunted all my life and kinda wanted a change in my hunting, I have no want for a wheel bow. So I decided to make a bow of hunting weight, along with a string and arrows, they need stone points.
What made it so I can get into this, is it can be done for FREE, I would not be jumping into a sport like this, at this time in my life just because of bills and life expenses.
 Now I stay because its fun, relaxing, and the people are into it, like the people on this site are awesome, and I really want to kill my animals with my own home made equipment. No kills in the last 3 yrs with my bow, 2 elk misses and about 5-6 shots at deer with one hit high and far back.  Ed

[osage outlaw]

I grew up shooting compound bows.  Sometime around 2009 I got the itch to try shooting a longbow just for fun.  I looked into buying one but couldn't afford it.  I did some more research and discovered you could make a longbow out of osage trees and I just happened to live in the middle of an osage forest.  Before then those trees were only good for firewood and tree stands.   I started reading everything I could find on bow making.  As soon as I shot the first arrow out of a yellow turd of a first bow I was hooked.  Bow making started a desire to create things that I needed instead of buying them.    Why do I stay?  Because it makes me happy.  If I'm not with my family or at work I'm doing something bow related.  Sometimes I even manage to do bow work at work 

[Swampman]

My story is very similar to Osage outlaw except I don't live in an Osage forest.  I grew up shooting compounds and in 2004 my brother in law let me borrow a long bow.  I loved shooting it and wanted my own.  I couldn't afford to pay the prices he paid for a custom built longbow so I figured if someone else can make one, then I could too.  I started researching how to do this and discovered self bows, bought TBB 1 and cut a white ash tree down.  My first bow was a white ash with a 60 pound draw and a bunch of string follow but it still shot pretty well (still does). I was hooked and bought every book I could find regarding self bows and arrows.  I can no longer just walk in the woods.  I am always looking for bow wood and arrow wood.  I keep at it because every piece of wood is different and that excites me.  It is also great medicine.