Latest / Salish Wolf / #92 Kevin Hawkins on Project Quiver

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#92 Kevin Hawkins on Project Quiver · Salish Wolf

• 0:06
  Welcome to Project Quiver, a father daughter journey across
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  the globe to document the artistry and spirit of the
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  world's finest traditional bowyers.
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  I'm Todd and Ella is my daughter.
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  Together we've traveled to the workshops of master bowyers,
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  carving bows under their guidance, photographing their
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  work in extraordinary detail, and preserving the stories
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  behind one of humanity's oldest crafts.
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  The result is Quiver, the art of life through Bow craft, a
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  photographic and narrative exploration of traditional bow
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  carving. This podcast shares stories and
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  experiences of the remarkable individuals who are carrying
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  forward the enduring legacy of the bow and arrow.
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  The book is Quiver. The journey is Project Quiver.
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  Welcome to the Salish Wolf podcast and action.
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  All right, we're back. How are you?
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  Doing good, Todd. Thanks for having me.
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  That's a pleasure to have. You.
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  You, I think, are the first bow you're I've reached out to, has
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  sent me such a thorough tour of your workshop.
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  I quite enjoyed that. Thank you.
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  Yeah. I just wanted to prep you for
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  the mess that you may see. It it was a little bit messy,
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  I'm not going to lie, but it looks very conducive to you
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  creating your magic however you need to do it.
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  Yeah, everything is right. We're on, we're on, we're on
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  where I left it on the floor. Tell the tell the listeners
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  where you're based. Well, I'm out in up towards New
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  Bern, NC. OK.
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  And where is that in the state? That's towards the East Coast,
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  right about, I don't know, about an hour from the beach about
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  fairly well center of the state, but you know, east.
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  Yeah. How long have you been there?
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  About eight years. All right.
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  And where prior to that were you?
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  I was out in Oklahoma and Tulsa. OK.
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  A lot of Osage Orange in that area, right?
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  Yeah, there is, Absolutely. It wasn't for my time in Colts.
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  I probably wouldn't have picked up archery like I did.
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  That was the yeah, that was a blessing.
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  Is that where I began for you? Yes, Sir.
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  Yeah, I was. Yeah.
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  I was fairly fresh out of the Navy and a friend of mine had
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  asked me if I wanted to go hunting with them.
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  And absolutely. But I didn't have a weapon or,
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  you know, the money to buy 1. So I got my license and I had a
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  knife. So I went.
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  I went out into the woods by my apartment complex and did some
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  trimming of a tree. May or may not have been
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  something I wanted to get caught doing, but I cut down a tree and
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  it was a sapling. Wasn't anything huge and I
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  carved my first bow out of that and it lasted for the hunting
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  season. I I got very lucky with the
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  first one holding together but what a very good bow.
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  But it it killed plenty of two liter soda bottles for target
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  practice. How did you know how to carve
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  your first bow? Well, I, I, I did my best to use
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  my flip phone, the search the Internet, because that's what I
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  had back then. And all I could find on the
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  Internet was just leave the fibers on the back intact.
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  Just don't cut the back. So I just took the bark off the
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  back of the of the staves and then carved what I thought a
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  wooden bow would look like. And that's.
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  What kind of wood was it? It was a piece of Elm.
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  So I got very lucky and fortunate in choosing a a really
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  solid bow wood. My first bow.
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  The only reason it held together was because the the wood has
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  that interlocking grain and it's it's very good bow wood.
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  Did you know that going into choosing that piece of Elm or,
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  or was it just by chance that you chose?
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  Our it was it was chance. Wow, so lucky.
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  How long did you let it dry? I didn't know you were supposed
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  to do that. I had no idea.
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  So no. So you carved it green?
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  I did, and it took me about a month.
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  So since it took about a month to carve and then it was wet, I
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  mean, by the time I had it shooting, it was certainly still
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  wet, but it wasn't like it was cut and carved into a bow
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  completed that day. You know, because the thinner
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  you make the wood faster it dries.
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  And it was, it was summertime in Tulsa, plenty warm the wood.
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  The wood was, you know, functionally dry by that point.
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  And it dries at a rate of 1 inch of thickness per year.
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  And the bow, you know, it was like, I don't know, 3/8 of an
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  inch thick. So you do the math on that.
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  But it wasn't taking very long for it to dry out.
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  And by the time winter time came, it was dry.
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  Yeah, How did you know how to shape it?
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  I, I didn't like I said, I just, it was, it was the ugliest bow
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  I've ever made. I had the, the tips of the bow
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  were as wide as the handle. I mean, there was just no, there
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  was no taper to it whatsoever. And you use that to hunt.
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  Yeah, yeah, I did. I did well I use it to scare off
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  anyway I'd I'd never even saw one so.
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  Do you have any idea what the draw weight on it was?
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  Yeah, yeah, I made a 50 pounder. OK.
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  I used the luggage scale to to test it and it was £50.
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  At 24 or 25 inches, it wasn't a very long draw bow, but that was
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  my entry into. Yeah, What?
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  There must have been something before that, though.
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  You didn't just go cut down a tree and start covering a bow,
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  did you? Well.
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  My dad had made me a bow when I was a kid.
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  It was some kind of design he had pulled out of, he said.
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  It was a Popular Mechanics magazine, and I don't know if I
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  didn't know they did that type of stuff, but that gave me the
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  idea that, you know, hey, we, we can make boats.
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  That kind of set the stage for my mind to be, to think, yeah, I
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  could. I could, he could do it.
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  I can do it too. But that was, you know, I was, I
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  was really young when he did that.
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  I wish I still had that bow, but you know.
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  Thanks, Evan. How old?
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  How old were you when you made your elbow?
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  Oh, I was probably about 23. No, no, about 25 I think.
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  OK. 42 now, been at it for a little bit, yeah.
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  So have you been making bows since then?
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  Oh yeah, yeah I I've never I've been making bows non-stop since
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  and trying to make a bow that I finally and get called the
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  perfect bow and completely satisfied with but I haven't
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  done that yet. Think I'll always be chasing the
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  perfect bow. I hope I am.
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  I would hate to ever plateau and peek.
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  How many do you think you've made?
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  Oh gosh. Well, let's see.
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  Been making bows since 2011, 2010.
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  It's 26 now, so 16 years. And let's just say I've been
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  making about, I don't know, an average of 10 bows a year.
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  OK, you got some practice. Yeah, I've had a little bit of
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  practice. Yeah.
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  When did after you made that first elbow or you hooked or did
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  it take a while to get into it? No, no, no.
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  I was hooked. I was absolutely hooked.
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  So I wanted to make one that was faster.
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  I wanted to make one that was better, looks better, you know,
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  And I just wanted to know what made bows work.
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  Yeah, of course. Once you make one and you got
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  buddies, they're like, oh, that's neat.
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  Let make me one. So, you know, start making
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  everybody bows, even though you've really got no idea what
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  you're doing. And through that process, you
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  get better. You get better.
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  And is this a job for you or a hobby?
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  No, this is a this is a hobby, but it's a hobby that's paid for
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  itself and paid the bills more than a few times.
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  Nice. And is that through selling,
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  selling bows or teaching others to carve?
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  No, it's through selling. I I haven't had an opportunity
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  to teach a teach a whole lot though.
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  I'm really thinking about getting into it.
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  I would like to find somebody to now like an apprentice as
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  opposed to teach them everything I know about it.
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  I taught my son how to make bows and I'm very proud of his
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  accomplishments in archery. Yeah, I'm really big into flight
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  shooting and my son has made his bow and for flight shooting and
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  with that bow he has broken 4 world records and won United
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  States record. That's crazy.
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  How old is he? He's 20 now, but that was about
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  I think he did that in 20/21/2021 and 20/22 was when he
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  did it so. In what category?
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  He was in He was in youth category and it was the £50 self
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  bow. OK, what did he make?
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  Well, he made an Osage Reaker 50. 4. 54 inches long, about two
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  inches wide pulling, you know, 50 lbs at they pulled 50 lbs to
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  25 inches. Wow, how far did he shoot it?
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  Well, just I said I was trying to remember while I was
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  answering and I cannot remember how far he shoot, but I think I
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  think he was all the way out like 320 yards or something like
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  that. He wasn't, he wasn't far behind
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  my shot because I took a record in 2020 and I shot 350 yards and
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  then my wife came up behind us a couple years later shooting in
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  the ladies division and she's gone 200, I think 200 and 32150
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  yards with a 35 LB bow, which is wow, fair distance for £35.
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  We're hoping to set it further back even, you know, even
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  further back this year. Where do you go to do that?
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  Go out to the Bonneville Soft Flats, Wendover, UT.
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  Nice. Yeah, I was there last year.
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  Beautiful place. I wasn't there for the for the
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  flight shooting, but I was. I was just there photographing,
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  photographing Chuck Loffler. I don't know if you know Chuck.
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  Oh yeah. He's a he's a real great guy.
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  Yeah, yeah. So we were photographing him and
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  working with him for our book. So we went to the salt flats for
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  a photo shoot. Very cool spot.
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  Yeah, he doesn't live too far from there.
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  He can make a day trip out. No, yeah, I was just with.
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  I was just back in Utah just last week.
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  And so I was with Chuck, visited with Chuck while I was there.
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  Oh OK, yeah, him and his son. NA lot of fun, a lot of fun.
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  N how did you archery too? Yeah, yes.
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  How did you get into flight shooting?
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  Well, someone told me that my short bows wouldn't be any good
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  for the longevity or for high power for hunting.
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  I kind of took that personally because I really took a lot of
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  pride in the fact that I'm making very short bows that pull
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  long distances and for a long draw link or excuse me, long
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  draw link. And so I decided, I kind of
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  decided to get into the competition that would require
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  the most and highest performance you can get out of a boat.
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  Kind of proved my bows as yeah, improve their quality.
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  So I designed a flight bow and that was really short, 54
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  inches, you know, pulling 2526 inches with a spiff handle and
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  spiff recurve tips doesn't leave a lot of bending section.
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  And then I took it out to the salt flats to, to test it.
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  And I broke the record on the very first time.
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  Really. That's so cool.
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  I had to, I had to stop in the salt flat there and take a knee
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  and give thanks for the blessings of my talent and and
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  the luckiness of that shot because I I haven't been able to
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  do it twice. I.
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  Haven't been able to do that again.
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  Awesome. So you got hooked in the fight
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  shooting from that experience? Oh, yeah, yeah.
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  I've been trying to best my personal best.
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  I've come close, I've come close, but everything just came
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  together with that shot. Perfect.
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  I'm sorry. Are you only competing window?
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  It's all right, Roosters are great.
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  Are you competing only in the self bow class or are you in
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  other classes as well? I'll compete in self bow and
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  I'll compete in simple composite, but I'll compete in
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  simple composite with myself bows because I feel like myself
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  bows could break simple composite records.
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  As a matter of fact, my 50 LB shot selfo record actually did
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  beat the simple composite record as well, but I wasn't entered
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  into that category when I made my shot.
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  So it doesn't count against the simple composite.
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  It only counted against, you know, primitive self.
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  Which is fine, but I'm going to return.
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  So you can you can enter a self bow into the simple composite
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  even though it's a self bow. Yes, yeah, 'cause it's like
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  you're shooting a level up, Yeah, you're shooting with a
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  handicap intentionally. It's how they look at it, but I
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  feel like a self bow didn't be considered a handicap compared
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  to a simple composite because I feel like they're pretty equal.
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  I think it I don't think. I don't see a reason why a self
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  bow couldn't perform as well as a important thought do.
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  You say yours sorry, did you say it's an Osage orange that you're
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  using? Yeah, it is.
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  Yeah, OK. Have you tried any other?
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  Any other bows? Had any luck with any others at
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  the flight shooting? I have not because I'm using
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  what I'm familiar with, what I've got a lot of knowledge in.
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  I do have a Hickory stave hearing right now in my back
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  shop that I'm most likely going to try making a a flight bow out
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  of and taking it out there. I feel like Hickory would do
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  very well out there in the in the desert with that low
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  humidity. Chuck Loffler has a lot of luck
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  with Hickory and and then what's another wood that he likes to
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  use? Juniper.
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  That's a Juniper, yes. So I think.
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  That's the yeah, there's loads of juniper out there, so it's
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  every 3rd or 4th tree. Seems like a a small juniper
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  sapling. Yeah, Yeah, that's true.
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  That's true. I think he's used Hickory out
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  there too. He likes the.
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  Yeah, with the juniper, he says. That's pretty much essential.
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  I've read differing things on that, but in his experience
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  without sinew backing and it's just not the quality of bow.
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  So I've only carved, I carved one with, I carved one with him
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  and it is a very soft wood. So I can see how the sinew
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  backing is, is pretty important. And as a matter of fact, he does
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  most of his carving using a tiny handheld razor blade because the
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  wood's so soft. And then he switches to just
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  like a little razor blade pinch. Between this thumb and his index
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  finger, he can shape the bows. And then once he gets pretty far
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  along, then he just switches the sandpaper entirely.
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  Whereas trying to use those two tools to make an Osage bow
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  virtually from scratch would take a couple of years probably.
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  I'm not saying you couldn't do it, I'm saying you'd be a lot
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  older man than you were done than when you were when you
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  started. Yeah, Yeah.
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  So he has. It was funny because his, his
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  workshop is, let's say, more similar to similar to yours and,
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  and the level of tidiness and so sawdust, wood shavings
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  everywhere. And he has all these little
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  razor blades just buried underneath the sawdust because
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  he puts them down and they get lost in the sawdust.
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  And so like searching for these razor blades is pretty hazardous
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  on his workbench. So he just grabs another one.
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  So there must be like 20 or 30 razor blades under all the
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  sawdust. I don't know.
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  Sounds like cleaning his workshop would be hazardous too.
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  Don't go sweep the dust away. Yeah, it works for him.
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  No, not with your hands anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  But are you still regular regularly hunting?
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  No, I'm not where I'm at the area.
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  The hunting out here isn't just isn't my style.
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  A lot of folks out here like to run dogs.
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  For for deer. And yeah, I, I, I'm the type of
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  guy that will, you know, sit at the base of a tree and, or, or
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  do a little bit of tracking, but with dogs running through, it
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  just ruins it for me. So I don't, I don't hunt out
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  here. I haven't haunted in quite a few
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  years. I did do a, what is it called
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  where they've got a whole thing. They got a ranch, right?
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  It's not a high fence that there was this company that's got a
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  ranch up in Kentucky. And I did do a hunt with them
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  and saw plenty of deer County Outfitters, a great organization
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  and I really enjoyed my time out there.
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  But stop playing a deer. But I never got within within
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  arrow range of 1, so still a good time, yeah.
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  So excuse me, what? What are you doing with your
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  bows that you're making if the ones that you're keeping are
• 21:02
  those primarily just for flight shooting and target practice?
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  Yeah, Flight. Shooting and target practice now
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  my flight shooting bows, I could easily convert them over to a
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  hunting bow. So if I was the only purpose
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  making them for flight shooting, I'd feel feel kind of silly
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  because I don't like, you know, that's not a practical use, but
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  I can, I can convert them over to a hunting bow just by
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  increasing their draw length a little bit.
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  And I, I just, I haven't done it because I, like I said, I have
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  been hunting, but so I'm just accumulating on a wall and a
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  corner full of bows at this moment.
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  What? Keeps you doing it.
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  Well, I'd like to say, you know, something along the lines of,
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  you know, pursuing, pursuing the distance of the longest distance
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  shot that I can take, But that's part of it.
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  But I'll be honest with you. I think I just like the way
• 22:12
  Osage does smells. I really do.
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  I just like, I just like working Osage.
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  It's, it's, it's that's my happy spot, my happy places in my
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  shop, making bows, running my bandsaw, my belt Sander and
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  using my knife. I just enjoy crafting bows and I
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  take a lot of pride in craftsmanship, so when something
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  just when the bows come in together, the endorphin release
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  is addicting. I love it, it's awesome.
• 22:47
  Nice. Are you primarily?
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  Carving with Osage or are you using other woods also?
• 22:53
  No, I'm just Osage. I've I've specialized in it and
• 22:57
  learning another wood would just take so much time away from me
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  that I'm just going to stick with Osage.
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  But if I have any luck with Hickory at the salt flats, I
• 23:07
  might I might incorporate that into my inventory.
• 23:14
  Wow, OK so basically 100% of your bows are from Osage?
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  And is that all that you have harvested?
• 23:23
  Yeah, a lot of it I've harvested.
• 23:26
  And then there was a gentleman up in up towards Detroit who has
• 23:33
  since passed, sadly, but he had cut down a big old Osage tree
• 23:37
  and he asked me if I wanted it. And I looked at a picture of it
• 23:41
  and I said absolutely, I'll be right over.
• 23:45
  So I grabbed the trailer and actually, no, I grabbed my
• 23:50
  buddy's truck as well. I grabbed because I didn't have
• 23:52
  a vehicle that that could haul that at the moment and told my
• 23:56
  buddy, Hey, I need to run up to Detroit real quick and you
• 24:00
  understand he's in Virginia so and Norfolk actually he's like,
• 24:05
  sure, whatever, but just don't dump my truck.
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  I, I ran up there and used a, used a piece of heavy equipment
• 24:13
  to load these giant Osage logs that are like 2 1/2 feet wide
• 24:19
  and hold them up into his truck. And his truck was squatting,
• 24:24
  drove all the way back and, and yes, and he's got a, he's got a
• 24:29
  Dodge diesel 2500 pickup truck. And I had that thing almost
• 24:33
  sitting on the bump stops. Matter of fact, it was sitting
• 24:36
  on the bump stops. At one point I had to unload
• 24:38
  some of it to get it off of the bump stops because I didn't want
• 24:42
  to overstress his axles like that.
• 24:44
  So that's a long drive. What is it like 10 hours?
• 24:49
  I don't. Remember how long the drive was?
• 24:51
  I just remember it being very pleasant because we went
• 24:53
  through, we went through the mountains and I think we went
• 24:59
  through, I think we went through West Virginia, Maryland and we
• 25:06
  went out through that way. It was very nice drive.
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  I enjoyed it. So the hours of the drive
• 25:11
  weren't something I counted. I just, I just remember enjoying
• 25:14
  coming back. He had a A.
• 25:18
  Good treasure waiting at the end of that one.
• 25:20
  Oh yeah, yeah, there was definitely gold at the end of
• 25:22
  that Rambo. How many staves did you end up
• 25:26
  getting from it? Haven't finished?
• 25:28
  Splitting it all yet that was about two years ago and I
• 25:33
  managed to split 2/3 of 1 and I had to stop because.
• 25:38
  So it's it's so much work. There's so much work and I am
• 25:42
  not in shape. So yeah, that's a slow process,
• 25:48
  but I've gotten out of 3/4 of a log.
• 25:54
  I was able to get goodness, I think I got over 20 staves.
• 26:01
  And I don't split them narrow either.
• 26:03
  I make them wide. So I got like 20 something 3
• 26:06
  inch wide staves. Crazy.
• 26:11
  And it turned out. Pretty wood too.
• 26:13
  It's got a lot of figuring in it.
• 26:16
  So when you put a finish over it, it looks like this simmering
• 26:19
  river of gold is laid across the back of the bow.
• 26:23
  Because of the the way the grain grew, it had a lot of little
• 26:28
  micro waves in it. And when you remove the very
• 26:33
  tops, those microwaves on there, it leaves a bunch of tiger eye
• 26:37
  effects inside the wood. So when you put a finish on it,
• 26:40
  you reflect against the light. Almost looks holographic.
• 26:43
  It's it's mesmerizing. It's beautiful.
• 26:48
  That's very cool. So what are you doing when
• 26:51
  you're not in your workshop carving Osage?
• 26:54
  Thinking about going to the work wood shop and carving Osage.
• 26:59
  Getting my. Dishes done and my household
• 27:01
  chores done as fast as I can so my wife don't get mad at me when
• 27:03
  I run out here. Awesome.
• 27:09
  Sounds like a good warrior's life.
• 27:11
  Oh yeah, just. Glad I've got a workshop because
• 27:13
  there was a time where I didn't and there was just Osage all
• 27:16
  over the carpet and the howl because I was parving in the
• 27:20
  kitchen sweeping it out the door but still wood shavings and wood
• 27:25
  dust would get in the house. That was back when I was making
• 27:28
  bows by hand with no power tools.
• 27:31
  I was just just using my old K bar.
• 27:34
  Nice, this right here. I've cut trees down and carved
• 27:39
  bows start to finish with that. Wow, that's really cool.
• 27:47
  Was that a gift inheritance? You buy it?
• 27:49
  Where did that come from? That's actually like my fifth
• 27:54
  one I've gone through. I bought them.
• 27:57
  I got my first one when I was stationed over in Japan and just
• 28:02
  because I thought it was a neat knife, it wasn't anything like I
• 28:05
  was issued or using. I just thought it was pretty
• 28:07
  cool and I was over on the Envy store.
• 28:10
  So I picked one up and then years later started using it for
• 28:15
  making bows. Gay bar makes her heck of a
• 28:18
  knife, especially for chopping and bow making.
• 28:23
  What are your go to tools now? Whatever makes the job easiest.
• 28:30
  I love my bandsaw and I love my belt Sander.
• 28:33
  I'll run 36 grit ceramic sandpaper on my belt Sander and
• 28:41
  it hogs the wood off real nice and that belts that, that
• 28:45
  standing belt will last forever. And then I'll, I'll Polish what
• 28:51
  I'm but I'm not trying to hog off as much wood.
• 28:54
  I'll switch over to like I'll, I'll go to like a 80 grit and
• 29:00
  then with Osage being as hard as it is, that actually makes the
• 29:05
  wood smooth. And you know, I've got a 14 inch
• 29:09
  bandsaw and between those two things, that's most of my bow
• 29:15
  making equipment right there. Really.
• 29:20
  Wow. So.
• 29:20
  You I I guess you're OK working in the noise.
• 29:26
  Yeah, yeah, I am. I don't mind it.
• 29:30
  Yeah, I used to pride myself making them with a knife,
• 29:36
  saying, oh, handmade bows, you know, they've got soul.
• 29:39
  You know, used power tools. Bow has no soul.
• 29:41
  Yeah, That was just me trying to make myself happy with the fact
• 29:44
  that I didn't have any power tools I'm using.
• 29:50
  Yeah. And is it still for a lot of all
• 29:54
  yours, it's a deeply meditative practice.
• 29:56
  Do you find it's still meditative for you even though
• 29:58
  you're using the power tools? Oh.
• 30:00
  Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. You got to, you got to, you got
• 30:05
  to pay even more attention because you know, between a the
• 30:08
  bandsaw that'll remove skin at a very or remove a digit or a belt
• 30:13
  Sander that'll remove skin without hesitation, you find
• 30:16
  yourself hyper focused on what you're doing.
• 30:19
  Yeah, but I know that's probably not exactly what you meant, but.
• 30:24
  No, no, no, that's, that's, that's part of it is being in
• 30:28
  the moment, right? It's and if that's that's what
• 30:31
  keeps you present, then that's what keeps you present.
• 30:33
  I guess those are some high stakes.
• 30:34
  So makes sense. Oh yeah no I mean it is
• 30:40
  definitely therapeutic taking a taking a bow from the belt
• 30:49
  Sander and then stringing it. Gotten to a point now where my
• 30:53
  brace is usually perfect as first time I put a string on it.
• 30:59
  The bow is usually perfectly pillared by time I put a string
• 31:02
  on it and that didn't used to be the case.
• 31:07
  Used to I would put a string on it and one limb would be you
• 31:09
  know way out in left field and the other one's you know wonky
• 31:13
  and I would have to go back and forth removing wood from each
• 31:15
  limb until I got the tiller balance.
• 31:19
  But. But you mean like a like a
• 31:21
  normal Bok harbor? Well, I don't, I don't, I don't
• 31:27
  know. There's no level of experience,
• 31:32
  but yeah, a lot of folks will start off with a long string and
• 31:34
  then make the string shorter and shorter as they get their limb
• 31:38
  worked and balanced each other. But I've gotten to a point where
• 31:42
  I don't, I don't have to do that anymore.
• 31:44
  I haven't had to do that in a long time.
• 31:46
  Go straight to the to the full full height brace and typically
• 31:53
  crazy with the rare exception, the brace is perfect.
• 31:57
  And I was over at at Pappy's and everybody that's really big in
• 32:04
  the archery community in the United States knows exactly who
• 32:08
  I'm talking about. He's a legend in his own right,
• 32:11
  but he's a he's a gentleman out in Tennessee and he hosts some
• 32:17
  very large archery fin digs and he had one Tennessee.
• 32:23
  Classic Tennessee. Classic.
• 32:25
  Exactly. You.
• 32:28
  You've heard of it. He.
• 32:31
  I've heard of him. I reached.
• 32:32
  Out to him or I, I tried to reach out to him, but I never
• 32:36
  heard from him. So if you could put me in
• 32:37
  contact with him, that'd be great.
• 32:39
  I'd love to have him on the podcast.
• 32:41
  Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I'll reach out to him for
• 32:43
  you. No problem.
• 32:44
  He's a wonderful fellow. Thank you.
• 32:47
  He's very old fashioned. Well, I'm just trying to say
• 32:54
  that he's he's very gentle spoken.
• 32:59
  He has very good manners. It's just everything about that,
• 33:02
  that man. It's just old school Southern,
• 33:05
  you know, is how I'm trying to say it.
• 33:06
  You know, he's it's a pleasure to speak to and it's a pleasure
• 33:12
  to be around. I really can't say enough good
• 33:14
  things about him. If you get a chance to talk to
• 33:19
  him, you'll see what I mean. You just you just feel like you
• 33:24
  don't feel like you're talking to a stranger when you're
• 33:26
  talking to him. Mark Mark's a good guy.
• 33:29
  But. My.
• 33:30
  Daughter and I are are hoping to go to the Tennessee Classic next
• 33:34
  year and help promote our book because it it'll be out by then.
• 33:38
  So early plans. Yeah, yeah.
• 33:43
  It'd be great to meet all the Bowyers who were there.
• 33:46
  Oh yeah, that's a fantastic. So anyway, yeah, I.
• 33:50
  Didn't want to. I didn't mean to cut you off
• 33:52
  from your story. So you were.
• 33:54
  I was. Over at the Tennessee Classic
• 33:57
  and I surprised myself because it's not uncommon.
• 34:02
  Like I said, it's situation normal for me to, you know, get
• 34:05
  my brace perfect. But I was instructing some guys
• 34:10
  over there and there was this one guy I was helping out.
• 34:16
  He had come up to me asking me for help.
• 34:18
  So, you know, naturally I sure no problem.
• 34:22
  So we, that's I, I talked him through the entire bow process,
• 34:27
  right? And I was telling him like I
• 34:31
  asked him like what's, what's your draw length and how heavy
• 34:34
  do you want your bow? And he told me, and I don't
• 34:38
  remember what it was, I'd be lying to you if I made it up.
• 34:42
  But it's like, OK, So what we're going to do is we're going to do
• 34:46
  some floor tillering. So I explained to him what floor
• 34:49
  tillering was and how you can judge the bend of a bow just by
• 34:55
  pushing the tip of the bow up against the floor, putting one
• 34:58
  hand on the hand on the tip of the bow, the other hand in the
• 35:01
  handle and just flexing it like this.
• 35:04
  And by that you can judge how the bow is bending just by
• 35:08
  siding down it. And so we got the bow floor till
• 35:13
  it out and I said, OK, now you feel this right here.
• 35:16
  And he he bent, I said, how much pressure are you getting?
• 35:20
  And he says, well, I said, how much pressure are you getting
• 35:24
  compared to how much bend you're getting?
• 35:26
  I said, just take a note of it in your mind and, and, and the
• 35:30
  pressure on your palm and, and your bicep with how you, you're
• 35:32
  pushing, right? And he said, all right, so I
• 35:35
  said, now flip the bow over and do that again.
• 35:37
  He says, OK, well, this one I have to push a little harder on
• 35:40
  this side to make it bend as much.
• 35:42
  I said, all right, so without bracing the bow, you already
• 35:45
  know that that limb is different, so take some scrapes
• 35:50
  off of it. The bend looks good, but it's
• 35:52
  just not bending enough. So they took some scrapes off
• 35:54
  and we did it back and forth with that a few times until both
• 35:58
  limbs felt balanced and they looked balanced.
• 36:00
  Said all right. Now basically I told him, you
• 36:06
  you're my experience, you feel a little heavy.
• 36:09
  So we're going to take a few more scrapes off.
• 36:12
  And he did. And I said, all right, let's go
• 36:14
  ahead and put a string on it. Now we put a string on it.
• 36:17
  Brace was perfect. There's no running back and
• 36:20
  forth Clinton Tiller tree and taking scrapes and going back.
• 36:24
  And I said, all right, let's put it on the scale.
• 36:28
  So we went straight from brace or straight from floor tiller to
• 36:32
  the bow scale. And when he put it on the bow
• 36:35
  scale, he went straight to full draw and nailed his his draw
• 36:38
  link and draw weight without ever doing any further tillering
• 36:42
  adjustments. It was dead nuts, perfect, dead
• 36:47
  nuts. He went from floor tiller to
• 36:48
  full draw with no corrections. And the bow was perfect.
• 36:52
  That was the first time I'd ever done that.
• 36:54
  And I couldn't believe it. And I say I do that.
• 36:57
  I mean, he he did it. I just walked him through.
• 36:59
  Yeah, but I, I, that was a first for me.
• 37:03
  And. Then he told a buddy of his that
• 37:05
  you know, I'm the guy, that I'm the guy to talk to if you wanted
• 37:09
  some help real quick. So another guy came up and asked
• 37:12
  me and I walked him through the same process and I'll be danged
• 37:16
  if it didn't happen again three times that weekend.
• 37:21
  And I did that. Wow.
• 37:24
  And I keep saying I did that like they had nothing to do with
• 37:27
  fact is that the gentleman that I was helping were very good
• 37:30
  Craftsman and very good at paying attention to detail.
• 37:35
  And they took everything I said to heart.
• 37:37
  They did it. I just walked them through it.
• 37:38
  But still, I was very proud of that.
• 37:44
  And then I went home and did it again myself.
• 37:49
  That one I can take take take pride in because I did that one
• 37:53
  myself. But yeah, I, I don't know, it's
• 37:56
  a that was insane to me. I don't even remember why I
• 38:02
  started talking about that. But there you go, the end.
• 38:07
  So. When you start carving any
• 38:11
  stave, do you have a desired bow design and bow weight in mind,
• 38:17
  or do you just let the staves speak to you as you carve it?
• 38:21
  No, I, I, I come at it with a desired, with the goal in mind,
• 38:27
  and I've got a OK. I've got a.
• 38:29
  Selection of staves and they're all they'd all be perfect for
• 38:33
  their own type of bow. So I don't try to force a stave
• 38:37
  to be something it doesn't want to be.
• 38:38
  Typically there are exceptions. Sometimes a stave doesn't want
• 38:42
  to be a bow, say you're going to or you're going to break And you
• 38:47
  know, we kind of have that conversation as as the bow bill
• 38:51
  progresses, but I'm able to take a stave.
• 38:59
  I'm, I've been keeping records on my bows and I, and don't
• 39:07
  think this is some neat, you know, record that's, you know,
• 39:11
  filed in a filing cabinet with, you know, serial numbers and
• 39:14
  everything like that. I wish it was, but I just been
• 39:18
  keeping notes, I should say, on my bows very haphazardly, but in
• 39:22
  a way I can organize over the years because I was trying to
• 39:27
  figure out how to make a bow with no set.
• 39:29
  Because the problem is we try to take a short bow.
• 39:31
  When you try to pull it long, the the bow likes to overstress.
• 39:38
  You're likely to overstress it and it's going to take set and
• 39:40
  your performance is going to drop.
• 39:43
  So set being my biggest enemy, I thought, you know, I really need
• 39:46
  to figure out what makes that happen.
• 39:48
  And as soon as I figure out what makes it happen, then I can
• 39:53
  manipulate that to my advantage and make it not have.
• 39:57
  So I mean, beyond the obvious, you know, you're, you're pulling
• 40:01
  a bow too far, but you know what defines too far?
• 40:04
  What are the parameters that makes too far too far?
• 40:07
  Because 50 lbs and 26 inches might not be far enough for some
• 40:15
  bows. You might not.
• 40:16
  You might have to go to 28 or 30 inches before the bow is is
• 40:20
  maxed out. So I wanted to find out what is
• 40:23
  the secret ingredient that make a bow take set and not.
• 40:29
  And after making a whole bunch of bows of different profiles,
• 40:35
  different draw links, different weights, I was able to put all
• 40:38
  that together and and basically kind of make a chart out of it.
• 40:43
  And I was able to find out by comparing 2 bows of the same
• 40:49
  profile but different draw weights, I was able to find out
• 40:53
  eight. There it is.
• 40:55
  If you make this one bow identical every time and then
• 41:00
  you just make one heavier and one lighter, the lighter one is
• 41:03
  taken away is taking way less set.
• 41:06
  So I was able to put that together, Long story short I
• 41:08
  guess, and come up with a ratio of draw weight.
• 41:14
  To. The amount of area, surface area
• 41:18
  that's on a bowline. And once I had that done, I was
• 41:22
  able to make this formula. It's, it's very simple math
• 41:25
  formula, but I made it up and based off of those two results,
• 41:31
  I was able to make a bow that took no set.
• 41:35
  And from there, I've been able to make my bows so that as long
• 41:42
  as I do my job and the wood is the correct density because that
• 41:49
  matters, I can make bows that take, you know, an eighth of an
• 41:53
  inch of set to 3/8 of an inch of set and be able to pull them
• 42:01
  back way far. People look at your boat, my bow
• 42:03
  and just say, man, that's that's overstressed.
• 42:05
  It's not, not even a little bit, you know, and on the occasion
• 42:09
  I'll get perfect and make a bow that takes no set.
• 42:12
  I think I've done that two or three times.
• 42:16
  But everything has to come together just right because we
• 42:18
  got, you know, the wood, It's natural material.
• 42:21
  You you can't know exactly. I don't have the ability to test
• 42:24
  its density. And then there's slight
• 42:28
  craftsmanship errors on my part, but still between an eighth and
• 42:33
  3/8 of an inches set on a on a 50 LB bow.
• 42:38
  Man, I'll I'll take that any day.
• 42:41
  Yeah, that's awesome. How do you measure the surface
• 42:45
  area of a limb? Well, I'll just take, I don't
• 42:53
  know, literally right in front of me, take a measuring tape and
• 42:58
  just run it down the bow and then take the dimensions off of
• 43:02
  it. I'll just take the dimensions
• 43:05
  off of it every inch and run that through my calculator and
• 43:15
  it'll give me my surface area. And when I start a bow, I know
• 43:20
  how much surface area the bow's supposed to have before I begin
• 43:24
  because I made a actually just just got done making a phone app
• 43:31
  for this purpose. I call my Bose calculator.
• 43:34
  So now I don't have to do all the calculations by hand.
• 43:37
  And I'm going to be putting it on Google Play here soon.
• 43:40
  And cool. Basically you put your bow
• 43:43
  dimensions into the calculator, it'll tell you how much surface
• 43:46
  area it has and then you can tell, you tell the calculator
• 43:52
  what the specific gravity of the, of the bow wood is.
• 43:55
  And that's not a hard thing to look up.
• 43:57
  You can just, you know, Google what is the specific gravity of
• 44:00
  Osage and it'll give you the range.
• 44:02
  And if you've got any experience at all with Osage, you'll know
• 44:05
  some are very heavy and some are very light.
• 44:07
  So some are more dense and some are less dense and you just say,
• 44:13
  well, this is a lighter piece of Osage I'll put in its lighter
• 44:16
  range. So it's like .81 for a
• 44:18
  lightweight low density Osage, and a high density piece of
• 44:23
  Osage is going to be like .86 point 87, right?
• 44:27
  And a lot of stuff I work with is higher density.
• 44:29
  So I'll put in my calculator .86 and then I'll type in 50 lbs.
• 44:35
  That's how much I want. And I'll hit enter and then
• 44:37
  it'll tell me I just put in those two data points and it
• 44:40
  will tell me exactly how many square inches of surface area
• 44:44
  the bow has to have in the bending section in order for it
• 44:49
  to not take any set. And then then I'll lay the bow
• 44:53
  out so that it will give me that number square inches.
• 44:58
  And on the bottom half of that calculator, I made you enter in
• 45:04
  bow dimensions. So at the fade where the bow
• 45:07
  starts bending. So like you know, right here,
• 45:11
  right where the bow starts bending, I'll type that at in
• 45:15
  and as my first reference point. So it's my X dimension or XY
• 45:22
  graph. So I'll put it in .001 because
• 45:26
  at that point above 0 where it starts bending and then I'll say
• 45:32
  the width at .001 is, you know, 2 1/2 inches.
• 45:37
  And then I'll go my next data point entry because it stays,
• 45:42
  these bows stay parallel limb for about 10 to 12 inches
• 45:47
  depending on 12 inches depending on the design.
• 45:51
  So my next data point will be I'll just say well, let's say 12
• 45:55
  inches. So I'll go from .001 and let's
• 45:59
  say 2 inches. My next entry points is going to
• 46:02
  be you know, 10 and then two inches.
• 46:07
  And then I'll do my taper. So then my third data point
• 46:11
  entry is going to be where it stops bending because then I do
• 46:13
  a smooth transition and the calculator will calculate a
• 46:17
  taper. So my next dimension will be,
• 46:21
  you know, that's 23 inches away from .001.
• 46:26
  And then I'll type in, you know, an inch and then I'll hit enter
• 46:30
  and it'll tell me exactly how many square inches are in the
• 46:34
  bow. I guess it's very boring to talk
• 46:37
  about, but the fact is that it'll calculate if your
• 46:40
  information how much surface area your bow has and it'll and
• 46:45
  it'll calculate how much surface area the bow needs to have and
• 46:50
  it'll work in any order you want it to.
• 46:52
  You put in you. So let's say you made the bow
• 46:56
  and you put in on the calculator how many square inches it is and
• 47:03
  you put in your draw weight and then you put in how many square
• 47:09
  inches it is. It'll tell you what the density
• 47:12
  is. So if we don't know what the
• 47:15
  specific gravity of the bow is, but you do know it took how much
• 47:20
  set, how you do know how much set it took, you can put all
• 47:23
  that information and it'll tell you what the specific gravity is
• 47:26
  so that if you've got another piece of that same wood, you can
• 47:29
  make your next bow back. OK, very cool.
• 47:35
  I love it. Almost innovation on an ancient
• 47:37
  craft, and yet you're still keeping it simple.
• 47:42
  Yeah, that's really cool. Simple is relative, but yeah, I
• 47:48
  I tried to make that as simple as possible.
• 47:50
  I mean, just put in how what your bow dimensions are.
• 47:53
  You got your three data point entries.
• 47:55
  That's it, just three and it'll tell you how to make a bow that
• 47:59
  will how to lay out the bow so that it'll take no set and then
• 48:03
  after that everything's up to you as the artist to make it
• 48:06
  bend evenly and well, I like than that you'll have I like how
• 48:11
  you're. Yeah, I like how you're thinking
• 48:14
  differently because a lot of Bowers aren't in the numbers in
• 48:18
  that way. They're going by entirely by
• 48:20
  feel or by sight. And yet you came up with this
• 48:24
  problem of how to get it not to take set and then you studied it
• 48:27
  to come up with a solution and then you became you got a very
• 48:31
  granular solution that works. So it's really cool.
• 48:34
  Well, I'm. Just trying to standardize it
• 48:36
  because there there is a way. There was a way to do it didn't
• 48:42
  figure it out, but there is a way to do it and that turned out
• 48:45
  to be it. And because when you base the
• 48:49
  wood and you've got you know, there's no way in the world
• 48:53
  anyone would ever look at eastern red cedar and say, oh,
• 48:56
  well, there there's a comparison between eastern red cedar and
• 48:58
  Osage. No one would ever say that, but
• 49:04
  there is a way to make it to the link the two together, and
• 49:08
  that's by their their density ERC in less dense and Osage.
• 49:14
  But when you compare the two on a level playing field like
• 49:22
  density per density, then you'll realize that you can actually
• 49:25
  make the comparison between the two and you can even the playing
• 49:31
  field. And it takes a certain amount of
• 49:36
  wood in a bow to make a bow. No matter what the wood is, it
• 49:41
  takes X amount. And the question I was trying to
• 49:43
  solve is how much is X? And when you use density as your
• 49:48
  constant, then then you can solve for your variable.
• 49:51
  And I was able to do that and it works.
• 49:55
  It's it's standardized all the bow woods now.
• 49:58
  That's just how much surface area that you need to not take
• 50:02
  set, which means it only deals with the belly of the bow does
• 50:07
  not guarantee the bow won't break because I'm not dealing
• 50:10
  with tension stresses. I'm just worried about I'm just
• 50:14
  worried about compression. And OK, so the boger still has
• 50:20
  to do have his knowledge and still has to be practiced in his
• 50:23
  art. This just takes away the new guy
• 50:25
  question that persists all the way through.
• 50:29
  The very first question new guy will ever ask is, is how do I
• 50:33
  lay out my boat? This answers that question.
• 50:37
  And then what? About so that sounds like it
• 50:39
  takes care of the width. What about the thickness?
• 50:42
  Thickness is determined through the so your profile you, you lay
• 50:46
  that out in in the bottom of that boat calculator.
• 50:48
  When you're laying out your square inches, when you're
• 50:52
  deciding your X&Y dimension, that's you laying out on a grid
• 51:03
  with the bow profile. With the bow profile is the
• 51:09
  thickness that's up to the bow your and through tailoring,
• 51:15
  because when you're tillering, you're not tillering for a draw.
• 51:20
  Well, you're tilling for a draw length is what you're doing,
• 51:23
  right? So the thickness is determining
• 51:27
  how far back the bow will pull before it hits your draw weight.
• 51:32
  So the thickness is the the thickness is the variable that
• 51:37
  you're solving for through the tillering process.
• 51:41
  OK, got it. Cool.
• 51:47
  I love it. Thank you for sharing that.
• 51:50
  So you mentioned earlier that you.
• 51:54
  No worries. You mentioned earlier you were a
• 51:56
  station in Japan, so I presume you were in the military.
• 51:59
  Oh yeah, yeah, I was a. Navy for five years.
• 52:02
  OK. Did you travel the world?
• 52:05
  Absolutely. I've.
• 52:09
  I've been to Italy, Greece, France, Dubai, Malaysia, Japan,
• 52:15
  Australia, went out to Victoria, Canada.
• 52:23
  That's where I am right now. Is it?
• 52:27
  I, I loved being up there in Victoria.
• 52:28
  That was a lot of fun, all the old architecture with the with
• 52:34
  the, the Izzy vines. And yeah, yeah, that's, that
• 52:39
  stands out to me. And yeah, I, I want to go back.
• 52:44
  I haven't had the opportunity, but one day I will.
• 52:49
  But yeah, come. And come and see me if it's in
• 52:51
  the summertime. OK, yeah, if it's in the winter
• 52:54
  time, maybe, maybe wait a little while.
• 52:58
  If it's in the winter time, I'm in Costa Rica, so.
• 53:01
  Oh, OK. Well, you know how to spend your
• 53:05
  Yeah, I'm only here for a couple months a year and on near
• 53:09
  Victoria most of the time in Costa Rica.
• 53:12
  Gotcha. Yeah, I used to be stationed out
• 53:14
  in Whidbey Island, Washington. That ain't too far from you.
• 53:19
  That's about only a couple hours.
• 53:23
  Yeah, probably. So when you were in the
• 53:25
  military, were you already? I guess at that point you were
• 53:28
  already interested in Bows, Sounds like by the timeline of
• 53:32
  things. No, it wasn't until I got out of
• 53:35
  the military when I was asked to go hunting, and I have anything
• 53:38
  to hunt with that I decided to they get into archery.
• 53:43
  But I got into it. I thought I was just going to
• 53:44
  make a bow and go hunting. I didn't realize I was going to
• 53:47
  be hunting for for bows for the rest of my life.
• 53:52
  Yeah. Well that takes care of my next
• 53:54
  question because it doesn't apply, but I was curious if you
• 53:56
  were studying the bow craft of other cultures you were in, but
• 54:00
  I guess at that time you weren't.
• 54:02
  No, no I wasn't. And I, I would, I would like to
• 54:09
  start getting into those, maybe learning about all the, the bows
• 54:14
  of different cultures, but I just don't know how much
• 54:18
  bandwidth I've got inside my brain.
• 54:22
  The focus on I've got ADHD so bad already.
• 54:25
  If I start doing that, that's a rabbit hole that I just don't
• 54:28
  know that I'll ever come back at it.
• 54:30
  And I don't know if I would be able to return to my focus of
• 54:35
  flight shooting unless I wanted to find out how they all did.
• 54:38
  And flight don't don't stop it Can't, can't do that.
• 54:41
  That's too much, too too much. There's too much knowledge out
• 54:45
  there. One man just can't live long
• 54:47
  enough to accumulate it all. And if there's anything I hate
• 54:50
  about being a person, the fact that I, that I, that my, my days
• 54:55
  of learning will one day come to an end.
• 54:57
  But I do love. But I've decided I think I'm
• 55:00
  just going to dedicate and hyper focus myself on the high
• 55:02
  performance bows made out of Osage.
• 55:07
  Maybe, maybe I'm a 1 trick pony, I don't know.
• 55:09
  But I but I enjoy, I'm enjoying the ride so I'm here for it.
• 55:13
  That's what matters. That's what matters.
• 55:15
  Tell me about the Primitive Archery Forum and magazine.
• 55:20
  Well, first thing is that they're a fantastic community.
• 55:26
  The Primitive Archer folks have helped me develop as a Bowyer
• 55:32
  and gave and given me an outlet to have someone that I can nerd
• 55:39
  out and discuss it with and develop my skills and give me
• 55:47
  pointer and, and support. It's not all just, you know,
• 55:51
  hey, you did this, maybe try doing that.
• 55:54
  You know, sometimes it's like, you know, hey, man, that was a
• 55:56
  it was a great job with what you had to work with, you know, or
• 56:01
  just discussing ideas. I mean, the community is
• 56:03
  fantastic and it's the largest primitives community on the
• 56:08
  Internet that I'm aware of. And I was very sad when they
• 56:14
  shut their doors. So COVID was, was it messed up
• 56:21
  their supply chain and everything else.
• 56:23
  The magazine went out of business and that was their
• 56:27
  money that with how they paid the bills for the forum.
• 56:29
  So the forum shut down. So I, I reached out to the
• 56:33
  owners and asked them if I could take over the forum and they
• 56:38
  said sure. So as long as you pay the bills.
• 56:41
  So I took on the debt and, and I've been able to keep the forum
• 56:46
  going out for last year and a half, last year and a half.
• 56:53
  And it's still going and, and the community's still there.
• 56:58
  They've, they fanned out some after the shutdown, but you
• 57:03
  know, I'm hoping to bring them back.
• 57:07
  The, there's, there's still some folks on there that all the
• 57:16
  information's still there and it's a great place to be.
• 57:20
  I still love the forum. And, you know, we do contests,
• 57:25
  the Boeing month contest still where, you know, you make a bow
• 57:29
  for the month and you post it up there for voting.
• 57:31
  The members will vote on who made the best looking or best
• 57:34
  performing or, you know, the heart made but just did the best
• 57:38
  work in general on a boat. And then the winner gets a
• 57:42
  collage of their pictures of their bow.
• 57:44
  They may, you know, post it on the permanent voucher magazine
• 57:47
  Facebook group for recognition of, of a job well done.
• 57:54
  And but yeah, that's, that's what's going on with Primitive
• 57:57
  Archer. I'll be having all the, I'm
• 58:03
  working on getting all the back issues of the magazine posted on
• 58:07
  the site so that members can go up there and, and browse through
• 58:12
  all the the past article. And I'm also going to be working
• 58:17
  on putting the Bose calculator up there as well.
• 58:24
  OK. Do you have any plans for
• 58:28
  bringing a magazine actually back in print format?
• 58:34
  Personally, I don't know anything about publishing or
• 58:38
  periodicals. Just don't.
• 58:40
  I'm not the man for that job. But if there's somebody out
• 58:44
  there that feels like they are and has experience and has an
• 58:50
  interest in bringing the magazine back, I would be very
• 58:54
  interested in talking to them and see what we can make happen.
• 58:59
  But me no, by by myself, no, I I don't have that that ability or
• 59:08
  the knowledge base out. I would I would royally, royally
• 59:12
  screw it up if I tried. And I don't want I don't want to
• 59:15
  do that. The magazine name.
• 59:17
  Just let it rest in peace. It before I go and resurrect it
• 59:21
  and screw it up, give that name. Man's got to know.
• 59:25
  So your goal is to keep the. Yeah, of course.
• 59:28
  Your goal is to keep the forum alive and strong and bring some
• 59:31
  of those members back that have left, Yes?
• 59:34
  Yeah, that's my goal is just to preserve the community and
• 59:36
  preserve the forum because that's what the magazine was
• 59:41
  supporting anyway. You know, without the community,
• 59:44
  the magazine wouldn't have been anything ever.
• 59:46
  And it's it's the community that makes Primitive Voucher special.
• 59:51
  Yeah. Well, I can't tell you how many
• 59:54
  times it's been mentioned in our upcoming book, Quiver from the
• 59:59
  14 bowyers that we worked with. So many of them cited the
• 1:00:03
  Primitive Archer Forum as being one of their foundational tools
• 1:00:06
  for getting started in the bow carving and improving their
• 1:00:08
  craft. Well, that, that doesn't
• 1:00:11
  surprise me. It's it's, it's definitely been
• 1:00:14
  like a pivotal source of information and community and I
• 1:00:22
  hope it continues to be for, for years to come.
• 1:00:27
  Do you have any plans to enhance the forum in any way?
• 1:00:32
  I've been. Working on upgrading it.
• 1:00:35
  The server was out of date, security certificate had expired
• 1:00:39
  and a bunch of other issues. A lot of those have been fixed.
• 1:00:43
  We got our security certificate back, the server's been
• 1:00:45
  upgraded, the forum platform itself is out of date, and as
• 1:00:51
  soon as I can afford to, I'll be getting that upgraded because I
• 1:00:57
  don't know how to manage and run upgrades on forums.
• 1:01:05
  I just don't know how to do it, but my server company does, so
• 1:01:09
  as soon as I can afford to pay them the money to do it, that'll
• 1:01:12
  be getting done. And there's really not a whole
• 1:01:18
  lot of upgrades left after that. We'll just be upgrading to the
• 1:01:22
  newest version of Simple Machine Form, and it's got a lot of cool
• 1:01:28
  features on it. So I'm looking forward to
• 1:01:30
  getting that done. I'm open either end of this year
• 1:01:36
  or early next year to have all that finished.
• 1:01:40
  That's great. Is any part of it monetized so
• 1:01:43
  that you can help to fund these developments or is this all out
• 1:01:46
  of pocket for you and it's all out of pocket I've?
• 1:01:48
  Done. I've done some donations.
• 1:01:53
  We do an end of the year contest where everyone who entered into
• 1:02:00
  or everyone who won bow of the month gets their name in a hat
• 1:02:05
  for a drawing. And anyone who wants to support
• 1:02:10
  the forum monetarily by chipping in 25 bucks, they get their name
• 1:02:14
  in the hat and then we'll give away a buck or will give away a
• 1:02:19
  a knife or you know, something else that another forum member
• 1:02:23
  has donated. OK.
• 1:02:27
  And last. Year the winner had a custom bow
• 1:02:30
  made for him by Arvin Weaver who his name carries a lot of weight
• 1:02:37
  in the target archery scene and and in the flight archery for
• 1:02:43
  the Broadhead division. His bows have a lot of records
• 1:02:48
  in the IBO world and and in the Broadhead record.
• 1:02:53
  So the the winner got a bow made custom built for him by Arvin
• 1:02:59
  Weaver, who is a gentleman if there ever was 1.
• 1:03:05
  And I I can't say enough good things about him.
• 1:03:10
  Part of gold and a man of his word.
• 1:03:13
  If he says you don't do something, he's going to do it.
• 1:03:17
  And he, he, he just speaks with you with, with intent.
• 1:03:23
  I love talking to him. He's a very good friend of mine.
• 1:03:26
  I, I, I think very highly of them.
• 1:03:28
  And the winner of the last year was the winner of the last year.
• 1:03:32
  Very fortunate. I was actually a little jealous,
• 1:03:36
  but he got a really good prize. He picked a really good one.
• 1:03:41
  And we'll be doing that again this year, but that's the only
• 1:03:44
  monetization I'm doing. We had ads running on the, on
• 1:03:47
  the group, but the ads had gotten out of control.
• 1:03:52
  And so I, it was a lot of the members were complaining about
• 1:03:56
  it. And so if it's not serving the
• 1:03:57
  community, then it's not serving me.
• 1:03:59
  So I got rid of the ad and now we're just a free form.
• 1:04:05
  Unfortunately with the onslaught of AI, I have had to lock the
• 1:04:09
  forum down so that if you're not a member, you can't view the
• 1:04:13
  forum. So you have to sign up to view
• 1:04:15
  it. But it's free to sign up.
• 1:04:17
  There's no ads, you just sign up and browse.
• 1:04:20
  But we were getting attacked by AAI crawler bot, which are just
• 1:04:26
  like information gathering. It was locking down the forum,
• 1:04:30
  shutting it down because it was crashing the server.
• 1:04:33
  We were getting like 23,000 hit at a time, wow in in in a minute
• 1:04:39
  and it was crashing the server so I had to lock it down.
• 1:04:42
  So if you go to primitivearcher.com and you
• 1:04:46
  can't get in, that's why it's just sign up and I'll approve
• 1:04:51
  you as soon as I see it. I approve members daily.
• 1:04:57
  You won't be waiting a long time.
• 1:04:59
  You'll probably be approved within a few hours.
• 1:05:01
  And if you sign up at night, as soon as I wake up, I'll, I'll
• 1:05:04
  look and I'll approve. How many members do you have?
• 1:05:11
  There's about 5000, a little over 5000.
• 1:05:16
  All right. I don't know how many of them
• 1:05:17
  are active, but there's about, you know, about 5000.
• 1:05:22
  Yeah. Well, I'm happy to support you.
• 1:05:24
  We'll do. If you want, we can do like a
• 1:05:26
  free book giveaway of Quiver and help help with one of your
• 1:05:30
  fundraisers. Well, I appreciate.
• 1:05:32
  That very much I was very generous of you.
• 1:05:34
  I I I genuinely genuinely appreciate that.
• 1:05:38
  Thank you. Of course, I'm also looking to
• 1:05:45
  so that the this bosat calculator.
• 1:05:47
  I'm hoping that'll become a source of income form.
• 1:05:49
  I am going to be running ad on that alone.
• 1:05:54
  It's not going to it's just a 11 banner ad on the top is all it
• 1:05:59
  is right? Or you can buy the app on a
• 1:06:05
  yearly subscription of $25 a year and then you'll have an ad
• 1:06:10
  free experience with other features that are going to be
• 1:06:12
  unlocked. I haven't finished developing
• 1:06:15
  the special features yet. It'll one of them being when you
• 1:06:20
  click on a menu, it'll it'll drop down a list of wood bow
• 1:06:25
  woods that you can just select what type of wood you want to
• 1:06:29
  make your bow out of and it'll auto populate the specific
• 1:06:34
  gravity, the specific gravity box for you so that you don't
• 1:06:40
  have to go research what's the density of this wood, right?
• 1:06:43
  It's already going to be in the app.
• 1:06:45
  So that's going to be like one of the special features of the
• 1:06:47
  app that you pay 25 bucks a year for and you get that right.
• 1:06:52
  So you'll have that you won't have ads on it.
• 1:06:54
  Ads on it and also I'm going to make that membership include
• 1:07:01
  access to all the back issues of the magazines as well.
• 1:07:05
  So and anything else I can think of right but right now that's
• 1:07:12
  what I've gotten development and I'm hoping to use that as a
• 1:07:15
  income source to help support the site because it is not
• 1:07:18
  cheap. I did not know how much I was
• 1:07:21
  getting into when I got into it, but no regrets.
• 1:07:24
  But definitely I'm better informed now.
• 1:07:28
  And yeah. If you don't mind sharing, what
• 1:07:32
  does it? What does it cost annually to
• 1:07:34
  keep it running? The annual let's see, it's about
• 1:07:44
  it's, it's about 400 a quarter, but the upgrades and that's
• 1:07:53
  that's the biggest cost right now, right?
• 1:07:55
  I mean, I can keep it going, but maintaining status quo?
• 1:08:00
  Hey, what you want to do when it was when its status quo was
• 1:08:03
  failing? So paying the server.
• 1:08:06
  Company for all the upgrades, that's where the money's, that's
• 1:08:10
  where the big money's at because I don't know how to do all that
• 1:08:15
  stuff. So you either have to have money
• 1:08:17
  or you have to have knowledge and it's expensive to, to not be
• 1:08:21
  knowledgeable. But once that taken care of,
• 1:08:27
  then you know, the cost, the annual operations cost will drop
• 1:08:30
  for me. So it's not, it's not a whole
• 1:08:32
  lot, but you know, I'm a contractor.
• 1:08:35
  I work, I work three to six months a year.
• 1:08:39
  And then when I'm during my off time, I got to stretch my money.
• 1:08:42
  So I kind of have to live like fixed income style.
• 1:08:47
  And right, that's what I was saying.
• 1:08:50
  Sometimes it's a it's offense anyway.
• 1:08:53
  I'm not. What are you mad about it or
• 1:08:55
  anything like that? I'm no, no.
• 1:08:57
  I asked, I want to know so the community can help you out and
• 1:09:01
  keep keep that resource, keep that resource going and alive
• 1:09:04
  because as you said, it's been pivotal for you.
• 1:09:07
  And as I said, so many of the buggers I've interviewed have
• 1:09:11
  echoed that same thing. It's been an incredible
• 1:09:13
  resource. So I'm sure I'm not a yeah, I'm
• 1:09:19
  sure I'm not alone in a, in saying thank you for keeping
• 1:09:22
  that going, bringing it back actually and and then keeping it
• 1:09:25
  going. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:27
  No, you're, you're definitely not the first.
• 1:09:29
  And I appreciate it greatly. I just, I, I tell people I, I
• 1:09:36
  saved it and they're like, why did you save it?
• 1:09:38
  I, I, well, I like it. I didn't want it to go away.
• 1:09:43
  Kind of a selfish reason, I suppose, but to be honest with
• 1:09:47
  you is I liked it and I didn't want it to go anywhere.
• 1:09:49
  So I was, I was lucky enough to able to work out a deal with the
• 1:09:53
  previous owners and, and here we are.
• 1:09:58
  I'm hoping that this bow calculator, this bow set
• 1:10:01
  calculator will become a resource to people as well and
• 1:10:04
  help them improve the quality of their builds.
• 1:10:06
  And by, you know, showing them how much, what, what type of
• 1:10:10
  layouts will work and, and what the results of the layout will
• 1:10:14
  do. Because I mean, I just tell you,
• 1:10:17
  Oh, this is how much surface area you need to take no set.
• 1:10:20
  It'll also tell you how much set it will take if you use that
• 1:10:23
  profile, because not everybody is like me, Not everybody cares
• 1:10:26
  about no set. Some people are quite happy with
• 1:10:29
  an Ant 2 inches of set. They don't care.
• 1:10:32
  They just want the bow to shoot. And honestly, that's that's the
• 1:10:36
  love for the archery that that I can appreciate.
• 1:10:38
  They just want it to work and then go out and enjoy it.
• 1:10:42
  And that is, that is wonderful. But for those that if they just,
• 1:10:52
  it is if they just want to see how much that it'll take,
• 1:10:57
  that'll tell you. And they can tighten it up if
• 1:10:59
  they want, or they can just roll with it.
• 1:11:01
  But if they're ever curious about it and you know, 25 bucks
• 1:11:05
  a year for the knowledge of how your bows are going to perform
• 1:11:09
  before you ever build it, assuming that you're going to,
• 1:11:13
  you know, tiller it properly, because that's still on you.
• 1:11:15
  You can't engineer the art out of bomate unless you go with
• 1:11:21
  fiberglass. But we don't talk about we
• 1:11:26
  don't, we don't say the F word in firmative Archer.
• 1:11:32
  But no, I'm I'm anyway, I'm just hoping that'll become a resource
• 1:11:37
  and that people enjoy and I'll have it released here's very
• 1:11:42
  soon. I've got the app, I've got the
• 1:11:45
  free version with ads developed and I'm going through the Google
• 1:11:50
  Play Console to get everything set up with with it.
• 1:11:54
  I'm at the stage now where all the back end work is done.
• 1:11:59
  I just have to have 14 people, 14.
• 1:12:02
  No, it's 12 people. I have to have 12 people
• 1:12:04
  download the app so that it can go through the checks that
• 1:12:09
  Google requires. So Google requires 12 people to
• 1:12:12
  use the app 14 days in order for an app to be approved to publish
• 1:12:17
  on Google. I guess it's part of their
• 1:12:19
  security protocol. But OK, so I'm I'm going to
• 1:12:24
  start looking here pretty soon for 12 folks.
• 1:12:28
  You have any interest in in being one of the first people to
• 1:12:30
  get the this bosat calculator I'm.
• 1:12:35
  Sure. Yeah, can help you out with
• 1:12:37
  that. I didn't mean to put you on.
• 1:12:39
  The spot there? No, not.
• 1:12:41
  At all I can probably also Oh no, if he says.
• 1:12:44
  No, he's going to sound like a jerk.
• 1:12:46
  No, I. I can probably connect you to a
• 1:12:48
  bunch of other people too that might be interested I'm.
• 1:12:53
  Yeah. I find there's a different,
• 1:12:57
  different styles of, of Boyers and some who I've worked with
• 1:13:01
  are absolutely meticulous with numbers and I think some
• 1:13:07
  couldn't care less. And so it's definitely, I think
• 1:13:11
  it's a certain style of Boyer who really wants to have that
• 1:13:14
  knowledge. Some of the ones I've worked
• 1:13:16
  with are just they're, they're wood whisperers.
• 1:13:18
  Somehow they make those staves do exactly what they want and
• 1:13:21
  they never use a measurement tool whatsoever.
• 1:13:23
  It's just all by feel and sight and knowledge.
• 1:13:26
  So but others bringing out the calipers with every scrape of
• 1:13:30
  wood and, and measuring it down to the exact specifics.
• 1:13:33
  So. Well, the the calculator would
• 1:13:36
  work for anybody who wanted to make it work.
• 1:13:40
  Yeah. And yeah, I just, I just need 12
• 1:13:43
  people and, and if you, if you know some folks, I, I sure would
• 1:13:48
  appreciate it. It's an, it's developed for
• 1:13:51
  Android. I, I don't have an Apple, so I
• 1:13:55
  have not created 1 yet for Apple.
• 1:13:59
  All right. Well, that's.
• 1:14:00
  That would be a trick. I just switched everything to
• 1:14:02
  Apple within this past year so I don't have any Android anymore.
• 1:14:06
  Oh, OK. Well, that's all right.
• 1:14:10
  Apple will be coming. I just, I don't own 1, so
• 1:14:15
  developing an app for a piece of equipment that I don't own would
• 1:14:19
  be very difficult. Of course, I'll probably have to
• 1:14:22
  get an Apple phone, an iPhone, just so, just so that I can so
• 1:14:29
  that I can get it to work on its system.
• 1:14:33
  But yeah, probably buy a used. Phone or something like that for
• 1:14:37
  that. Yeah, well, it sounds.
• 1:14:41
  Very excited and I'm happy for you.
• 1:14:44
  Passion project for sure and it is.
• 1:14:47
  I love that. It's if nothing.
• 1:14:49
  Else it's worked out for you to give you what you need for beau
• 1:14:53
  carving and I'm sure it's going to help others as well.
• 1:14:58
  I'm sure it will. It, it does.
• 1:15:01
  It does what it's advertised to do.
• 1:15:03
  I mean, can't say much else, much else more for it.
• 1:15:07
  I mean, it it does what it was supposed to do, it does it.
• 1:15:12
  Yeah, that's awesome. Well, Kevin, thank you for doing
• 1:15:15
  this today and sharing your experience and knowledge.
• 1:15:20
  Where do you want to direct people to, to learn more about
• 1:15:22
  you and your work, the forum, etcetera?
• 1:15:26
  Well. I mean, if you want to talk to
• 1:15:27
  me directly, you just go straight to the forum at
• 1:15:29
  primitivearcher.com. My handle on there is sleek,
• 1:15:33
  SLEEK at that's me on there. So if you want to discuss
• 1:15:39
  anything directly with me, I am right there.
• 1:15:42
  I'm on it all the time. And if you're not on there,
• 1:15:47
  well, you should be. Just sign sounds.
• 1:15:51
  Good. And do you have?
• 1:15:53
  Anything else you want to share? Any questions?
• 1:15:56
  Anything else before we sign off?
• 1:15:58
  Well, I, I can't say specifically that I do, but I, I
• 1:16:05
  do admire what you've been doing with, you know, traveling
• 1:16:09
  around, visiting all those folks, both shops and, and
• 1:16:13
  learning about their craft. To me, that's just a fascinating
• 1:16:16
  concept. So I'm looking forward to your
• 1:16:20
  book coming out because I'm going to buy a copy and the I'll
• 1:16:26
  be reading that with interest because that's just such a neat
• 1:16:30
  idea and concept. Like how did you even come up
• 1:16:33
  with it was? An evolution, let's say.
• 1:16:38
  And I guess the slightly longer story is I had a, a business for
• 1:16:47
  nearly 20 years, a College of holistic medicine that I started
• 1:16:51
  and I was the president of. And then about five years, well,
• 1:16:55
  during COVID, I, it was time for me to transition out of that and
• 1:16:58
  retire from that. And then a couple years later it
• 1:17:01
  was time to, to sell. And it ended up being a really,
• 1:17:05
  really, really stressful process.
• 1:17:08
  And I'll just leave it at that. It, it, it turns something that
• 1:17:11
  had been magical for nearly two decades into something that was
• 1:17:14
  other than. And during that I just remember
• 1:17:18
  saying, when this is through, I want to take up, I want to get
• 1:17:21
  more serious about bow carving again.
• 1:17:23
  And I want to travel the world learning from different mentors.
• 1:17:26
  I was very fortunate. My very first bow that I bought,
• 1:17:30
  I just happened to find online from gentleman named Jamie
• 1:17:34
  MacDonald of Ravenbeak, Nature Works and Powell River here in
• 1:17:38
  British Columbia. So I I was looking for my first
• 1:17:42
  bow. I knew nothing about archery
• 1:17:44
  whatsoever, but I knew I wanted what now I know to be a
• 1:17:48
  primitive bow. At that time I didn't even know
• 1:17:50
  there was a term for it, but I wanted a bow made from a piece
• 1:17:52
  of wood. I didn't want fiberglass or any
• 1:17:54
  carbon fiber or technology whatsoever.
• 1:17:57
  And so I ended up finding an English Longbow that Jamie had
• 1:18:00
  made on his website, I guess. Bought it, fell in love with it,
• 1:18:04
  reached out to him to see if I could bring a group of men there
• 1:18:07
  on a regular basis to carve bows with him.
• 1:18:10
  He agreed. So I started carving bows with
• 1:18:11
  Jamie. That's how I got my my first I
• 1:18:15
  think 3 bows under my belt, all English long bows from Pacific U
• 1:18:19
  with Jamie. And then I.
• 1:18:21
  Learned that near my farm here north of Victoria, there was
• 1:18:25
  another amazing Bowyer. I didn't know where he was.
• 1:18:28
  I knew he was in the community by the name of Pete Woodland,
• 1:18:32
  who people will know from Heritage Bows and.
• 1:18:37
  I think I had been. Communicating via e-mail with
• 1:18:39
  him for a while I don't even remember it was about I was I
• 1:18:44
  was trying to track him down in his bows.
• 1:18:46
  But I don't remember where the block was because one day my
• 1:18:50
  wife invited our neighbors over. We were relatively new to the
• 1:18:53
  community. We're in our first year or two
• 1:18:55
  where our farm is and sure enough, Pete and his wife come
• 1:18:58
  over and I didn't know this was the Pete who was the Bowyer who
• 1:19:00
  I've been emailing with until we were walking around the farm and
• 1:19:04
  somehow that came up. And so it turns out he lives
• 1:19:07
  half a mile down the road from me.
• 1:19:10
  So 2 of what I think are some of the best Bowyers in the world, I
• 1:19:15
  had the the opportunity to get to know and to be in their
• 1:19:18
  workshop and to learn from them. And so that I think when I, when
• 1:19:23
  I had this idea that I want to learn from more, I guess I
• 1:19:25
  credit it back to those two for being my early teachers.
• 1:19:30
  And I just knew that I wanted to learn more from other teachers.
• 1:19:33
  And so that set this idea in motion that I'm going to start
• 1:19:36
  traveling when this is done, maybe with my son, because my
• 1:19:39
  son at that time was probably about 10 and he had carved bows
• 1:19:43
  with me. And I thought it would be a
• 1:19:44
  great project for us to go and meet both yours and carve.
• 1:19:49
  But then it happened where it started to get more real and I
• 1:19:53
  started to really think about what it would be like.
• 1:19:55
  And then my daughter told me that she, and she was only 14 at
• 1:20:00
  the time, she was deciding that she wanted to stop going to
• 1:20:05
  school in Costa Rica and just wanted to focus on passion
• 1:20:08
  projects. And one of those passion
• 1:20:10
  projects was photography. She wanted to study photography.
• 1:20:13
  And I don't remember exactly how long it took me to connect the
• 1:20:16
  dots, but once she said that. Not long after I realized, well,
• 1:20:21
  maybe my daughter could travel with me because my son again
• 1:20:24
  was, he was quite young, 10 or 11 at the time.
• 1:20:27
  So traveling the world is not as easy.
• 1:20:29
  But with my daughter free of any school ties and studying
• 1:20:33
  photography, I won't. Maybe she can come along and
• 1:20:36
  take some photos and we can create something out of this.
• 1:20:38
  So it just kind of emerge from my selfish pursuit of learning
• 1:20:44
  to carve bows better from different teachers around the
• 1:20:47
  world. And for me, it's absolute
• 1:20:48
  therapy. So I really was looking forward
• 1:20:50
  to just that therapeutic aspect of it and then being able to
• 1:20:55
  bring my daughter along to catalog it all with amazing
• 1:20:58
  photographs on it. Amazing.
• 1:20:59
  And then we're both book lovers. I wanted to be a published
• 1:21:02
  writer my whole life. And so it just started to take
• 1:21:05
  shape. And from there, once I once I
• 1:21:09
  kind of pitched the initial idea to her and she agreed to it, it
• 1:21:14
  was like a snowball rolling down a mountain.
• 1:21:17
  It just gained momentum so quickly.
• 1:21:19
  I think it was probably. Probably about two years.
• 1:21:23
  Ago today, ish. You know, two years ago this
• 1:21:26
  month where we really started to think about it.
• 1:21:29
  And by October of that year we already probably had a dozen
• 1:21:33
  bowyers committed to it. We just started reaching out
• 1:21:36
  with emails and Instagram messages telling them our idea,
• 1:21:40
  our crazy idea, and we want to come and carve a bow with you
• 1:21:43
  and your workshop and tell your story and preserve your craft in
• 1:21:48
  in a book. And enough people started saying
• 1:21:51
  yes. We started to get more people
• 1:21:53
  who were being referred to us by the people who had agreed to it.
• 1:21:57
  Eventually we had this pretty significant list of bowyers in
• 1:22:00
  countries around the world. So we started to plot it.
• 1:22:03
  How's this going to work out? And just so happened that.
• 1:22:07
  By. Not by design originally, but
• 1:22:13
  all of our travels got condensed within five months and that was
• 1:22:17
  not my initial plan. And I had this idea originally.
• 1:22:19
  I was like, this is going to be an ongoing thing.
• 1:22:22
  Couple times a year, I'll go carve with a different Boyer.
• 1:22:25
  But I think we just got so excited by it, maybe a little
• 1:22:28
  bit carried away with it, that when our European lineup started
• 1:22:31
  to unfold and found out we had 7 or 8 bowyers in Europe, we just
• 1:22:35
  had this idea of, well, let's just do them all like
• 1:22:38
  consecutively. Let's not keep going back and
• 1:22:40
  forth. And so it just worked out that
• 1:22:42
  way. We did 7 North American bowyers
• 1:22:45
  in June, July and August. And then we did 7 European
• 1:22:48
  bowyers in September, October. And actually we're done.
• 1:22:53
  By the end of October, we flew back to Costa Rica.
• 1:22:57
  We had a couple publishers who expressed an interest by that
• 1:23:00
  point in time, and I think it was in November or December,
• 1:23:07
  probably December. We committed to Trope out of
• 1:23:10
  Chicago, who's our publisher. And now we're like 10 months
• 1:23:14
  later, nine months later, and we already have the advance copy of
• 1:23:19
  the book. It's gorgeous.
• 1:23:20
  And the rest of them are coming in October.
• 1:23:22
  So it was just this kind of, it took on a life of its own
• 1:23:27
  really, and it felt. Really good.
• 1:23:31
  To have this for me again, I was doing it as a selfish pursuit
• 1:23:37
  for healing and craft, but then to be able to bring my daughter
• 1:23:40
  along and have us Co create something that had It really
• 1:23:45
  took on meaning to us. It took on significance.
• 1:23:47
  We realized that nothing like this has ever been done and this
• 1:23:51
  is a amazing opportunity to give a platform to a lot of people
• 1:23:56
  who are working in workshops around the world solo with, you
• 1:24:01
  know, virtually no contact with the outer world, but love their
• 1:24:04
  craft. They're doing it to preserve
• 1:24:05
  this 10,000 year old craft and still carving bows the way bows
• 1:24:10
  have been carved since the Home Guard and and these ancient bows
• 1:24:14
  so. It just.
• 1:24:16
  Became this absolute passion project and it was a beautiful
• 1:24:22
  thing and I'm thrilled about it. And we're not done.
• 1:24:25
  The book's coming out, but we're already talking about Round 2,
• 1:24:28
  Volume 2, so that's. Awesome.
• 1:24:31
  That's absolutely awesome. It sounds like a an archery
• 1:24:35
  odyssey of epic proportions. It's definitely been that for
• 1:24:42
  me. My daughter just turned 16 two
• 1:24:47
  weeks ago. 3 weeks ago maybe and we had the advance copy of the
• 1:24:52
  book sent to us by the publisher.
• 1:24:54
  She didn't know it. And so I was able to give that
• 1:24:57
  to her for her 16th birthday. It was a week late, but anyway,
• 1:25:00
  I was able to give it to her and pretty special to have my my
• 1:25:04
  daughter be able to unwrap her book and, and to see that come
• 1:25:09
  to life. So that's.
• 1:25:10
  Excellent. That's excellent.
• 1:25:12
  And that's going to be time that she's going to treasure for the
• 1:25:15
  rest of her life, time that she got to spend with her dad,
• 1:25:19
  traveling the world. You.
• 1:25:21
  Know doing something that no one's ever done before with it
• 1:25:25
  and not only that, with the goal in mind and, and then and then
• 1:25:28
  you accomplished it And, and that young woman's done more
• 1:25:33
  growing up in, in, in the last year than a lot of them get in,
• 1:25:37
  in many years after. I mean, congratulations to you
• 1:25:40
  for for getting that done and and being such a good dad with
• 1:25:43
  her too. That's awesome.
• 1:25:45
  I mean, I really appreciate that.
• 1:25:49
  Yeah, that that was all the easy part that was, we have my
• 1:25:53
  daughter and son and I and our family, our wife too, my wife
• 1:25:56
  too. We have such a close
• 1:25:57
  relationship. So my son was actually able to
• 1:26:00
  come for three of the the visits to Bowyer.
• 1:26:03
  So that was great. He couldn't couldn't figure out
• 1:26:05
  how to get him there for all 14, but he came for three of them
• 1:26:08
  and had a great time. But yeah, traveling with my
• 1:26:12
  daughter that was every day was just laughter and adventure and
• 1:26:16
  and purpose. We had so much fun.
• 1:26:19
  Man, that's that's that is absolutely awesome.
• 1:26:21
  I love hearing that. I'm so glad you shared that.
• 1:26:24
  Thank. I'm really looking forward to.
• 1:26:26
  You're welcome. Yeah, thanks for asking.
• 1:26:30
  Yeah, the book is October 20th. It should be shipped out to
• 1:26:33
  everyone who's already ordered one.
• 1:26:35
  They're available on my website at projectquiver.com.
• 1:26:38
  And I think we're going to do, we're getting ready, we're
• 1:26:41
  getting ready to launch a Kickstarter campaign as well,
• 1:26:44
  because there's a whole other audience there that we don't
• 1:26:48
  have any other wouldn't wouldn't normally be able to tap into.
• 1:26:51
  So I think we're going to do a Kickstarter campaign and get
• 1:26:54
  some other people interested into primitive archery who
• 1:26:57
  probably aren't. So your book does it, is it just
• 1:27:01
  about the journey or that also got instructions on on things
• 1:27:05
  that you've learned? Neither.
• 1:27:09
  The book's not about the journey.
• 1:27:11
  The book is about the bowyers. So there are basically 14
• 1:27:15
  chapters, one for each Bowyer. And so it is a it is basically a
• 1:27:20
  profile of each Bowyer with each Bowyer has about 20 pages, about
• 1:27:25
  25 to 30 photographs and their story, which I wrote based on me
• 1:27:32
  spending time with them and interviews with them.
• 1:27:34
  So it's not about me or my daughter Ella at all.
• 1:27:36
  It's about the bowyers and their craft.
• 1:27:38
  And so it does go into a lot of historical aspects of primitive
• 1:27:45
  bow carving, primitive archery. It's but it's really based on
• 1:27:49
  what each individual Bowyer kind of was interested in.
• 1:27:52
  So for example, with Chuck Loffler, we carved a flight bow,
• 1:27:57
  basically an ishy style bow, but one that he uses for flight
• 1:28:01
  shooting. And we went to the salt flats to
• 1:28:03
  do some flight shooting. And so in his chapter, I write a
• 1:28:06
  lot about flight shooting. He's also very renowned for
• 1:28:10
  replica bows, especially Native American replica bow.
• 1:28:13
  So that chapter has a lot of information about that the Miwok
• 1:28:17
  bows and other bows that he creates, which is very different
• 1:28:21
  from. And say Eric.
• 1:28:23
  Strikesbeer in Austria who also makes a lot of beautiful replica
• 1:28:27
  bows, but his are a lot of European bows.
• 1:28:31
  The home guards, the Malaga bats, the T bird big.
• 1:28:35
  So he's his his brand of Sparrow bows.
• 1:28:38
  And he carves maybe now 6 to to 10 bows a year, if that many,
• 1:28:44
  maybe it's only three to six bows a year because he's
• 1:28:47
  absolutely those, those bows that he carves are he's he puts
• 1:28:51
  his all into them and it's not a full time thing for him.
• 1:28:55
  And so in his chapter we write about, I write a lot about the
• 1:28:58
  things that he's really passionate about.
• 1:29:01
  So how he goes about his carving process.
• 1:29:04
  So it's not a how to about bow carving.
• 1:29:06
  There's as you know, there's dozens of books out there about
• 1:29:09
  that. So that wasn't my goal to to
• 1:29:12
  replicate that. So no one's going to read
• 1:29:14
  through this book and come out of it going now I know how to
• 1:29:16
  carve a bow. That's not the intention of it.
• 1:29:18
  It's it's basically to preserve the legacy of these bow yours
• 1:29:24
  who are carving both the way they've been carved for
• 1:29:26
  millennia. The only composite bows we did
• 1:29:31
  well with Chuck, I did a simple composite because it's sinew
• 1:29:33
  backed with Waylon with a few of the bow ears.
• 1:29:37
  They're backed and either fish skin or snakeskin.
• 1:29:39
  But we did one laminate bow with Stefan Tim, a bamboo bows.
• 1:29:44
  That was a Yumi bow. So a traditional Yumi bow.
• 1:29:47
  So that was one that really broke the mold from all the
• 1:29:49
  other bows. All the other 13 bows were for
• 1:29:52
  the most part, self bows are composite bows that people are
• 1:29:56
  used to. The Yumi bow, that was a that
• 1:29:57
  was a whole different build process, but that's a process
• 1:30:01
  that's that's been happening in that style for 2500 years in
• 1:30:05
  Japan. And so it's still a very
• 1:30:07
  traditional craft. So that's what that's what the
• 1:30:09
  book focuses on is this traditional craft of bow carving
• 1:30:13
  and the legacy holders who are continuing doing that today.
• 1:30:18
  And we had fourteen in the book, because that's.
• 1:30:22
  When we started. This journey, that's just the
• 1:30:24
  way it ended up unfolding. That's why I said that we're
• 1:30:27
  really interested now in doing future volumes because so many
• 1:30:31
  more about yours have come to our attention and I think
• 1:30:34
  deserve a platform like like a book.
• 1:30:37
  So it's it's something that I hope to continue with.
• 1:30:41
  The only part of the book that's actually written in first person
• 1:30:44
  or about us is the introduction. So in the introduction, yeah, I
• 1:30:48
  do talk about my journey into archery and bow craft and talk a
• 1:30:54
  very little bit about our actual adventure, but it's the book's
• 1:30:58
  not about us. And that's just kind of what it
• 1:31:01
  comes down to. It's I never intended it to be a
• 1:31:03
  platform to talk about what we're doing.
• 1:31:06
  We do have our social media accounts where we share personal
• 1:31:10
  photos of our journey for Project Quiver, as it's known.
• 1:31:14
  But that was, that's not something that I wanted in the
• 1:31:17
  book. It's this is a book for bow
• 1:31:19
  years and about bow craft and that's what I wanted to keep it
• 1:31:22
  as OK. Well, I love the concept.
• 1:31:28
  I'm looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of this and
• 1:31:33
  send me a message as soon as it's released.
• 1:31:36
  That way I I can order. OK, well.
• 1:31:41
  You can always order in advance and make sure you get one of the
• 1:31:45
  early copies. But we can talk more about that
• 1:31:48
  and we'll talk about, I'll, I'll e-mail you and we can talk about
• 1:31:51
  maybe getting something set up for the forum too, so you can do
• 1:31:54
  some sort of fundraiser. Absolutely.
• 1:31:57
  I appreciate that. We'll talk more about all that
• 1:32:03
  next time we speak. I appreciate you.
• 1:32:07
  You're welcome. Thank you so much for doing
• 1:32:09
  this. Absolutely.
• 1:32:18
  Thanks for. Listening to Project Quiver on
• 1:32:19
  Salish Wolf? Follow our journey on Instagram
• 1:32:22
  and YouTube at Project Quiver Official as we discover the
• 1:32:25
  world's most extraordinary traditional bow years and join
• 1:32:28
  our newsletter at projectquiver.com.
• 1:32:31
  Quiver, the Art of life through Bow Craft, Our photographic and
• 1:32:34
  narrative exploration of traditional bow carving
• 1:32:36
  published by Trope, will be available in fall 2026.
• 1:32:40
  We are honored to share with you the beauty, tradition, and magic
• 1:32:44
  of the bow and arrow. The book is Quiver.
• 1:32:46
  The journey is Project Quiver. This is the Salish Wolf podcast.