Latest / Salish Wolf / #61 Paul Comstock on Project Quiver

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#61 Paul Comstock on Project Quiver · Salish Wolf

• 0:06
  Welcome to Project Quiver, a father daughter journey across
• 0:09
  the globe to capture the artistry and spirit of the
• 0:12
  world's finest traditional bow carvers.
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  I'm Todd, the father. Ella is my daughter.
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  Together we're on a mission to create a stunning coffee table
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  book that profiles more than a dozen master bow years and their
• 0:23
  unparalleled skill. For each chapter, we travel to
• 0:26
  the Bow Years workshop. Carve a bow under his guidance,
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  photograph his woodcraft in detail, and share his story here
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  on the Salish Wolf Podcast. The book is called Quiver, The
• 0:36
  Art of Life. Through bow craft and this
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  journey, our living story is Project Quiver.
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  Glad to have you here finally after a few false starts.
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  Well, I've been dealing with computers since the 70s
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  professionally in newspapers, and computer trouble is always
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  routine in my opinion. Yeah, it is.
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  It's actually kind of incredible how routine it is.
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  Seems like everything should be streamlined but Nope, it's
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  always tech issues. True enough.
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  Where are. You where are you today?
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  I'm. Sorry, say again.
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  Where are you? Behind my residence.
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  Which is where? In Delaware, OH.
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  OK, what part of Ohio is that? It's maybe 15 or 20 minute drive
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  north of Columbus, OH, which is the capital, which is pretty
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  much in the middle of the state. Yeah, all right.
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  Not too far from where I grew up.
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  I grew up in Deep Creek Lake, MD.
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  Oh, really? Yeah.
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  I've been to Maryland. I hiked through Maryland twice
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  on the Appalachian Trail. How beautiful.
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  Yeah. Yeah.
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  How long have you been in Columbus or sorry, in Ohio?
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  Since I was 10 years old. Wow.
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  All right. I was born in West Virginia,
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  came from Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky.
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  Folks at eastern folks in Eastern Kentucky have an accent.
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  So I had an accent as a little kid until I moved to Michigan
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  and that got rid of the accent. So I have some cousins who
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  stayed in Eastern Kentucky and kept their accent and their
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  other cousins like me who went someplace else and completely
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  lost it. Where?
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  In West Virginia. Ashland.
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  It's on the river very close to where Ohio, West Virginia and
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  Kentucky intersect on the river. OK.
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  And the Ohio, that's a big river.
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  I went to West Virginia University.
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  Oh, OK, yeah. Is that in Morgantown?
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  Yeah, it is. OK, I've found it at Morgantown.
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  There's a there's a big sort of a part, sort of a State Park
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  kind of thing there where there's an iron furniture.
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  You probably heard of it. How did all this archery stuff
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  begin for you? Well, I didn't guess this kind
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  of funny in retrospect. When I was a kid I thought
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  archery was stupid. Let me explain why.
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  I was in the Boy Scouts and a silver camp.
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  They had an archery range and and a rifle range.
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  When we shot rifles, somebody shot those heroes and I get hit.
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  I was aiming at with a rifle but with a bow I was siding down the
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  arrow and the arrow would not go where I the direction it was
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  pointed to him when I let go. And I didn't think much of it
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  based on that. But then not long after some guy
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  came to one of our boys hell camps and he had a bow and arrow
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  and he was going to give us a shooting demonstration and he
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  had an assistant who is rolling targets around.
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  He missed every single shot. And I thought, well, OK, it's
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  not just me, This guy can't hit anything, which anybody who
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  shoots a lot knows that if you are to perform like that, you're
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  under pressure and you can choke.
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  And that may have been just what was happening to him.
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  So it anyway time passes and I go to college and I was of an
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  generation among the last people who was able to take an archery
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  class in college. Back in the 20th century, almost
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  every university and college had an archery program because thing
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  you could do to provide women with physical education.
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  Whether that was a valid concept could be debated if that was the
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  case. So anyway, I signed up for the
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  archery class thinking now I'll learn how to shoot.
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  Well, the instructor was AG basketball coach, so he didn't
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  know how and they didn't teach us anything about shooting.
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  And I still couldn't get anything.
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  So accelerate the story. I I was married till I was about
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  30. Then I got divorced and I
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  started deer hunting because I lived in an area where there
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  were deer all over the place. And when you see them all over
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  the place in a rural area, the idea of hunting them becomes
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  much more of a possibility. So I started hunting and with
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  very quickly I shot a deer. And I knew a guy who went to
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  Ontario and he said he told me he went up Hwy. 69, Ontario from
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  Toronto to Sudbury. And then he went down there
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  towards Colony Provincial Park. And he said there are a bunch of
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  walking roads in there. You can buy a hunting license
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  for $25 at a gas station, and you could go down that road and
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  it's all public land, Crown land, they call it, and you can
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  hunt bears. So I thought, wow, this is a
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  great idea. So next thing you know, I went
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  up there and spent a week and when I began, when you bear
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  hunters in Ontario who killed bears use bait because the train
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  is so flat and so dense, you know, you can't see any
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  particular distance like you can in the West, for example.
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  So they have to use bait. Yet when I went up there, I
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  thought I could walk around with a gun like I deer hunt and spot
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  a bear. And I spent three weeks doing
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  that with only catching a glimpse of a bear.
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  But the operative detail about this regarding the story is I
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  was hunting in the spring and hunting in the spring all by
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  myself for days at a time was a much more enjoyable, satisfying
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  experience compared to deer hunting with a gun in Ohio,
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  because you only have a couple of days to do it.
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  You're you're hunting with a gun in Ohio.
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  There's people all over the place.
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  You have to be careful. You don't shoot somebody else.
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  You got to watch out somebody just to shoot you.
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  And that experience in Canada was nothing like that.
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  And I quickly hit me that if I became a bowhunter, the the bee
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  bow hunting season in Ohio would be run from the beginning of
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  October to the end of January and I could duplicate that
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  Canadian experience if I became a bow hunter.
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  So now all of a sudden archery didn't seem so stupid.
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  So to speak up the story. I got a couple used bows and I
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  had got a compound and I got recurved and within a couple
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  years I shot a really nice deer. And by that time I had become
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  interested in wooden bows because I read a magazine
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  article written by a guy who haunted in Michigan with wooden
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  bows in the 30s. And it wasn't until I read that
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  article that I gave any thought to the question of what archery
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  gear was made from. Throughout most the history.
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  It's just something I never even thought about.
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  But now that I had glow, now that I had bows, excuse me, to
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  use fiberglass, and understood that at one time there was
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  nothing but wood, well, that was like the end to me.
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  I just had to find out everything I could about that,
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  and that's what started the whole process.
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  I hope that wasn't too boring a story.
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  Not at all, not at all. I love hearing the genesis of
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  the artery path. And then how long did it take
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  you before you started to make them?
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  I started bow hunting in 1983 and I started making wooden bows
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  in 1984. It was like almost instantly.
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  And I figured it wouldn't take long.
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  And I read I got a copy of copy of Hunting with a Bow and Arrow
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  by Saxton and Pope. Yep.
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  And that got me started and I was able to make small ones, you
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  know, perhaps Plains Indian Link, you know, about 3 or 2 1/2
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  or 3 feet long. Yeah.
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  But if I tried to make anything big or broke on me.
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  And then I got a book written in 1954 by a guy named Tracy
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  Stalker. And he was a long time writer
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  for archery magazines back in that era, dating back to the
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  1930s. And he told about, you know,
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  using a till ring string and a till ring board to test the
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  curve before you string it. And once I, once I knew that,
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  then I was making man sized bows that pulled 50 lbs.
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  And I fortunately there was a couple years previous, actually
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  maybe a year previous wasn't a couple years previous.
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  I there was a archery shop on the edge of Columbus, OH, in a
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  town called Westerville. And I would go to there all the
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  time. Look around.
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  That's where I bought one of my Recurs.
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  I became friendly with one of the guys who worked there and he
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  had made a U bow. And I went in there once and he
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  was twisting A Flemish string. And I said, they don't sit, sat
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  down and watched him do it. And that was an incredible
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  stroke of luck because I couldn't have done anything with
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  archery if I didn't know how to make a string.
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  And watching somebody do it, you know you get it just like that.
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  And trying to figure it out from a book can be much more
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  confusing. Yeah.
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  And to back up a bit, you, I think you mentioned newspapers
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  that that was your part of your career.
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  Yeah, my my entire career has been in newspapers.
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  I got a journalism degree in college and the fact that I work
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  for newspapers and have a journalism degree had a great
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  deal. Obviously if or maybe maybe it's
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  not obvious, but it certainly had a great deal to do with me
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  right in the fence stick and it was always my intention to keep
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  working and never retire because I loved working in newspapers.
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  I should point out the journalism in these days is
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  often considered to be highly partisan and not objective.
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  And in some, in many instances, that's a true criticism.
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  But back when I got into it, there were a lot of newspapers
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  in that were locally owned in small towns and all across
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  America. And that sort of political
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  polarization that is so often seen today really didn't exist
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  back then. You focused on what was
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  happening in your community and you wrote about that and it made
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  a difference in having drills like that in a town.
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  It made a difference. I could see that because there
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  were people and that people, for example, who would get in public
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  office and if you quoted all the four things they said in the
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  newspaper, the voters would figure out what's, what's going
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  on about these guys out. And I love The Newsroom
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  environment because you're working with a bunch of other
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  people. I've, I've worked in factories
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  before. I worked in two different
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  factories and working in a newspaper was much more
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  enjoyable. But anyway, my point is, I never
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  intended to retire. I intended to die at my desk.
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  But the Internet fixed that because the Internet, many, many
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  small newspapers would be forced to close.
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  Yeah, the Internet is really a done a job on print.
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  And Even so, I was able to keep writing for a newspaper as a
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  stranger because I got laid off from them.
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  There's a full timer, but I was able to keep writing for a
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  newspaper as a Springer until January 2023.
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  And the company that owned them closed them down because, you
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  know, they couldn't make money anymore.
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  People bought newspapers back in the old days because they want
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  to know what was on the movies. They wanted to sell stuff
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  through and buy stuff through the the classified as they
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  wanted to know what was on sale at the grocery store.
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  They didn't really buy just for the news.
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  But we take away all those economic factors.
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  That's what kept newspapers from making any money, and they all
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  went down the drain. And nobody, yeah, out of saying
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  anybody, could have done to stop it either.
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  Yeah. So you must have known from an
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  early age that you wanted to write professionally if you did
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  a journalism degree. That's not true.
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  What then, was your inspiration for doing a journalism degree?
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  Basically the deal is I was, I was told in high school by
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  teachers, boy, you write pretty good.
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  And then a couple of them told me that.
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  And then before I, when I got into college, I didn't pick, I
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  didn't pick a major until the end of my sophomore year.
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  And professors had told me, you know, again, you write pretty
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  good. So that's why I finally made a
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  choice to go into it, to go into it.
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  And I, I certainly don't regret it.
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  I mean, despite the fact it was never a high paying proposition
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  and despite the fact that the Internet destroyed it and you
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  know, despite all those things, to me, it was a vote.
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  It was a, it was a an adventurous profession because I
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  did all sorts of things and saw all sorts of things, some of
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  them very unpleasant, that I would not have experienced and I
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  was happy to experience those things.
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  Yeah. Was there a particular line of
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  topic that you would normally write about or was it all?
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  About local government was always really big.
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  We would always, you know, report everything that local
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  government was doing. OK.
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  And, and many of the things local government do would touch
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  the life of every citizen taxpayer.
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  If there's a taxes are going to go up, the local government's
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  going to do that. If they're going to widen the
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  street, the local government's going to do that.
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  There's going to be a giant housing development coming in.
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  They got local government has to approve that.
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  So all those things have a direct bearing on the lives of
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  the citizens. And then how long?
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  When when did the bent stick come along, and how did that
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  idea begin? You people speak of the
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  resurgence of self burgery wooden bows that that is a fact
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  that has researched it was but the timeline real quick is that
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  5 the fiberglass that is used in bows today that is so ubiquitous
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  and so important for bows like compounds for example, was not
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  used in archery until after World War 2 up until World War
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  2, the use of that kind of use of that kind of synthetic stuff
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  in archery equipment did not exist anywhere.
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  Now, that wasn't all that terribly long ago.
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  And in the 20th, going back to the 1800s, if you were in the
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  United States, you could buy archery gear from Great Britain,
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  from the United Kingdom, because there were many professional
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  operations that were making and selling the stuff.
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  And there's a guy named Robert Elmer who wrote several Orchard
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  books in the 20th century. He drew a story of one of his
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  chapters dealt with this group called the United Woman in
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  Philadelphia who bought a Longbow arrows and instructions
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  for using the stuff in about 1818, though so so wooden bows
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  had existed for a very long time.
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  And there was also a big particularly in the 20s and 30s,
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  there was particularly a big industry and selling bow wood.
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  They would sell age and you, which we all know and love
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  today. And another thing it was a very
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  big commodity was what they called lemon wood, which is
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  which is actually a tree called Dagame.
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  It's spelled DAG AM EI believe from Cuba.
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  And that was a tropical wood grows year round.
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  So there's no visible rings. You know, you didn't have to
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  worry about the grain so much and huge amounts of that stuff
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  was sold for bows in 1920s, thirties and 40s.
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  You could find a lemon wood stave for advertise for sale
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  either in a magazine or catalog for $1.00.
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  Wow. So that's that.
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  So then fiberglass comes along and the transition from wood to
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  fiberglass probably went up to about the early 50s, but I would
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  say from about 561956 onward, fiberglass monopolized
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  everything. So they're like, So now we come
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  to the 1980s and nobody has been talking about writing about
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  wooden bows in the outdoors scene for a long time.
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  And then there was a guy you probably heard of, Jay Massey.
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  And up until 1987, Jay Massey was a well known bow hunter and
• 19:19
  an arch and outdoor writer. And in 1987 he wrote a book
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  called The Buggers Craft. In that book he talked about
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  making bows out of you and Osage orange and back with sinew.
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  And that when he the day that book came out, it was sort of
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  like pulling the plug on a dam because there were a number of
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  us, including me, a number of other people who were deep in
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  the wooden bows up to our ears before then.
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  And we didn't know anybody else in the country gave a damn.
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  And then we found out that Jay Massey did.
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  And as a consequence of this, to speed up the story of much of us
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  who were involved with it became began to interact with each
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  other. And people wrote books in
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  response to the fact that Jay Massey wrote one because of Jay
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  Massey wrote one. This means people care.
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  And if people care, I know a bunch, I know a bunch of stuff
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  that I've been messing with and that would be interesting.
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  So I bet I could would sell a book if I wrote 1.
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  So I wrote one in direct response to the fact that Jay
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  Massey wrote 1. Jay Massey started everything
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  single handedly just like that, which which is not something a
• 20:37
  guy like me could have done. And so anyway, up until that
• 20:40
  time, I had been using up until that time because of the
• 20:45
  tradition I described previously of the bowood industry that
• 20:50
  existed before people said you either had to have you or Osage
• 20:54
  have a good bow. Lemon wood, because it was came
• 20:57
  from Cuba, was no longer being supplied anymore because
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  obviously for, you know, they had a government down there that
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  United States and like, so there's no trade between Cuba
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  and United States. So women wood was gone.
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  So there was no need for anybody to write about the so-called
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  white wood bows during the flowering of the wooden boat era
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  because you didn't need to. There's plenty of wood.
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  But by the 1980s that that industry that supplied that
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  wood, the longer existed. And I had seen and I had read
• 21:34
  everything I could about primitive archery.
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  So I read, I was able to read quite a bit, not in the great
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  detail, but a bit a substantive bit about what the Native
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  Americans did and they used any tree they could get their hands
• 21:50
  on and they used a wide flat design, which is certainly what
• 21:54
  not. That's not what Zach the Pope
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  did. He used the English Longbow with
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  a rounded bell in the narrow limbs.
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  So I've I was mainly my motivation for getting involved
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  in those kind of the woods was selfish because I thought I
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  can't get enough. I was Asian you to make a bunch
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  of bows, but if I do what the Indians did, just use common
• 22:14
  trees, then I can have all the wood I need.
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  I mean, it didn't really hit me and it had much of an effect on
• 22:22
  anybody else. And that's what motivated me and
• 22:25
  the start to get involved with those woods.
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  There were people, there were people, some people at the time
• 22:31
  who were making bows out bows out of those common trees.
• 22:35
  But there was a guy named Dave Kissinger, for example.
• 22:38
  I bought a piece of you from him back in the very early 80s and
• 22:44
  that the bows he made were sinewed and I began very, I used
• 22:49
  to, I put sinew a lot of bows too at the beginning.
• 22:52
  And then I began to make, you know, longer straight when bows
• 22:56
  emulating look the guys in the 1920s and 30s were shooting and
• 23:00
  hunting with. And I began to use less and less
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  sinew and I hit, and that's when I started making the whitewood
• 23:11
  bow limbs wider, which was the step to making them equal.
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  That kind of performance you could get from Osage and you.
• 23:21
  Right. OK, I want to come back to the
• 23:23
  bent stick. Beforehand, I'll tell you my
• 23:27
  story of lemon wood and I apologize the listeners have
• 23:29
  already heard this because I have told it on here before.
• 23:31
  But when I moved to Costa Rica, I was looking for some bow woods
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  that were local and I knew lemon wood was at one time a good beau
• 23:42
  wood. So I was on the search for it.
• 23:43
  It's the national tree of Nicaragua and I know it grows in
• 23:49
  Costa Rica as well. And so I asked around different
• 23:53
  lumber yards, different friends, you know about it, who grew up
• 23:55
  there and no one really. I had one friend who told me I
• 23:58
  could go into the mountains and get some lemon wood but I didn't
• 24:02
  really know where or or how to do that.
• 24:05
  But anyway about two months ago I was leaving my home there to
• 24:09
  come back to Canada and my builder was at my property
• 24:14
  because he's building me a Beau carving studio and he had just
• 24:18
  cleared the land with his excavator.
• 24:20
  And we were talking about how it was going to happen and what
• 24:24
  trees he needed to take down. And I didn't want any taken
• 24:27
  down, but we were just looking at the various trees.
• 24:29
  And I pointed to one in particular that was nearby the
• 24:32
  build site. And it has a driftwood swing
• 24:34
  hanging from it. And this is right on the edge of
• 24:36
  my archery range where I teach archery.
• 24:38
  And a lot of my students will sit on this driftwood swing and
• 24:42
  watch their friends shoot archery while I'm teaching them.
• 24:45
  And his girlfriend was there, and she is from Costa Rica.
• 24:50
  And we were just talking about the various trees.
• 24:52
  And I just asked her kind of casually, oh, what kind of tree
• 24:55
  is this anyway? And she said, oh that's the
• 24:57
  gummy, that's a lemon wood tree. And so it turns out I have like
• 25:02
  5 or 6 lemon wood trees on my backyard that are on both sides
• 25:06
  of my archery range. And I've been searching for like
• 25:08
  4 years for lemon wood trees and I never knew where to find them
• 25:11
  and now I have them. Have you you have plans to take
• 25:15
  to take them down and work with them I.
• 25:17
  Don't think I'm going to take these down.
• 25:19
  I don't have enough and I'll I'll look at them more closely.
• 25:23
  It was literally my last day there before I came back to
• 25:25
  Canada. So when I go back after this
• 25:28
  trip, I will look at them more closely and see if there's
• 25:31
  anything that can come off of them.
• 25:32
  That maybe could be a bow, but I don't think I want to take down
• 25:36
  the whole trees. But we'll see.
• 25:37
  At least now I know how to identify them, and I'll be
• 25:40
  better prepared to find them. I was fortunate enough by
• 25:45
  various means to obtain 3 pieces of lemon wood back in the 80s
• 25:52
  and well, I should have done was just save them for later because
• 25:58
  I two of them I made I I screwed them up.
• 26:01
  I made them in the bows that I bungled.
• 26:04
  I botched them. So you know, they so they they
• 26:09
  didn't last and the and the third one I made into a a bow
• 26:15
  that wasn't too bad. One thing about the Dami I have
• 26:20
  read is that you can't bend it by steaming.
• 26:25
  And so you're that means you're sort of stuck with whatever
• 26:28
  could, you know, condition that the stave is in.
• 26:32
  And I have steamed lots and lots of of wood, especially Osage,
• 26:39
  because if you can, maybe you know this, if you can find a
• 26:43
  piece of Osage that's long enough and clear enough to do
• 26:46
  something with, you know, it behooves you to take advantage
• 26:52
  of it if you can. In other words, if you want to
• 26:54
  find perfect dosage all the time, you're going to have to
• 26:57
  look kind of hard, depending on the circumstances to find any.
• 27:02
  But if you. But if you work with what is
• 27:04
  standing there, you can get it to work if you do things like
• 27:08
  steaming. Yeah.
• 27:10
  So that's the only disadvantage to lemon wood that to lemon wood
• 27:14
  that I know of. Do you think that's actual?
• 27:18
  Is that factual or was that just someone's opinion?
• 27:20
  Have you tried steaming it? I, I, I have made it my business
• 27:24
  to attempt to read everything that was ever written about
• 27:31
  wooden bows and primitive archery in the English language.
• 27:35
  So, so I read AI read a book about I've read that in a book,
• 27:39
  by the way, and I, I may have tested, I may have cut us.
• 27:45
  I may have cut a small piece and tested it because I did back in
• 27:49
  the old days and even today to understand I would do tests on
• 27:54
  everything. You know thing you know, the
• 27:58
  most common test I would do would be to cut a small piece
• 28:03
  and subject it to certain try to how what I would talk what I
• 28:09
  would do. For example, here's an example
• 28:11
  Mulberry. When I got Mulberry, I thought,
• 28:13
  do I need to put the leave the sapwood on or take it off?
• 28:18
  So I cut a thin slat. There was hardwood and sapwood
• 28:20
  and I thought I'm going to then it till I break it.
• 28:23
  And if the sapwood breaks and the hardwood doesn't break, that
• 28:26
  means take off sapwood. If it breaks cleanly all the
• 28:29
  quarter through, I figured that then you could leave the sapwood
• 28:33
  on. Well, what happened was the
• 28:35
  sapwood broke and heartwood did not.
• 28:38
  So that led me to leave to remove the sapwood from
• 28:41
  Mulberry. And that's just one example of
• 28:43
  the many, many experiments I've done.
• 28:47
  And by the way, there's a, there's a website
• 28:50
  calledarcherylibrary.com. And on that website are a
• 28:58
  number, I don't know, maybe 20 books about wooden bows from the
• 29:04
  wooden bow era. They've been reproduced on their
• 29:07
  their copy. Why this expired?
• 29:09
  Of course, you can read Horace Ford's book on that website.
• 29:12
  You can read Hunting with the Bow and Arrow on that website.
• 29:15
  For example, the Stemware Archery Company had a book when
• 29:20
  they were doing exclusively for bows, and that's on that
• 29:22
  website. So that's a very good resource
• 29:25
  for anybody who's interested in that kind of stuff.
• 29:29
  OK. Thanks for sharing that.
• 29:31
  So back to the Bent stick, how did you get that publication and
• 29:34
  market? Oh boy.
• 29:40
  We were at the newspaper I was at at the time we had been using
• 29:47
  what was the sort of a primitive kind of mainframe computer in
• 29:51
  which there was a in which there were does this.
• 29:55
  There was a big machine and a room that we had to be air
• 29:58
  conditioned and the disk that had all the data in around that.
• 30:03
  And the computers would, would have a, there was a universal, a
• 30:08
  depository for all the stories. In other words, they, all the
• 30:12
  stories went into a queue and anybody could go into that queue
• 30:15
  and open it up, any story and read it.
• 30:17
  And then we switched to Macintoshes.
• 30:21
  Now Macintoshes use a folder system and you had a hard drive
• 30:26
  on your Macintosh and you could put stuff in folders in a hard
• 30:33
  drive on your Macintosh. This meant nobody else could see
• 30:38
  what was on your machine unless they sat down in your machine.
• 30:42
  And if you put it in a folder inside a folder inside a folder,
• 30:46
  no one would know what the hell you were doing.
• 30:49
  And then it hit me. I could write a book on this
• 30:52
  thing and no one would know what the hell I'm doing.
• 30:56
  And I thought, I'll do it. I'll do a book.
• 30:59
  I'll do a book on these bows in this wood stuff I was messing
• 31:03
  with. So I made that decision.
• 31:05
  I decided I needed to test a number of woods that I had not
• 31:11
  worked with before. So I ended up testing 10
• 31:14
  different woods and I can name them for you 8, two lemon wood,
• 31:18
  ash, Mulberry, black locust, Birch, Elm, black walnut and
• 31:22
  Hickory. So I may pose out of all those
• 31:25
  woods and test them and I flight shot him, you know, to see how
• 31:29
  far they would shoot. And then I wrote that book at
• 31:32
  night on that Macintosh and I was and I was able to format it
• 31:37
  and so that it would come out in three columns on a piece of
• 31:41
  regular typewriting size paper. So I printed everything out and
• 31:46
  I had a big stack of sheets of paper with all the pages on it.
• 31:52
  And I went to a print shop and and said what would it charge
• 31:59
  you? What would you charge me around
• 32:01
  3:30 copies of this thing. So I ran 3 copies and they were
• 32:05
  all printed just on one side on the paper.
• 32:08
  So I got some heavy cardboard that would, I guess I got a
• 32:13
  state board that would save the whole works together.
• 32:15
  I have, I got some heavy paper. It was very, it wasn't really
• 32:19
  cardboard, it was just heavy, you know, like the kind of
• 32:22
  greeting stock paper, that kind of thickness.
• 32:26
  And I put white covers on the back and front, stapled them all
• 32:29
  together. I bought a ink stamp that said
• 32:32
  the bent stick and I would stamp that on the front.
• 32:36
  And I ran had advertisement, A classified advertisement in
• 32:39
  traditional Bow Hunter magazine. It cost me about $45.00.
• 32:45
  So I had spent less than $100, and I had produced a book.
• 32:52
  I had copies for sale, and I launched a national advertising
• 32:56
  campaign of less than $100. And the first year it was out,
• 33:05
  it didn't sell that many copies, about 50.
• 33:07
  But in the year after that, in 1990, that's when it really
• 33:11
  begins to sell. Wow.
• 33:13
  And part of the reason for that was that, you know, I became and
• 33:18
  I came in touch with other guys who are making, you know, wooden
• 33:24
  bows. The 11 of the guys who was very
• 33:27
  prominent in the brothers Bibles was Tim Baker.
• 33:31
  Yeah. Tim Baker, he discovered me
• 33:36
  almost instantly after, you know, they've been Stick came
• 33:40
  out and he started writing me letters and we would argue
• 33:43
  through letters and over the phone.
• 33:46
  And he began, you know, working with white woods like I was.
• 33:51
  And he instantly became converted.
• 33:52
  Because if you, if you take several modest precautions, you
• 33:59
  know, you can make a good white wood bow without really ruining
• 34:02
  the thing. And it'll shoot like a it'll
• 34:05
  shoot like hell, man. It'll, it'll, it'll really throw
• 34:08
  an arrow. So he made it his business to be
• 34:14
  in touch with a bunch of other people making good bows.
• 34:17
  He was in touch with Jay Massey, he was in touch with with Jim
• 34:21
  Ham and and Al here and guys like that.
• 34:26
  And so there became this little sort of mini semi official
• 34:33
  community that, you know, formed.
• 34:36
  Then we all met at a Great Lakes Longbow Invitational in
• 34:39
  Michigan. Most of us did anyway.
• 34:42
  So a number of us did. And that's where Ham got the
• 34:45
  idea to do the voters Bibles. OK.
• 34:50
  And of course, when you get invited to do that, it was like
• 34:53
  the godfather. You can't say no to to an idea
• 34:57
  like that. I mean, you'd be an idiot that
• 35:00
  turns out a chance to participate in something like
• 35:03
  that. So we all said, yeah, we only
• 35:05
  got involved. Oh.
• 35:06
  That's incredible. So before we get into the Bow
• 35:08
  Years Bible, the future editions of the Ben Stick or those have
• 35:12
  made in your kitchen or did you get those published?
• 35:16
  There the bed stick as I speak is still selling in its physical
• 35:22
  form. However, it's day is
• 35:24
  unfortunately our number because I can't find a printer the the
• 35:31
  the company. I have had several.
• 35:33
  I've had three or four different people print that for me over
• 35:36
  the decades. They're all none of them are
• 35:39
  still in business. The company that printed for me
• 35:42
  most recently had offices in a number of towns in West Virginia
• 35:49
  and Ohio, and they were a big operation and they just flat
• 35:55
  disappeared from the face of the earth.
• 35:56
  They're gone. And I can't find anybody to
• 36:00
  print it in the format that it had been sold in most recently.
• 36:03
  And I should point out, of course, I ended up getting
• 36:06
  professional press runs printed on both sides of paper with a,
• 36:10
  with a good cover, you know, stapled on the in between the
• 36:15
  pages. You know, that ramshackle
• 36:18
  stapled together myself and didn't last very long.
• 36:21
  But, but I can't, I cannot get the thing printed anymore.
• 36:25
  So I'm kind of, I'm sort of, I've been thinking about what to
• 36:31
  do about that. And one of the options is to do
• 36:33
  nothing. It might be that the bid stick
• 36:35
  has served its purpose. It certainly took on a life
• 36:40
  bigger and more significant than anything else I could kind of
• 36:44
  personally do. I mean, it's, it's, I mean, I, I
• 36:50
  mean, as a bitter stick was a big success.
• 36:52
  I really can't take the people who made a big success were the
• 36:55
  people that bought it and, and, and use what they read to get
• 37:02
  started making stuff that that's the success of this thing.
• 37:06
  And they're, they are responsible for its success.
• 37:10
  You know, it wasn't, you know, I was just like, it's just the
• 37:13
  incidental part of the whole deal.
• 37:15
  I mean, certainly there are God ward knows how many videos on
• 37:22
  YouTube about how to make a bow. Yeah.
• 37:24
  And one thing I will say about based on everything I can see, I
• 37:29
  would say 80 or 90% at least of all people who try to make a
• 37:33
  wooden bow succeed, they make a wooden bow.
• 37:37
  Compare that to 90% of the people who try to learn guitar
• 37:40
  and they quit guitar playing. Guitar playing has a 10% success
• 37:46
  rate. But when Bose have like a 90%
• 37:48
  success rate. So I'm not sure if you know if
• 37:52
  the need for the bin stick is what it was for a long time.
• 37:56
  And I would further say that I'll bet there are a bunch of
• 38:01
  people who have made nice wide limb longbows out of the Hickory
• 38:08
  and ash and Elm that never heard of Ben Stick, never heard of
• 38:13
  Volcano's Dog. They have the Uncle Jack that
• 38:16
  lives down the road and Jack told them how to do it and they
• 38:20
  think it was all Jack's idea. Now that sounded to me when I
• 38:25
  was When my daughter was little, I would sit and play on the
• 38:29
  guitar at the opening of Over the Hills and Far Away by Led
• 38:33
  Zeppelin. OK.
• 38:35
  And I never told her it was Led Zeppelin.
• 38:36
  I was just playing it. And then when she gets to be a
• 38:39
  teenager, she hears on the Led Zeppelin song from the radio and
• 38:42
  thinks they stole my dad's song. And she had a buddy who had the
• 38:49
  same experience. Her dad would sing Elvis songs.
• 38:52
  And when she first heard an Elvis song on the radio, she
• 38:54
  thought someone had stolen one of her dad's songs.
• 38:57
  The ownership of these kinds of things.
• 38:59
  As time goes by, and it's certainly been decades since the
• 39:03
  midst it came out, ownership of these kinds of things gets kind
• 39:07
  of fuzzy after a while. Yeah.
• 39:10
  Well, certainly in the age of self-publishing, you could find
• 39:14
  there, there's thousands of printers out there that could
• 39:16
  bring it back if you wanted to. But.
• 39:18
  I, I can't, I can't. Well, I mean, I would have to do
• 39:22
  the way I worked in the past was I would give APDF or heart or
• 39:28
  physical copies of the pages to the printer and they tell them
• 39:33
  to run me off a batch and they'd run me off a batch.
• 39:37
  So I'd have to find some alternative to that.
• 39:40
  It had to be like some kind of a print on demand kind of well.
• 39:43
  That's it. Yeah, there's lots of those.
• 39:44
  And not to not to promote Amazon, but I think Amazon has
• 39:48
  print on demand. And then when you and if we do
• 39:50
  that, then our next question is what did you is going to sell
• 39:54
  it? Amazon today, in my opinion is
• 40:02
  not the good option. It used to be for several
• 40:05
  different reasons, one of which is it used to be that anybody
• 40:10
  could sell anything on Amazon just by creating a listing.
• 40:15
  I'm not sure they let just anybody do that anymore.
• 40:18
  I think you have to go through some process, become a seller.
• 40:22
  And another thing is one of the things that really infuriated me
• 40:25
  was they. Made a requirement to get a
• 40:30
  tracking number on everything that goes out, yet that there's
• 40:35
  a glitch that I experienced with that when it comes to foreign
• 40:39
  sales. If you get a tracking number
• 40:44
  that will track a book shipment all the way to Europe, the cost
• 40:52
  of that tracking number is going to be more than what the book
• 40:54
  cost. If you get a tracking number
• 40:59
  that's only good for the USA, it's it's, it's pointless to be
• 41:06
  doing that for somebody in Europe.
• 41:11
  I would have, I sold a lot of copies, you know, to people, to
• 41:17
  people in Europe. And but then eventually about 20
• 41:23
  some odd years ago, there's an outfit called Verlag, Angelica
• 41:28
  Horning. And Verlag is German for
• 41:30
  publishing that. So that means Angelica Horning
• 41:33
  Publishing. She publishes a bunch of stuff
• 41:36
  in Germany and the German language.
• 41:39
  She reproduced all the billiards Bibles in German.
• 41:43
  Of course, in Europe, a lot of people in other countries should
• 41:46
  read German too. So it has an influence just
• 41:48
  beyond Germany. So 20 some odd years ago, they
• 41:52
  came to me and wanted to do the bin stick in German and I said,
• 41:56
  OK, so it's available over there to still selling.
• 42:03
  It would be my friend under these circumstances.
• 42:04
  I say all this because under these circumstances, if I did an
• 42:07
  English bin stick, I'd prefer just to sell in the United
• 42:10
  States, but I don't have any. I don't know how to market that
• 42:14
  if I did. And so that's so that's the
• 42:17
  whole story. It's yeah, like I said.
• 42:20
  And another thing is I do provide copies to Three Rumors
• 42:25
  Archery. You know all about them, I'm
• 42:27
  sure. And I have enough physical
• 42:28
  copies left to make one more shipment to the volume in which
• 42:33
  they current, which they normally buy.
• 42:36
  They normally buy about 20 copies.
• 42:38
  I got about enough copies of physical copies left to cover
• 42:41
  one more order like that, and then that's done.
• 42:46
  Do you still have an original one of those original 30s?
• 42:52
  The man, the original copies of the Oh yeah, yeah, Actually,
• 42:56
  this is this is kind of stupid. I sent one of my mom.
• 43:00
  That's great. And later when my mother
• 43:03
  tragically died, my uncle gave me a bunch of stuff that she of
• 43:08
  her list. It was photographs and by God,
• 43:11
  that one of that copy of that one of the first copies of the
• 43:14
  mid stick. Yeah, with the rubber with the
• 43:17
  egg step on the front with with in there.
• 43:19
  So yeah. So yeah, I, I, I have AI have
• 43:23
  one of the original 3 just for that reason.
• 43:26
  That's awesome. What a story.
• 43:29
  And then the Bowyers Bible came along and I mean, what a what a
• 43:33
  force that has been in the primitive bow Renaissance
• 43:36
  movement. Yeah, that, yeah, the Bowyers
• 43:38
  Bible's pretty Bible's pretty cool.
• 43:40
  Hang on a SEC. And that first one.
• 43:45
  Tim Baker, as you well know, had a long list of woods with all
• 43:52
  sorts of data on the elasticity of all these different species
• 43:58
  and other details that he got from the US Forestry Service
• 44:03
  before him came up with the idea for the Buddhist Bible.
• 44:09
  Baker was telling me about pestering some guy at the
• 44:14
  Forestry Service and getting this information.
• 44:17
  And I was, I was kind of like I, I could have asked him how did
• 44:22
  you even know that stuff existed?
• 44:24
  Because I certainly had no idea it existed, but it did.
• 44:28
  And he was getting that kind of stuff.
• 44:31
  And he was telling me that I should get all that information
• 44:37
  from Pilot into a big long list as a reference.
• 44:42
  And at the time, I was working in newspapers.
• 44:44
  And at the time, Baker was his income was coming from property
• 44:50
  management. I think it's a good way to
• 44:52
  describe it. So he didn't have a nine to five
• 44:54
  job. And I said, you're the one with
• 44:57
  all the time, why don't you do it?
• 45:01
  And that is what appears in that chapter that he did in the
• 45:05
  first, you know, Bringer's Bible that had all that information in
• 45:07
  it. Yeah, another.
• 45:11
  And there were, you know, and of course the chapter I wrote, I
• 45:19
  had. There's a picture in there of
• 45:22
  one of my wide wind white wood bows on a bow rack.
• 45:26
  And it's just like strays of needle, no string follow.
• 45:29
  And then there's a couple other more routine bows.
• 45:32
  I called them both on the raft. They're droopy with string
• 45:35
  follow. So that photo shows if you just
• 45:40
  make a bow in the old way, it's going to have a lot of string
• 45:43
  fall like these two. But if you make it the way I'm
• 45:45
  telling you, it'll be really straight with very little string
• 45:49
  fall like the bow at the top of the photo and I'll shoot like a
• 45:53
  maniac. And I think that photo probably
• 45:57
  did more just cement whatever reputation I had than the best
• 46:01
  it probably did because that was a pretty.
• 46:04
  But, you know, what if I didn't say so there were other people
• 46:07
  that wrote great chapters and they'll, you know, Fred Asbel
• 46:11
  wrote, he's a famous bow hunter, very famous bow hunter, very
• 46:15
  famous about shooting distinctively.
• 46:18
  And sadly, he's no longer with us.
• 46:21
  And he wrote a chapter comparing, you know, the
• 46:24
  differences between, you know, in essence, he was kind of
• 46:28
  comparing the difference between shooting a wooden bow made the
• 46:32
  old way with the fiberglass lamb nude bow.
• 46:35
  And he he did a good job well on what he said.
• 46:40
  Well, that are in that column was dead on.
• 46:44
  And I recommend that you know for meant for anybody who hasn't
• 46:47
  read it. And then you wrote in all four
• 46:51
  of the books. You're one of the few that has
• 46:53
  featured in all four. Of the books, yeah.
• 46:54
  Is that wrote in all? All four, Me, Baker and Ham?
• 46:58
  Yeah, Massey wrote in the first 3, but then he tragically was
• 47:04
  taken from this before the 4th one came out.
• 47:06
  Oh really. And the the chapter I wrote and
• 47:10
  the fourth one was, was Jay had written sort for each of the
• 47:16
  other three. I believe he had written sort of
• 47:18
  a philosophical sort of chapter to introduce them.
• 47:23
  He certainly did with the first one.
• 47:25
  And well, so I wrote the intro for the 4th 1 and I kind of
• 47:29
  emulated him and made it a tribute to him because he
• 47:34
  really, I mean, I mean, I mean, he really was like, man who did
• 47:39
  it? I mean, anybody who is having a
• 47:42
  lot of fun with wooden bows, you know, Jay Massey made it
• 47:48
  possible. It's he made it possible.
• 47:50
  Is that it's that simple? I mean, he did it like, like I
• 47:55
  said, like throwing a light switch.
• 47:58
  The day that the book came out, everything changed.
• 48:04
  So what was the process for the Moyer's Bibles?
• 48:07
  Did you guys have like volume 1 and you you had all the concepts
• 48:11
  and then I was just divvying up who would write all the.
• 48:13
  Topics. The way it worked was that hang
• 48:16
  up, you know, either suggested that we write about something or
• 48:21
  asked us, asked us to write about something.
• 48:24
  Yeah, it was obvious that Baker would write about all that study
• 48:28
  he did on the characteristics of all the wood things.
• 48:35
  It it was obvious that I was going to write something about
• 48:37
  using the lightbow stuff and and all the other and all the
• 48:43
  chapters, you know, in the in the first one.
• 48:46
  Yeah, it was. I mean, if you look at the guy
• 48:48
  who wrote it, they read what they wrote.
• 48:51
  It's obvious why they wrote that those chapters.
• 48:55
  Yeah. And then they there another kind
• 49:01
  of semi amusing incident that came out of the Buddhist Bible
• 49:04
  was that when I first described making wide limbed white with
• 49:12
  bows, I compared it to a Neolithic bow that was found in
• 49:16
  Britain called the Mere Heath bow, which had really wide
• 49:19
  limbs. And for that reason, Ham or
• 49:24
  somebody got the idea that I should write a chapter on
• 49:27
  prehistoric European bows and I bought bought.
• 49:33
  I didn't want to I didn't want to do what I said.
• 49:36
  I really don't know anything about that stuff on him.
• 49:38
  And I got told Hammer Baker won't I said why don't you write
• 49:42
  it? I'm you don't much about this as
• 49:43
  I do, but they I was persuaded to write it now at that time.
• 49:49
  And this is, I believe, an interesting detail that might be
• 49:53
  substitute for somebody I knew somebody who was making bows out
• 49:58
  of saplings. In other words, small diameter
• 50:01
  wood, perhaps no more than two inches of diameter.
• 50:05
  And what they would do is they would split it right down the
• 50:07
  middle, take the bark off and they would make the inside of
• 50:13
  the wood, the back of the belly in the surface, the wood, the
• 50:18
  excuse me, they would make the inside wood the back of the bow
• 50:20
  facing the target. It would inside with the belly
• 50:23
  facing of the outside wood facing the Archer.
• 50:28
  So normally the outside of the tree faces the target.
• 50:32
  These sayings, the outside side of the tree face the archery.
• 50:37
  This worked because the cut through grain on the back was
• 50:40
  all straight lines parallel with the edges.
• 50:43
  Would when we cut through rings on the back.
• 50:47
  If they break and pull apart, it's because their tension is
• 50:50
  being polite, applied to the end of a section of the grain.
• 50:57
  That sort of opportunity for fracture does not exist on a bow
• 51:00
  that I'm describing. It's a backward bow.
• 51:03
  Yeah. So somebody got somebody, and
• 51:06
  somebody else was trying to tell me that the European home
• 51:09
  guards, which were made from Elm, were made that way.
• 51:13
  I was able to obtain some drawings of some artifacts,
• 51:16
  which I think came from a guy named Eric Callahan, who was
• 51:19
  also a very good guy, a very knowledgeable person about Flint
• 51:25
  knapping and wooden bows, and in fact was a college professor.
• 51:30
  And there wasn't anything I saw and those that contradicted this
• 51:32
  concept that the whole bars were backward.
• 51:36
  Well, when the book came out, a bunch of Europeans who really
• 51:39
  know what was going on yow, because I completely blew the
• 51:42
  call on that. No, they weren't made that way.
• 51:45
  So what happened was, is that the Angelica Horning that you
• 51:49
  previously was doing the burgers Bibles and they wanted to
• 51:52
  rewrite that chapter and Jim Ham just threw it in my lap.
• 51:58
  So as penance for the fact that I was foolishly beguiled into
• 52:04
  writing a chapter about something I didn't know enough
• 52:06
  about. Bye.
• 52:09
  I cooperated with the Germans and did everything they said and
• 52:12
  was a good boy and get a penny for doing it, then straighten it
• 52:17
  all out just for the record. And actually, I was happy to do
• 52:19
  that. Did you guys know heading into
• 52:22
  it that there were going to be multi volumes or did you just
• 52:24
  start out with a book? I, I, I have a feeling that we
• 52:31
  do that there. The idea was to be 3 originally.
• 52:35
  I think we'd do that. The 4th 1 was sort of a was it
• 52:40
  came out close to 10 years after the third one did.
• 52:48
  It was quite you know, it's been a time to went by, but that was
• 52:52
  a good book too. That's that's the 4th 1:00
• 52:54
  because like Steve Gardner wrote a chapter about how the mass of
• 53:01
  the bow effects its speed. The guy named Mark St.
• 53:06
  Lewis, I think that I have a chapter on heat treating, you
• 53:10
  know, white wood and and increasing, you know, it's a
• 53:17
  limb efficiency, you know, so it was, you know, it was, it was a
• 53:21
  valuable, it was a valuable volume to also, I mean.
• 53:26
  Yeah, are all of them still in print?
• 53:29
  I believe so, yeah. I believe the last time I looked
• 53:32
  on the on Amazon they were all still there.
• 53:36
  Nice. Do you know approximately how
• 53:38
  many books have sold? Of of the budget's Bible.
• 53:42
  Yeah. Lord, only those.
• 53:44
  Yeah. You know that I I was, I asked
• 53:47
  at the time the first one came out, I estimated that this
• 53:52
  pressure was going to cost him 20 thousands of dollars.
• 53:55
  Yeah. This was around 1994 and I told
• 54:00
  Baker I, I told Baker I told Baker about that and I think he
• 54:03
  usually told hands. Coslock thinks you might lose
• 54:07
  your shirt on this. Well, I don't, I'm not sure that
• 54:10
  was my prediction. I just knew that he was putting
• 54:13
  a lot of money into it. Like I hadn't been stick ready
• 54:17
  for sale and I spent less than 100 bucks.
• 54:20
  It's been 20,000 before he had he had any product to sell.
• 54:25
  But obviously it was a great success and I'm sure it was very
• 54:27
  profitable. Yeah, fantastic contribution.
• 54:31
  Like I said, a massive catalyst in the movement.
• 54:34
  So I think all all Boyers owe you a debt of gratitude for your
• 54:39
  contribution to those. Well, like I said, I'm sure by
• 54:44
  now there are a lot of people have no idea who I AM and that's
• 54:52
  why, because these things take a lot of life in the room.
• 54:55
  And that's the entire point. You know, that was the entire
• 54:58
  point. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 55:01
  Well. I was I was just carving with a
• 55:03
  Bowyer recently for Project Quiver and he mentioned
• 55:06
  something about a Comstock bow. Yeah, he's talking about that
• 55:10
  white wind, white wood. OK, so there you go.
• 55:13
  You you continue to be known your legend exists.
• 55:17
  Well, well, I assure you that I have a number of personal
• 55:21
  friends who will tell you emphatically that I'm just
• 55:25
  another idiot. Are you still carving, Paul?
• 55:33
  Am I still making bows? Oh, yeah.
• 55:35
  Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
• 55:36
  I'm working on Osage State now that is 25 years old and this
• 55:44
  thing. And have you ever, have you ever
• 55:47
  worked with Osage? It's about maybe a year.
• 55:49
  Year too old. I I did one with Waylon Olive
• 55:54
  back in June, May, June. I'm not sure how old that state
• 55:59
  was. That was the first Osage I've
• 56:00
  worked with. Did you use a drawing iPhone?
• 56:03
  Yeah. When you took the was it pretty
• 56:05
  easy to remove the sapwood? Yeah, it's being my first time.
• 56:11
  It didn't take nearly as long as I thought to chase a ring.
• 56:14
  Yeah. Well, this is also my experience
• 56:17
  with Osage that has been cut a year, a year to go maybe three
• 56:23
  years ago and that the wood well it makes a great bow in that
• 56:28
  condition. Once you get the moisture
• 56:29
  content down working the hardwoods fairly easy.
• 56:32
  You can get a lot done with a draw knife on it.
• 56:35
  And removing the SAP wood is also very easy.
• 56:40
  And if we're using a scraper, when we get down to that last
• 56:45
  bit of SAP wood on the hardwood, it'll it's a ring porous.
• 56:51
  So that last bit of sapwood as we scrape it off will often turn
• 56:56
  to powder under the screen, which is something basically
• 57:00
  Stalker that guy wrote in that book I mentioned in 1954.
• 57:05
  Well, this piece of Osage that is at least 25 years old is as
• 57:09
  hard as a rock and I can't do anything more than chip off
• 57:16
  little tiny bits with a draw knife on it.
• 57:20
  I can't really get a good bite. The sapwood is as hard and tough
• 57:29
  and tenacious as the heartwood. I'm going to have to leave some
• 57:34
  some streaks of sapwood, I believe, on the back because
• 57:39
  it's just so I have to be so aggressive to get it off.
• 57:42
  I don't want to dig down into the heartwood too much.
• 57:46
  I am and I one of the reasons I'm telling you the story is I
• 57:51
  am shocked that this thing is turning out to be such a pain in
• 57:54
  the neck and only be because it's 25 years old.
• 57:59
  It it maybe it's 30 years old. I cut it myself and it's just
• 58:02
  been laying around ever since then and it's crooked.
• 58:05
  So I had to steam in two or three different places, which is
• 58:08
  also a challenge. But there's always little
• 58:12
  surprises. I'll tell you another little
• 58:14
  surprise I had recently. I weigh out all my arrows on a
• 58:18
  green scale and I write the number of grains on the arrow.
• 58:21
  And I often paint my arrows light, which helps me to see
• 58:29
  them. You know, when I'm shooting
• 58:30
  them, you know, anytime. Then if I miss and they go
• 58:35
  somewhere, I just, I just do that to make them easier fine.
• 58:39
  And I recently put some enamel paint on arrows and after I put
• 58:46
  the pan on I weighed the begin and they gained 20 grains from
• 58:52
  being painted with noble paint. Oh wow.
• 58:55
  So then I grab another one and say what?
• 58:59
  I weighed them. I would weigh them as bare as
• 59:01
  finished arrows, but with no finish on them, no varnish, no
• 59:04
  nothing. So that's that.
• 59:05
  No lumber came from. So I went back and I I have some
• 59:09
  others that I painted with acrylic paint.
• 59:13
  They had gained 10 grains. So this is and I had no clue
• 59:18
  that them. I mean, I should have realized a
• 59:21
  plastic knock waste 15 greens. This paint has got to weigh
• 59:24
  something. Yeah, I was kind of shocked it
• 59:27
  added 20 greens some of the year.
• 59:32
  So with the Osage I've heard of people like digging up 100 year
• 59:35
  old fence posts and carving bows from those.
• 59:38
  Yeah, yeah. And.
• 59:40
  Waylon Olive actually has one of those 100 year old fence posts
• 59:43
  in his in his production. Advocated that in his book.
• 59:47
  He said an old Osage fence post, you know, is really is really
• 59:51
  good. And I know a guy who made a bow
• 59:56
  following that recommendation. He used to use an old Osage
• 59:59
  fence post and he send you it now.
• 1:00:01
  I don't know if being in the ground, you know, I always think
• 1:00:06
  it's very resistant to decay. Will sitting in the very well
• 1:00:12
  will standing in the ground. Sucking moisture up to the
• 1:00:15
  ground, up from the ground through the wood as a fence post
• 1:00:18
  wood. Yeah.
• 1:00:19
  Will that make the wood as hard and tenacious and belligerent as
• 1:00:27
  the stave I've got there was basically kept indoors for 25
• 1:00:33
  years? I don't know.
• 1:00:35
  Yeah. What are you doing with the bows
• 1:00:37
  that you carve now? Is it just for your own?
• 1:00:39
  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just for me, yeah.
• 1:00:42
  So you're enjoying the challenge.
• 1:00:44
  Yeah well, this this particular piece will allow me to make a
• 1:00:49
  single a single piece though 60 inches long.
• 1:00:54
  I never had a 68 inch Osage bow from the single piece most of it
• 1:01:04
  spliced at the handle that so that's so that's one of the
• 1:01:10
  reasons I want to do it. I probably should point out that
• 1:01:16
  most of the bows I've made in recent years have been peri
• 1:01:20
  reflex bows. And unfortunately, excuse me,
• 1:01:30
  unfortunately, I'm sorry. Unfortunately, there's been a
• 1:01:37
  lot of confusion about peri reflex bows, and that confusion
• 1:01:42
  began almost immediately after they were described in the third
• 1:01:49
  volume of the Buggers Bibles in 1994.
• 1:01:53
  Here's Here's what makes a pairing reflex bow a pairing
• 1:01:56
  reflex bow. The basic concept is you have a
• 1:02:01
  form or some way to bend a wooden staver board into reflex.
• 1:02:07
  You put a wooden backing on it like bamboo or Hickory.
• 1:02:13
  That doesn't make it very reflexible though.
• 1:02:17
  So you get a pair of reflex. You take those circumstances and
• 1:02:20
  you do a thickness taper of the belly wood before you glue it
• 1:02:24
  up. OK, so let's talk about the
• 1:02:27
  difference between the. There is the difference in
• 1:02:30
  results between the two approaches.
• 1:02:33
  If you have a board of uniform thickness and you glue it to a
• 1:02:39
  wooden backing reflex on form, then you take it off and finish
• 1:02:43
  the bow. It will be full.
• 1:02:45
  It will behave like any other wooden bow with that initial
• 1:02:48
  round of reflex. If on by comparison, you do the
• 1:02:52
  same thing and you taper that, you do a thickness taper of the
• 1:02:56
  belly wood before you glue it up.
• 1:03:00
  Now you have equally distributed strain along every inch of the
• 1:03:05
  glue line because that's what the tapering allows you to do.
• 1:03:11
  If you had uniform thickness, that sort of distribution stress
• 1:03:17
  on the glue line is going to happen.
• 1:03:20
  So if you make a peri reflux bow and you use an Osage belly,
• 1:03:28
  it'll it, it will either stay in reflex forever or close to it.
• 1:03:37
  And by and, and, and I would also say that also that I think
• 1:03:43
  that I had, I did make a form to make these things and I believe
• 1:03:47
  the form puts about an inch and a half reflex in and not much.
• 1:03:51
  We could be tempted to put 3 inches in, but I think that's
• 1:03:54
  overkill. I think that I think that could
• 1:03:57
  create problems. But anyway, I start off with
• 1:04:01
  that additional amount of reflex, about an inch and a half
• 1:04:03
  and the Osage bows, we're going to keep a little bit of reflex
• 1:04:07
  or be perfectly straight. And it perhaps even more
• 1:04:12
  significantly because that glue line does so much of the takes
• 1:04:16
  so much of the stress, the limbs will end up being lighter than
• 1:04:20
  that bow made the other way just by gluing a board on or cutting
• 1:04:25
  the log state. You're going to end up with a
• 1:04:27
  lighter lens with a pairing reflex bow.
• 1:04:31
  And I made a bunch of them with Hickory and a number have just
• 1:04:34
  been Hickory back with Hickory and they ended up with a little
• 1:04:40
  string follow after I really broke them in and shot them a
• 1:04:43
  lot. Maybe an inch, maybe a little
• 1:04:45
  more than an inch, maybe an inch and an inch.
• 1:04:48
  But even then, they still shoot really quick because those limbs
• 1:04:52
  are wider. Now, my motivation for making
• 1:04:55
  these bows was after I understood how it, how they
• 1:05:00
  worked and after I made the first one, I thought, I thought
• 1:05:05
  this is great because I, I, I cut to me, cutting down a lot of
• 1:05:11
  trees is a challenge for several different reasons.
• 1:05:14
  It's hard to find a lot of trees to cut down.
• 1:05:16
  You know, I, I have paid people to let me cut trees.
• 1:05:20
  I'm one, one guy let me cut Elm trees off his property from I
• 1:05:24
  think $50 a tree. You know, it's just, it's just
• 1:05:28
  kind of a hassle cutting trees. And I always was kind of
• 1:05:32
  concerned about, is it really worth killing this tree to make
• 1:05:35
  a bow? And I got to the point where I
• 1:05:37
  would cut a notch in the bark down toward the ground to see
• 1:05:41
  how thick the outer ring was because it's nicer with the self
• 1:05:45
  bow made from warm state if that outer ring is nice and thick or
• 1:05:50
  at least moderately thin. And which is easy to do in my
• 1:05:55
  experience with was like Mulberry, but not perhaps not so
• 1:05:58
  easy with those sage or Elm. So I would cut a notch in the
• 1:06:01
  bottom and I can see how thick the rings were and the rings
• 1:06:05
  were thick enough to suit me. I would spray paint it and pack
• 1:06:08
  some dirt in and let the tree heal.
• 1:06:11
  I didn't want to take it, cut a tree unless it was going to give
• 1:06:16
  me really good stuff. It would be to be a tragedy to
• 1:06:20
  cut a tree and then find out that for whatever reason, I
• 1:06:23
  didn't like the darn wood. So to me, the advantage, the
• 1:06:27
  appeal of the Perry Reflex thing was I could just do a flanking
• 1:06:31
  maneuver around all that and go to a woodworking store, which we
• 1:06:36
  have in Columbus, OH, and buy Hickory boards, which they sell
• 1:06:40
  and make a slew of bows that way.
• 1:06:43
  And I, I don't, I, I can't, I'd have to stop and count how many
• 1:06:46
  of those things I made. I don't know.
• 1:06:49
  Yeah, but I made a bunch of them.
• 1:06:50
  And I love them. Like, I mean, you know, they, I
• 1:06:53
  mean, I love every go. I have self bows of you.
• 1:06:55
  I have self bows of those things.
• 1:06:57
  I self bows at Elm. I love those too.
• 1:07:00
  But these sympathies, fairy things, you know, they, they,
• 1:07:03
  they be in terms of shooting characteristics, you know, in
• 1:07:07
  terms of shooting them for accuracy, you know, and, and the
• 1:07:12
  way you want to handle them. There's no difference between
• 1:07:16
  one made out of the log and one made like boards this way.
• 1:07:19
  But but you know, they're the ones made out of the pairing
• 1:07:24
  boats. They're just, they're just, it's
• 1:07:26
  easy if you put the right kind of if you put a bad Hickory back
• 1:07:30
  on one, you have to learn how to examine the Hickory back and
• 1:07:34
  diagnose that the grain is really good enough for this job.
• 1:07:38
  If you miscalculate, you know, you could get a, a, a split, you
• 1:07:43
  know, in the backing. But if you can avoid that, you
• 1:07:46
  know, I've, I've had the experience more than once.
• 1:07:49
  I'm shooting a pretty reflex bow and the plastic knock had
• 1:07:52
  cracked on me. They didn't know it.
• 1:07:54
  I didn't have dry fire in the bow with a, with the, with a lot
• 1:07:58
  of self bows, you know, made from wire, who knows what's
• 1:08:02
  going to happen. But with a Perry reflex, nothing
• 1:08:05
  happens. You know they're unfazed by that
• 1:08:07
  kind of experience, right? What are you looking for with
• 1:08:11
  the Hickory backing? Is it parallel grain that runs
• 1:08:15
  the full length of it? Well, what, what I had a guy,
• 1:08:19
  there was a guy who caught a lot of this stuff some decades ago.
• 1:08:23
  And he would, he would send me a whole mess of it at a time.
• 1:08:27
  And I had to look at it very carefully because First off, I,
• 1:08:31
  I was happy to do that, to have this arrangement because he was
• 1:08:35
  giving me the stuff of your little price, reasonable price.
• 1:08:38
  But it's also true, I couldn't use all of it.
• 1:08:40
  So I wanted to test it. The first thing I do, we do is
• 1:08:43
  take the stain and give it a big bend.
• 1:08:46
  You know, I mean, it's in the back of the strip and give it,
• 1:08:48
  just give it a big bend. I mean, as you bend one more
• 1:08:52
  than, I mean, the thing's going to be about 6 feet long.
• 1:08:55
  You can bend it so the ends go more than a 90° angle, 90° angle
• 1:09:00
  from one another. And if it's really bad, it'll
• 1:09:03
  break. And if it's OK, it won't.
• 1:09:06
  And. What's the thickness on the?
• 1:09:09
  On the, on the, what I would do was run them through a planer
• 1:09:15
  and I would often take them down to an eighth of an inch or so.
• 1:09:21
  And so, so by and by by running through the planer, oftentimes
• 1:09:27
  you could see the grain much more clearly than you could in
• 1:09:30
  the raw state because, you know, we really smoothed everything
• 1:09:33
  out there. We're going to saw marks on it,
• 1:09:35
  you know, from going to a table saw or whatever kind of saw he
• 1:09:39
  used. So you're able to, you know, die
• 1:09:42
  diagnose that much more accurately that way.
• 1:09:46
  I don't know anybody. I would imagine anybody who was
• 1:09:49
  selling Hickory backing strips these days #1 is going to want a
• 1:09:54
  pretty penny for it. But I would also imagine that
• 1:09:57
  they understand the grain has to be correct and would do
• 1:10:02
  everything to ensure that it is and take care of it if it
• 1:10:05
  wasn't. This is just my hunch.
• 1:10:07
  Yeah. And another, another thing I
• 1:10:11
  that I think is a kind of a funny detail about my experience
• 1:10:15
  that never ceases to abuse me is I have never had a shop to work
• 1:10:24
  in. Never.
• 1:10:26
  Those I make have been on my kitchen floor, on the front
• 1:10:29
  porch, in the backyard. I have never had a shop.
• 1:10:34
  I have never had a tillering tree, for example.
• 1:10:37
  Well, what I have had is I had somebody loaned me a band saw
• 1:10:45
  and for a year or two I kept a band saw at my sister's farm.
• 1:10:49
  And then they wanted a band saw back.
• 1:10:51
  So then I bought a band saw and I had a coworker who was a
• 1:10:55
  woodworker and I said, if I buy a band saw, can we keep it in
• 1:10:59
  your garage? So we kept it in his garage and
• 1:11:02
  I had a key and I had access to it and, and I bought the thing
• 1:11:09
  and then he ended up moving to Florida and without telling me
• 1:11:18
  he was going to Florida and eventually that band saw ended
• 1:11:22
  up stolen. I don't.
• 1:11:24
  Know. So hasn't had been saw simply,
• 1:11:29
  but but I don't I should emphasize it.
• 1:11:34
  Many of the guys who wrote books in the 1930s and 40s and 20s,
• 1:11:38
  they were thinking of the home crafter.
• 1:11:41
  They were thinking of the average guy who maybe had a RASM
• 1:11:45
  and, you know, it was a spokeshave in his garage or
• 1:11:48
  something, you know, and, and lived on some back Rd. in
• 1:11:52
  Kentucky and had a farm, you know, or, you know, some kid,
• 1:11:58
  you know, living with his parents.
• 1:12:00
  They were thinking of people who had very modest means of
• 1:12:05
  production. You know, they were thinking of
• 1:12:08
  somebody with an elaborate shop with a lot of power tools and
• 1:12:12
  stuff, which are great if you have them and if you've got
• 1:12:16
  them, for crying out loud, use them.
• 1:12:18
  But it was just this is, this is just a question of, you know,
• 1:12:21
  economics. And I, that was something I was
• 1:12:24
  only, you know, kind of aware of because I was kind of a victim
• 1:12:27
  of that in a way of myself. Because I did have a great big
• 1:12:30
  fancy house without building your big fancy heated garage or
• 1:12:33
  any of that. I've never had any of that, not
• 1:12:36
  since I got divorced anyway. But, and it's also also, I would
• 1:12:42
  emphasize that this kind of approach that I use has been no
• 1:12:48
  impediment to me making bows that last for decades, which
• 1:12:53
  they have and I have shot the living daylights out of for
• 1:12:57
  decades. And I have and I have carried
• 1:13:00
  them all over the place and abused them.
• 1:13:02
  And I have, you know, Sachs, the Pope once wrote that wood bow
• 1:13:06
  was good for so many 100,000 shots before it would break
• 1:13:09
  down. I don't think that's necessarily
• 1:13:12
  true. OK.
• 1:13:15
  And one of the one of the things that I do that I think for
• 1:13:19
  themselves from happening is I put stringing knocks and all my
• 1:13:25
  bows, I use a Stringer to string every one of them.
• 1:13:28
  Yeah. And there's so there's double
• 1:13:30
  knocks on each tip and the stringing knocks just accorded
• 1:13:33
  the loop on each hip. Now the reason I do that, there
• 1:13:37
  are multiple reasons for doing that.
• 1:13:39
  One of the most bad advantageous is when you're making, if you're
• 1:13:43
  making a bow and working on the bow.
• 1:13:46
  They were testing by floor tailoring stuff and the long
• 1:13:48
  tailoring string. When we first put a string on
• 1:13:51
  it, it could conceivably go out of tiller simply by stringing
• 1:13:56
  it. Even if we use the push pull
• 1:13:59
  method, it could conceivably go out of tiller.
• 1:14:03
  And, and I and I would invite anybody to do this experiment.
• 1:14:10
  Set up a camera, a video camera on a tripod so you can see
• 1:14:14
  yourself from head to toe. Stand sideways and string your
• 1:14:18
  bow with push pull method, pulling out the handle, pushing
• 1:14:20
  on the upper limb. Put it on your computer to do a
• 1:14:23
  freeze frame. When you've got the thing almost
• 1:14:27
  strong, I believe you'll see that the lower limb is bending
• 1:14:31
  more than the upper. OK, with a typical tiller this
• 1:14:35
  would not be unusual. Now it's been my experience that
• 1:14:42
  if the lower limb takes on too much initial bend during
• 1:14:46
  stringing, it will tend to keep that too much initial bend that
• 1:14:52
  in this, that too much initial bend could be a lot or it could
• 1:14:54
  be a little. But as we keep shooting and
• 1:14:57
  shooting in my experience, and I've tested this and I would
• 1:15:01
  invite anybody to duplicate in these tests.
• 1:15:04
  You know, if I measure the that, you know, the positive tiller,
• 1:15:07
  negative tiller with the roar, you know, that extra bend in the
• 1:15:10
  lower limb stays there. If on the other hand, I'd string
• 1:15:14
  it, I used to string him with the step, with the step through
• 1:15:18
  method upside down, and that would, you know, sometimes put a
• 1:15:23
  little extra bend in the upper limb.
• 1:15:26
  Yet I found that after I shot him three or four times, that
• 1:15:29
  extra bend in the upper limb would go away.
• 1:15:32
  There's something happening. First off, I think we all know
• 1:15:38
  the concept of positive tailor. We want that upper winds to be a
• 1:15:41
  little bit further away from the string, a little lower lamp.
• 1:15:44
  I'm sure you could agree with that, right?
• 1:15:46
  Well, I think you know, part, I think one of the reasons that's
• 1:15:49
  become a tradition is to prevent that excessive bent from
• 1:15:53
  happening in the lower lamp. Why does it happen there in the
• 1:15:56
  1st place? I don't know if this is anything
• 1:15:59
  any physicist and put it paid attention to, but I'm guessing
• 1:16:02
  it's because we hold the bow lower than we draw the bow.
• 1:16:08
  We're all our hand on the string is always higher than our hand
• 1:16:11
  holding the bow, yes, because we can't pull the air through the
• 1:16:15
  middle of our hand here the drawing can has to be higher.
• 1:16:18
  So I think this has the leverage involved has something to do
• 1:16:22
  with that. Now I'm telling all this long
• 1:16:25
  winded stuff because if I use a Stringer, that problem is
• 1:16:31
  eliminated forever. Yeah, if I'm ready to string a
• 1:16:34
  bow for the first time. What I what I why you?
• 1:16:37
  Because I don't have using, because I don't have a tailoring
• 1:16:40
  board. And forgive me for stamping so
• 1:16:42
  much, you know, because I don't have a tailoring tree.
• 1:16:46
  I use a tailoring board. I measure everything carefully.
• 1:16:49
  I've been to a level that simulates brace height.
• 1:16:53
  I want a string from 1 dock to the other to simulate the
• 1:16:57
  appearance of being braced. That way I can measure is it got
• 1:17:01
  positive tiller. So I have more been a little bit
• 1:17:03
  more been on the upper. I slide a straight edge up and
• 1:17:06
  down the limbs to make sure that the curve is even all along the
• 1:17:10
  limbs and I can get them working perfect on the Children Board
• 1:17:16
  that way. And then if I string them for
• 1:17:18
  the first time using that Stringer I've described with the
• 1:17:22
  two stringing knocks on the ends of each the limb that tiller I
• 1:17:28
  saw on the children bow board will be there when the bow is
• 1:17:32
  braced for the first time and it will stay there.
• 1:17:35
  That's an experience I didn't always have before I started,
• 1:17:39
  you know, using these stringers this way.
• 1:17:41
  Another thing is, is that the idea I I should also say in
• 1:17:47
  interest of clarity that that experiment I described as
• 1:17:52
  standing before a camera and filming yourself.
• 1:17:54
  If we instead of pulling the bow toward us on the handle, if we
• 1:18:02
  put our hand just above the handle toward the upper knock
• 1:18:07
  and then bend in string it Yeah, that old that to that initial
• 1:18:11
  bend in the lower limb is not is.
• 1:18:18
  Far or. Less likely to be excessive.
• 1:18:21
  What I'm saying is I think that's a reliable way to string
• 1:18:23
  them that way and never have any issue with them going out of
• 1:18:26
  tower because a lot of times the you know, I I I know Vincent's
• 1:18:31
  source instances where somebody would make a bow and it would go
• 1:18:34
  out of tower. The lower wind would be bending
• 1:18:37
  too much and they say the woods no good.
• 1:18:40
  That diagnosis in my opinion and experiences absolutely wrong.
• 1:18:44
  That's not that ain't what caused that and but another
• 1:18:49
  factor is that may be interested in using string in the 1st place
• 1:18:54
  is this whole step through method was just it's a tradition
• 1:18:59
  for back in the days when men wore leather boots and they had
• 1:19:01
  nice thick leather soles on their boots and they had real
• 1:19:04
  Husky footwear. I just I'm just wearing, you
• 1:19:07
  know, tennis shoe woofers all the time and I don't have enough
• 1:19:10
  down there on the near the ground to really stand up to
• 1:19:14
  that lower limb. And I also, you know, ground
• 1:19:19
  lower limbs in the dirt and grab off.
• 1:19:21
  It wasn't painted for what gentle I was doing.
• 1:19:23
  And I guess that's hard, all that crap.
• 1:19:26
  So yeah. And I shall also should point
• 1:19:28
  out that in the pre fight in the pre fiberglass era, there were
• 1:19:32
  people stringing bows that way. There's a I read a description
• 1:19:35
  in the really Old Orchard magazine where I suggested it.
• 1:19:41
  Back to the Hickory, the backing.
• 1:19:43
  I back a lot of bows with Hickory.
• 1:19:44
  So what? I don't think I I'm still clear.
• 1:19:48
  What are you looking for in the grain of the back?
• 1:19:54
  If the grain if the grain. I'm giving you a hypothetical
• 1:20:03
  thing here because it's not something I think everybody can
• 1:20:06
  see instantly. Instantly.
• 1:20:09
  Is the grain runs off both the back and the side at the same
• 1:20:13
  spot, that creates a point which is a weakness.
• 1:20:17
  Now that point it depends on how much how much of A threat that
• 1:20:24
  weaknesses can vary. If it's on a backing strip and
• 1:20:29
  the bows long enough and it's not being super stressed it
• 1:20:32
  won't be a problem. I would point out that if we
• 1:20:35
  back bows with Hickory and we make them really short and we
• 1:20:39
  really over strained them, we will blow every Hick and Hickory
• 1:20:43
  backing we use. I knew a guy who loved to make
• 1:20:46
  bows were 626062 inches long. He would pull them 27 inches or
• 1:20:52
  so. He would make him 60 lbs.
• 1:20:55
  Every time he tried Hickory backing it exploded on him.
• 1:20:59
  That's just too much stress. Oh, OK.
• 1:21:01
  If there's one thing that is easy to overlook, it's the
• 1:21:06
  effect of stress on wood and a bow.
• 1:21:09
  Because all throughout, you know, the history of these
• 1:21:14
  things in America, we can find evidence that people would
• 1:21:18
  sometimes not pay any attention to that and the results would be
• 1:21:22
  bad. And it's easily avoided by just
• 1:21:25
  making the bow long enough. I only draw 25 inches and I
• 1:21:33
  really don't want to shoot a bow shorter than 64.
• 1:21:37
  And if I have one that's 66 or 68.
• 1:21:41
  I, I, those bows are, they are such good friends.
• 1:21:46
  They take such good care to bring.
• 1:21:49
  They never break. They always hit hard and they're
• 1:21:52
  and they're and they're moderately easy to shoot.
• 1:21:56
  I shot a Black Mirror on a tree stand with a bow 66 inches long.
• 1:22:02
  I was still hunting in a shallow white tailed deer with a boat 68
• 1:22:06
  inches long. This was the standard in the
• 1:22:09
  1920s and the 30s to use a Longbow.
• 1:22:13
  And I think, yeah, it's, I thought, I think that's great
• 1:22:19
  advice with many advantages. It's true that some of the, you
• 1:22:25
  know, when Fred Bear started selling, you know, wooden bows,
• 1:22:28
  he had a guy named Nels Grumley make Osage bows.
• 1:22:34
  They had little recurved ends. They were brush bows and they
• 1:22:36
  were like only like 60 or 260 or 62 inches long.
• 1:22:40
  By coincidence, I own one of those and that is and that is a
• 1:22:48
  very that's different from the tradition of the people, you
• 1:22:52
  know, like saxophone and Arthur Young and many other people
• 1:22:56
  famous and not so famous, who bow hung with much longer bows
• 1:23:01
  before then. And that that there's sort of
• 1:23:03
  those like there's sort of the story, I think why this those
• 1:23:06
  got shorter, but you know, but back.
• 1:23:11
  But this has to do with the Hickory.
• 1:23:12
  We're going now. Let's get back to the Hickory,
• 1:23:14
  the backings that you started being.
• 1:23:16
  So we we got to start with here. A really bad Hickory backing
• 1:23:24
  will have the grain run from back from 1 flat wide flat side
• 1:23:28
  to another flat side in a span of a couple inches.
• 1:23:31
  If you give that the kind of big test, bend before I I, I
• 1:23:35
  described before, you know? Yeah.
• 1:23:37
  And on the ground, grab the other hand, you know, bend it,
• 1:23:40
  bend it almost double. And if it's six feet long, it'll
• 1:23:42
  take it. You know, a, a really bad one
• 1:23:45
  will snap immediately. And if it snaps, it deserves to
• 1:23:49
  break. This is like wood Nero.
• 1:23:51
  So if you have a wood Nero shaft and the grain and it's no good,
• 1:23:56
  he didn't weren't able to spot it and the grain was from
• 1:23:59
  Woodside and the arrow off to the other side of the span of a
• 1:24:03
  couple of inches and you're bending it to straighten and it
• 1:24:06
  breaks. No loss, no loss at all because
• 1:24:10
  it wasn't an arrow would to begin with.
• 1:24:12
  So baking with those backing scripts, it wasn't a backing
• 1:24:15
  script to begin with, but so, but the ones that do have good
• 1:24:23
  green, it's really straight. Or let me go back to also, I was
• 1:24:27
  about to forget this. Let's go back to that spot again
• 1:24:30
  where the grain was off the back of the side at the same place.
• 1:24:35
  If the bow is long enough, it won't be the thing.
• 1:24:37
  You can shoot it for decades and it would be anything.
• 1:24:39
  However, if you accidentally bump it right at that very spot,
• 1:24:44
  which is a mishap I have found myself capable of doing when I
• 1:24:49
  hit one hard right on that very, very spot and put a little bitty
• 1:24:52
  dent in there and I'll be well, that it, it broke.
• 1:24:59
  Yeah, a big chunk of the thing split off.
• 1:25:02
  Yeah. That backing strip the would the
• 1:25:05
  the the Osage. This was Osage back with
• 1:25:07
  Hickory. The Hickory broke the Osage was
• 1:25:09
  still fine. So what I did was that going it
• 1:25:13
  back together, I took a piece of a grocery bag.
• 1:25:17
  Do you guys still have grocery bags in Canada?
• 1:25:20
  Those are made out of the half a heavy paper, you know, craft
• 1:25:24
  paper. If you have a section of that,
• 1:25:26
  you soak it in high glue, put it glue down a splinter like that,
• 1:25:30
  Take some of that paper or soak it in high glue, put it over the
• 1:25:35
  spot, wrap it, you know, with strain or something so it goes
• 1:25:39
  down real tight. You get done, you know, wrap the
• 1:25:43
  whole thing with sinew at that end.
• 1:25:46
  If you have like backs in you with long strands, that'll be
• 1:25:49
  that that's even a little better.
• 1:25:51
  Wrap it so enough that you hold wrap it.
• 1:25:54
  I don't know, maybe a place measured lengthwise 1/2 an inch
• 1:26:00
  or so with that sent you over the paper that you glued on
• 1:26:05
  finish the whole works when it's all dried out and you've fixed
• 1:26:09
  the problem. It's still an annoying problem
• 1:26:12
  that it could be fixed, but but another thing I've seen in the
• 1:26:17
  Hickory on the bows that I have that are really good.
• 1:26:23
  If I, I don't put wood stain on bows, but I will put a leather
• 1:26:29
  dye on them. And, and I Hickory is very
• 1:26:36
  typical for me with a Hickory back bow to at least dye the
• 1:26:40
  backing strip so it's not flaming light.
• 1:26:43
  And when you do that, you can see the lines of the green much
• 1:26:50
  more clearly. And if you have something that's
• 1:26:52
  really straight green, you could just really see from those lines
• 1:26:56
  that that green is straight. And maybe you are familiar with
• 1:27:00
  this experience. So if you have something and
• 1:27:02
  you, and, and it's clean enough and polished enough and shiny
• 1:27:06
  enough, you know, I mean, still enough that it's bright, you can
• 1:27:10
  really see what the grain is doing.
• 1:27:12
  You can just look at it and see that the grain is straight.
• 1:27:15
  Would you agree? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 1:27:19
  And along these lines and other things I've experienced 3 times
• 1:27:23
  is if we have a back of a, we have a sofa made from the log
• 1:27:26
  stain, it's on back. The wood is the backing and
• 1:27:30
  really shined up the back. I have had had three experiences
• 1:27:34
  where I can see those green lines take a little bitty
• 1:27:37
  sideways bend at one spot, just little bitty sideways bend of
• 1:27:45
  about not making a 90° turn, but the grain goes along, it's going
• 1:27:50
  straight and then it makes a little band moves about 30° off
• 1:27:53
  the string line and it's just a little tiny thing.
• 1:27:59
  They break right there is happened to be with an elbow AU
• 1:28:03
  bow and an Osage bow and I've never and I've never read
• 1:28:10
  anybody describing this. This happened to me three times.
• 1:28:13
  So, so the question would be, I thought about it, the question
• 1:28:18
  would be if I can see another one, what am I going to do?
• 1:28:24
  You know, it, it's not happening because of the kind of shearing
• 1:28:27
  pressure that would make the bow break if you cut through the
• 1:28:32
  rings from side to side of the back, you know, that's, that's,
• 1:28:36
  that's a outward pressure, that's a pressure on the outside
• 1:28:42
  of the bin. I don't think that's what's
• 1:28:44
  happening with this little spots where the grain makes a little
• 1:28:47
  sideways turn. I think it's more of a a side
• 1:28:50
  that it can't in the strand of the stress sideways because if
• 1:28:57
  when a bow is bent, when bows bent, the belly literally get
• 1:29:02
  shorter in the back of the literally gets longer by a tiny
• 1:29:06
  amount. And when people say compression
• 1:29:09
  and tension, yes, look at the compression is literal.
• 1:29:13
  So I think it's more of a sideways thing.
• 1:29:16
  If I receive another one of those again, I'm going to wrap
• 1:29:18
  send you that spot. Cross my fingers, hope for the
• 1:29:20
  best. But I'm glad that I've never
• 1:29:23
  heard anybody describe this before.
• 1:29:25
  Never read about it before. I've seen it three times and I
• 1:29:28
  broke the bow every time. Very interesting.
• 1:29:32
  That's one of the great things about the experience that you
• 1:29:35
  have that you're be able to offer.
• 1:29:38
  So Paul, it's we're 90 minutes in.
• 1:29:41
  I'm sorry. Yeah, 90 minutes in.
• 1:29:43
  I'm going to continue this conversation, but I don't really
• 1:29:45
  have enough time today. So we might have to do another
• 1:29:47
  installment if that works for you.
• 1:29:49
  Sure. I have two more I'm we're
• 1:29:52
  leaving on bright and early Thursday morning.
• 1:29:55
  So in less than three days for our European leg, a project
• 1:29:59
  quiver, and I've got a lot to do, including three interviews
• 1:30:02
  today. So I said hello.
• 1:30:05
  Yes, I will. Yeah, Can I ask you a few final
• 1:30:09
  questions before we sign off and then we can chat about doing
• 1:30:12
  this again? What's your favorite Beau Wood?
• 1:30:15
  I don't have one OK Osage and you, they have a glory all unto
• 1:30:22
  themselves. They cannot denied.
• 1:30:26
  I probably in the beginning I made more bows from Elm than
• 1:30:30
  anything else because Elm was so easy to get to other kinds of
• 1:30:34
  woods like like Hickory and oak. During the farming history of
• 1:30:41
  the of Ohio, a lot of those trees were cut down and never
• 1:30:45
  replanted. And to many people, Hickory, oak
• 1:30:50
  and walnut have a high dollar value.
• 1:30:53
  I'm sure they're right. Elm is not such a highly prized
• 1:30:58
  wood. That makes all right, Of course,
• 1:31:00
  you know, and like and like I said, the Hickory boats from the
• 1:31:04
  woodworking stores and I have made bows that I cherish from
• 1:31:13
  that stuff. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:31:15
  What is one of the most unique or different types of woods that
• 1:31:19
  you made a bow from? I had a piece of wood called a
• 1:31:23
  one time galt called Gancolo. All this.
• 1:31:26
  Yes. And there was a business in the
• 1:31:31
  early commit and that went in the mid to late 80s, there was a
• 1:31:34
  business in California who would sell you ash boards.
• 1:31:39
  And in fact, some of the couple pieces of lemon wood.
• 1:31:42
  I got kicked from this place and they sold me this piece of gun
• 1:31:46
  color, all this, but it had, but it wasn't solid wood.
• 1:31:49
  It had a big, you know, opening, you know, and it looked like a
• 1:31:53
  look like a giant drying chick in it.
• 1:31:57
  I thought, man, I don't know about this, this kind of work.
• 1:32:00
  That's a great big hole And and it it let's put it this way, it
• 1:32:08
  broke. And if I made the limb white or
• 1:32:11
  around the great big opening, would it have worked?
• 1:32:14
  I don't know. But it's the only piece of stuff
• 1:32:16
  I ever saw in my life. The guy bought it from is the
• 1:32:20
  only time I ever heard of it and it you know, it was it was kind
• 1:32:23
  of cool looking, but yeah, but no bow.
• 1:32:28
  Yeah, what are your top three tools for making bows?
• 1:32:35
  My number one tool has got to be a four in one Nicholson rasp
• 1:32:40
  because it's very versatile. You can buy them anywhere.
• 1:32:43
  They don't cost much. Plenty probably After that is,
• 1:32:47
  is the scraper is this and I and and I, I this is a this is a
• 1:32:55
  shameful confession, but that's because I lost my bandsaw.
• 1:33:00
  This this is what's bad. I've got to reduce to you.
• 1:33:04
  I use a belt Sander a lot. Yeah.
• 1:33:06
  You know, I, I, you know there is if when you're roughing one
• 1:33:11
  out, you can use a bandsaw, you can use a hatchet, use a giant
• 1:33:15
  knife, you can use a chisel, anything.
• 1:33:19
  Well, thank you, Paul. As I said, I'm I've got loads
• 1:33:23
  more questions. I would love to carry on this
• 1:33:26
  conversation. So if that's good with you,
• 1:33:28
  let's do another installment. Yes, we can schedule it at your
• 1:33:32
  convenience, Sir. Yeah, it's, it's going to be at
• 1:33:34
  the end of our journey at the earliest, so a few months away
• 1:33:37
  from now. I'm not planning any interviews
• 1:33:39
  while we're away. OK good.
• 1:33:42
  Well I would feel great success and safety and good time.
• 1:33:47
  Tell all the all the bow making guys you meet.
• 1:33:50
  Please tell them that I send my regards and my respect for their
• 1:33:55
  work. Thank you.
• 1:33:57
  Appreciate it. And I'm sure that's that goes in
• 1:33:59
  both directions. You've been a great influence
• 1:34:01
  for all of us, so thank you. Well like I said, talk to my
• 1:34:06
  friends who say that cool sucks. Just another idiot.
• 1:34:12
  Have a great day, Sir. OK, you too.
• 1:34:25
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• 1:34:28
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• 1:34:31
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• 1:34:34
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• 1:34:37
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• 1:34:40
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