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#52 Weylin Olive on Project Quiver · Salish Wolf

• 0:06
  Welcome to Project Quiver, a father daughter journey across
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  the globe to capture the artistry and spirit of the
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  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
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  unparalleled skill. For each chapter, we travel to
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  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
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  Art of Life. Through Bow Craft and this
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  journey, our living story is Project Quiver Well and welcome
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  to Project Quiver on Salish Wolf.
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  Hey thanks for having me. It's great to meet you.
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  Thanks for doing this and thank you for being part of Project
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  Quiver, which is going to culminate in a beautiful coffee
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  table book of the world's best bowyers, which I certainly
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  consider you to be. I'm honored, my daughter and I
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  both are honored to be able to come and visit you in just a
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  couple weeks. You're the first one we're
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  coming to see. Oh.
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  Really. So we're.
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  You are, Yeah. You'll kick off Project Quiver
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  and from there we're going to be on like a four or five month
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  world tour. Wow, that's crazy.
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  Yeah. So how did you get into archery?
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  I guess we'll start from from that before we get into bow
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  carving. Yeah, I mean, I grew up hunting
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  and fishing in Wisconsin with my dad.
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  He was a bow hunter as well as a gun hunter, and I shot his
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  fiberglass bear recurve every once in a while for fun.
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  I certainly wouldn't say that I was into it at that age.
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  It was just something I did every once in a while and all
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  the hunting I did when I was younger was with a shotgun or
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  rifle. You did a lot of deer hunting
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  and bird hunting, rough grouse, things like that up in in
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  northern Wisconsin. And so it wasn't really until I
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  became an adult that I got interested in archery.
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  I had an opportunity to go to this primitive skills gathering
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  up in northern Wisconsin on Lake Superior.
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  And there's all sorts of crafts and skills being taught, basket
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  making and high tanning and tracking.
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  And there was a guy that was teaching bow building and I just
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  kind of caught, caught my interest and decided that's what
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  I wanted to dedicate my time to. I didn't have time to to finish
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  the bow there. It was just I came in late.
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  Other people were already, you know, well into the tillering
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  process. And I was just, you know,
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  hacking away at this big Hickory stave with, you know, hatchet
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  and a rasp. And, but it was enough to, to
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  kind of get me interested. And, and my dad gifted me a few
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  Pacific use days that he'd cut back around the time when I was
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  born in Northern California. And he just kind of kept and
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  intended to do something with and never did and started
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  reading the Bowyer's Bibles. And it's kind of information
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  overload for me. I, I was still kind of too
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  nervous to do anything substantial on the stave that
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  I'd started. And we moved out to Oregon, my
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  wife and I, so I could pursue some teacher training out there.
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  And I knew one of the authors of the Bowyers Bible, John Strunk,
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  was living up Tillamook. And so eventually I decided I
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  wanted to go out and build a bow with him and, and get further
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  into it. And yeah, so I spent a weekend
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  in his shop building a bow, a U bow from start to finish with
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  him. And he also helped me finish the
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  Hickory bow that I started. And it was really, that was
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  definitely the the catalyst for me.
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  After I built that bow with him, I really felt like I could do it
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  on my own, but I I wasn't going to be perfect and was going to
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  make mistakes. But he gave me a really solid
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  foundation and really just kind of helped to still the essence
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  of what bow making was and help me just like just forget all
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  that stuff in the book for now. Like it's, it's too much info
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  when you're starting off. Just focus on this, this and
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  this. And he was a retired high school
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  shop teacher. And so I think he had a gift for
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  teaching people how to do things.
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  I've met other bowyers that are very accomplished bowyers, but I
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  think they weren't all all that great at conveying the knowledge
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  that they had. They just kind of had to pull it
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  out of your hands and, and do it for you.
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  And he was pretty good at helping me walk away with, with
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  the fundamentals to really dig into it on my own.
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  And from there it was really, I really got into it.
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  I, I was on the Primitive Archer forum, which was an online forum
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  supported by the Primitive Archer magazine.
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  And I met some other people in the, in the Portland area where
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  I was that we're into bow making as well and kind of joined the
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  community there. And so I, I always feel like
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  it's really important to say that from the very beginning, I
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  had some really expert help both from John Strunk and, and some
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  of the other people around me like Gordon Furlitch and my
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  friends Carson Brown and Bryce thought we're both getting into
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  bow making, but kind of in the same way that I was.
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  And so I had a lot of people to help out with, you know, issues
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  and bounce ideas off of and meet up with and compare air bows.
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  And I, I definitely never would claim to be a, a self-made man
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  in terms of my bow making. I, I've been very fortunate all
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  along the way to, to be surrounded by people who who not
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  only are really gifted, but really generous, you know, with
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  their time and resources. You know, people have hooked me
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  up with tools and staves and places to work.
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  And I really grateful for the community that that has been
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  around me this this whole time, whether it's been remote, you
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  know, online or in person. Yeah, I'm, I'm always amazed at
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  how big this community of amateur and professional bow
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  carvers is. I had no idea when I got into it
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  that there were so many people and people who are tuning in on
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  social media, YouTube, watching videos, people buying bows from
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  people like you. It's it seems to be quite a
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  large audience. Do you have any estimation on
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  how many people in the US are interested in bow carving?
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  I, I, you know, I, I don't know exactly or even roughly how
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  many, how it's hard to say. It feels like there's a
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  resurgence of interest, I think largely precipitated by the
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  Internet and social media. You know, I think that when the
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  authors of the Bowyers Bible came together, I think they
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  helped create another resurgence those decades ago when they they
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  put all that together. But this is I think a
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  continuation of that and also an expansion of that.
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  I don't, I don't know. I mean, like, you know, if you
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  look at like a popular primitive bow building group, like
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  primitive bow making on Facebook, they've got 70,000
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  members on there. Of course, how many of those are
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  bots and people that join for whatever reason?
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  I certainly don't know that numbers like that are always a
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  perfect representation of how many people are actively
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  building and shooting these kind of bows.
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  But you know, it gives you a sense also just going to events
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  like oh, jam at which I haven't been to.
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  I'd like to go to there's Mojam in Missouri and the one I go to
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  every year is the Tennessee classic, which is a traditional
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  archery 3D shoot. So most of the people that show
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  up there are there to compete in the the shoot, many of them
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  using fiberglass bows. But Mark Baggett Pappy, the guy
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  that runs owns the place. He's he's always been into self
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  bows. I've known him for years on the
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  primitive Archer forum and he's got a big workshop there where
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  anybody that's attending the event can sit around and build
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  bows. And they even have a special
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  competition where you can build a bow while you're there and
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  shoot it against other people who have built a bow there and
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  just kind of be competing against those those bow years.
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  And it's really, really fun event And it's it's great to see
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  so many people coming together to build those community like
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  that kind of like, oh, jam does that as well.
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  It's pretty neat because you see people coming in that have never
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  done it before, want to build their first bow and as well as
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  people that are really, really experienced and knowledgeable
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  all just kind of mixing it up and making shavings together.
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  Yeah, that's right. How how many people do you think
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  came to the Tennessee Classic? I think Pappy said that there
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  was over 800 registered shooters.
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  Like that's their network for for measuring that They've got
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  big areas for people to camp and it's definitely, definitely
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  busy. And I don't know how that
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  compares to other gatherings. And like I said, you know, a lot
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  of those people aren't there to build bows, but they're
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  definitely traditional Archers at heart.
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  Right. Where is Ojem?
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  It's, I don't know exactly. It's, I think it's in kind of
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  the Ozark area of Oklahoma. Yeah.
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  I'm, I'm, I'd really like to try to make it out there.
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  It's a bit of a drive for me, but it takes place in the
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  spring. Can't remember exactly when.
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  I want to say April sometime. Tennessee Classics always the
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  first weekend in May. And these archery jamboree's
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  happen all over the world, is that right?
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  I mean, there's definitely, you know, a handful that happened in
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  the States. I'm sure there are others in
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  other countries. I'm trying to think of if I've
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  seen any examples online or whatever.
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  I'm, I'm, I'm sure that I'm sure that there are.
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  I don't know how they compare in size and scope.
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  You know, they might be more modest affairs and maybe there's
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  something big out there that I don't know about.
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  Yeah, well, it's one of the things that I find so
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  fascinating with archery is that it has such deep cultural roots,
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  like 810 thousand years ago, all over the Earth really.
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  It's like most traditional cultures had their own variety
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  of, or their own special way of making bows and arrows and the
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  way they use them. And you know, this has been
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  going on for millennia. It's really incredible.
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  The only culture that I've heard of that maybe didn't have any
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  was Australia. And I'm.
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  Sure, some of this, some of the islands around there, but I
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  think everywhere else it's been a part of humanity.
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  Yeah, I, I mean, it's, it's part of what really pulls me in with
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  it is, is that that common human, human legacy.
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  And I really feel like there's something deep within us that
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  archery speaks to. I feel like everybody that I
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  talked to about what I do either actively loves and pursues
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  archery or I get a lot of responses of like, oh, I've
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  always wanted to do that. Oh, I remember shooting a bow
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  and Boy Scouts when I was a kid. And, you know, you never hear
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  anybody that's just like, oh, I hate archery.
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  That's stupid. You know, like, I think, you
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  know, for most people out there, there's some, you know,
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  fascination with it, whether it's active or just kind of in
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  their imagination. And, and I really love the, the
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  living history of archery and, and learning about different
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  cultures where it was created and evolved and, and looking at,
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  at the different bows and arrows that that people have created.
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  And it really gives you an appreciation for human ingenuity
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  and and adaptiveness because every bow out there is a
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  response to a particular set of circumstances and environment.
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  What they had to work with for material, you know, what the
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  climate was like, you know, what uses they needed for it, whether
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  it was hunting and warfare. And, you know, factors that that
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  go into why they made the bows the way that they did.
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  It's easy to, I think judge sometimes like, oh, that seems
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  really simple or that seems ineffective or, you know, why
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  would they do that? But I think having that kind of
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  attitude about it, really, it just kind of lacks curiosity and
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  imagination because no, people are, are stupid or primitive.
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  Every, every human being has the same capacity for intelligence
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  and ingenuity and they're all working with what they've got to
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  solve very particular sets of problems and needs.
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  I just, I, I think it's a really fascinating lens to look at
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  that, that human ingenuity, you know, through archery, because
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  it's so widespread and you can see all the different ways that
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  people have approached it. Yeah, and I share similar
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  experiences with you. Like I've never met a person
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  who, when I say that I, I teach traditional archery or amateur
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  Bo Carver or I'm writing this book, everyone's fascinated like
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  they want to know more about it. And I can't think of many
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  activities or arts or sports where across the board, everyone
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  has an interest in it. And everyone who I've ever
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  taught to shoot don't think I've ever had a single person who has
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  walked away going, no, I didn't like that.
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  That wasn't worth it. Everyone loves it, they resonate
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  with it, they feel empowered by it, they feel like inspired by
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  it. It's really incredible to see
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  that happen. Across the board, yeah.
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  And I think when you, I think that's the case for archery in
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  general. But for me, and I think for a
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  lot of other people, when you take it to the level where
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  you're making your own bow out of a piece of wood and you
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  develop such an intimate relationship with that piece of
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  wood and that bow as it takes shape.
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  And then that moment where you're shooting that first arrow
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  out of the bow is just something really magical about that.
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  That even now after I've made hundreds of bows, I still get a
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  feeling of joy shooting that first arrow out of a bow that I
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  made, even though I've done it enough that I know what to
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  expect on some level. But it's, it's, it's still
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  pretty special. And I, when I teach my bow
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  building classes, whenever I can, I try to film that first
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  shot of each person because a lot of times you get some pretty
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  cool reactions from them, just spontaneous expressions or
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  emotions that come out when they when they shoot that first
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  arrow. Yeah.
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  Do you ever have any tinge of anxiety when you're shooting the
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  bow for the first time? Or are you so skilled with the
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  tillering and everything you're fully confident that the bow is
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  going to hold up? I.
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  Certainly wouldn't want to project any level of arrogance
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  about that because anybody that builds self bows will admit that
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  it's a, it's a perpetually humbling craft.
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  I mean, we're working with a natural material and we're
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  asking an incredible amount from that piece of wood.
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  I mean, I can't think of any other application of woodworking
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  that comes anywhere near the amount of dynamic stress that
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  we're putting this wood under, not just once, but you know,
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  over and over and over again. We're expecting it to perform in
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  this particular way. And so to answer your question,
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  I don't, it's when I'm making a bow, I've accumulated enough
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  knowledge and experience and things to watch out for during
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  the process that when I get to the point of being ready to
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  shoot it, I feel pretty confident that everything's
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  going to go fine. I feel like if, if there was
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  going to be an issue that was going to come up, you know, it
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  ideally would have come up during the tailoring process.
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  And it's not to say that, you know, bows don't break, you
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  know, whether I, you know, I'm shooting them or somebody else
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  is shooting them. I mean, thankfully it's very
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  rare. Otherwise it wouldn't be very
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  good business prospect for me. But I, when I go to shoot, shoot
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  a bow for the first time, I've already bent it many times on
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  the tillering tree out to out to full draw.
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  And I've, I've really analyzed the tiller and I'm confident in
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  the design and kept my eye out for any defects or anything like
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  that. So usually when I go out to
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  shoot it for the first time, I'm I'm feeling pretty, pretty
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  confident about it. Let's go back to the beginning.
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  When you said you first did that bow carving workshop or part of
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  it. How old were you when that was?
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  I must have been about 25. So that was about, it was right
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  before my my son was born. OK, so, and he's 15.
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  So yeah, that's 1516 years ago. Something like that, yeah, early
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  20s and then. Soon after that you went to
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  study under John and Oregon. Yeah, yeah.
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  And when building bows for about 15 years now.
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  When did Swiftwood bows your brand come alive?
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  Well, I was, you know, sometime probably around 2000, 11 or 12
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  or something like that would be my guess.
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  I'd been building bows on the side.
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  I was as a teacher at the time. And so building them on the
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  evenings and the weekends. And I felt like I'd built all
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  the bows that I needed for myself to shoot.
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  And I'd, you know, given away bows to anybody that I knew that
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  would want 1. And I just really was feeling
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  burning desire to continue to build them and, and refine the
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  craft. And so the only way that I felt
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  like it really made sense for me to keep making bow after bow as
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  if I was going to start selling them.
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  And, you know, by that time I've been making them for several
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  years and felt like I'd gotten to the point where I felt
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  confident about putting a bow in somebody else's hand for money.
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  And it was right around the time that my friend Carson was
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  starting Echo archery. He's he's, he does Sherwood
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  shafts now, the dug first shafts out of Oregon.
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  And so he he and I kind of were bouncing ideas off of each
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  other. I was picking his brain about
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  how he was going about starting to sell bows.
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  And, and so at first it was just one here, one there, not a lot,
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  but just enough to create some side income to help fuel my, my
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  continued passion for, for building bows.
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  And it just kind of slowly escalated from there to where I,
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  I was still working full time as a teacher, but I have 1015
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  orders lined up at a time for bows and just get to them when
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  I, when I could. And, and then I, I hit a point
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  with my teaching that I felt like I wanted to step away and,
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  and focus that energy more on my own kids and my family and, and
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  just kind of re reimagine my, my occupation.
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  And, and I decided to switch over to, to bow making full time
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  and step away from teaching. And that was about six or seven
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  years ago now. Whenever we we moved from Oregon
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  to North Carolina at that time, That's the.
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  Dream, right? Being able to pursue your
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  passions full time, Yeah, I mean.
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  I really, I'm really grateful that I'm able to to do it.
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  I certainly not a get rich quick scheme, you know, but neither
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  was teaching. So kind of resigned myself to
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  that fate. But yeah, people warn you, you
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  know, don't take what you love and turn it into your job.
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  And I guess in some situations are for some people.
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  That is probably good advice for me.
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  I've never regretted that and, and it hasn't detracted at all
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  from my enjoyment of building bows.
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  In fact, I, I think that it really helped heighten and
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  refine my, my passion for it in the sense that when I knew that
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  somebody was going to be paying me good hard earned money for
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  this bow, that I was making it, it, it put me in a different
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  mindset, in a different relationship with a project.
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  And I'm always been very detail oriented and, you know, focused
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  on good finish work and good tiller and all that.
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  But, but having that added pressure or incentive kind of
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  brought, brings me to a, a new level with it and, and pushes me
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  to, to do even better and in a good way, in a way that feels,
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  you know, enjoyable and validating.
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  And, and it's, I think allowed me to reach levels with my bow
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  making that I'm not sure that I necessarily would have pushed
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  myself to if I had just kept it as a hobby.
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  So I, I, you know, there's not a day that I wake up that I'm
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  like, man, I got to go out to my shop and make bows like this
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  sucks. Of course, there's days where I
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  have more or less energy and, but I'm always so happy to be
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  doing what I'm doing and looking forward to my next class or my
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  next project. And yeah, I enjoy it.
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  What was the first bow that you sold?
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  First bow that I sold. Oh yeah, I remember.
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  So it was this straight land Osage Longbow and I remember
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  there was a bow bill. I'm sorry, an archery range, a
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  public outdoor archery range in Portland, OR.
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  It's pretty cool. There's not as part of the, the
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  City Park system. And so it's free and that that
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  sort of thing's pretty rare these days.
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  And to have access to that, it was a pretty cool place to go
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  because of Portland. And you'd have your hardcore
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  compound bow hunters sliding in their bows for the season.
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  And then you'd have all these weird Portland people, all sorts
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  of interesting characters there. But anyway, I was there shooting
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  in this bow that I'd made it, you know, hadn't even put any
• 22:27
  finish on it yet. I just wanted to put it through
• 22:29
  its paces. And there was a, a guy there
• 22:32
  that was interested in my bows and started talking to me and
• 22:37
  asked me if I sold any. And I was like, well, actually
• 22:39
  this is planning on selling this bow right here and can shoot it
• 22:42
  if you want. And so he shot it a little bit
• 22:45
  and fell in love with it and we stayed in touch And he, he ended
• 22:48
  up buying it from me and he actually became a friend of mine
• 22:51
  and got into bow making as well. And it wasn't until later that I
• 22:54
  told him that that was literally the first bow I'd ever sold.
• 22:57
  And he he thought that was pretty funny because he didn't,
• 23:00
  he didn't realize that at the time.
• 23:04
  But yeah. How were you?
• 23:07
  Getting your customers back then.
• 23:11
  I mean, I created a website fairly early on in the process
• 23:19
  and I started, you know, Facebook page for my business.
• 23:23
  And from the beginning, I'd say most of my business was coming
• 23:27
  from just my social media presence on Facebook and having
• 23:30
  a website and being a part, an active part of a various bow
• 23:34
  making and traditional archery groups.
• 23:37
  I mean that that's kind of been my core strategy throughout,
• 23:42
  even to this day, putting putting more and more emphasis
• 23:46
  on, on social media. And it's, it's a struggle for me
• 23:49
  because I, I don't, it's not easy for me to put myself on the
• 23:54
  camera all the time and make content.
• 23:56
  And it's definitely something I know I need to do more of
• 24:00
  because I know that it'll help my business grow.
• 24:03
  But I, every day I just have this dilemma, you know, I'm
• 24:06
  like, well, I know I should be making the video or making some
• 24:09
  content, but I could just grab this bow and work on it instead.
• 24:12
  And it's a lot easier to talk myself into, you know, grabbing
• 24:15
  a piece of wood to work on, then setting up the cameras and
• 24:18
  thinking through what I'm going to say and editing all of it.
• 24:20
  And so it's, it's been a struggle for me.
• 24:23
  And I see other people who are more successful on that front,
• 24:27
  you know, doing similar work to what I do and try to motivate
• 24:31
  myself based on their success with that.
• 24:34
  But it's pretty hit and miss for me.
• 24:36
  I I go through phases where I make a lot of content and then I
• 24:39
  won't for months. Yeah, you're not the only one,
• 24:44
  that's for sure. I would like to do away with
• 24:46
  that whole aspect, even recording podcasts.
• 24:49
  I would rather just have a conversation with you.
• 24:51
  But I know for this project that my daughter and I are doing, the
• 24:53
  whole thing is Project Quiver is going to be largely on social
• 24:56
  media, which is going to be a big stretch for me.
• 24:58
  I have no social media presence whatsoever.
• 25:01
  So it'll be interesting. But yeah, it is kind of in some
• 25:04
  ways necessary today to get anything out there.
• 25:08
  I mean, I don't know how people did this kind of work before
• 25:11
  social media. I mean, I guess you just had to,
• 25:14
  like, travel around and show up at every event.
• 25:17
  Yeah, you know, put up a booth and, and build up word of mouth.
• 25:20
  But it's hard to imagine doing this full time without, without
• 25:27
  the Internet. But I guess people did it.
• 25:30
  It's probably just fewer of them.
• 25:32
  Yeah. So what's your favorite type of
• 25:35
  wood to work with for bow making?
• 25:38
  That's a good question. It's funny, like, you know, my,
• 25:41
  my knee jerk answer is Osage and it's undisputably an amazing bow
• 25:47
  wood. You know, it has every every
• 25:50
  quality that you would want and it's durable and it's attractive
• 25:53
  looking and it's just a very undeniably an amazing bow wood.
• 25:59
  And it's what I make. I'd say the vast majority of the
• 26:02
  bows that I sell are made out of Osage.
• 26:05
  That being said, you know, when I look at my personal collection
• 26:09
  and the bows that I shoot, almost all of them are, are
• 26:14
  Pacific U and it's hard to put my finger on exactly why that
• 26:17
  is. You know, I think part of it is
• 26:19
  having started my bow making adventure in Oregon and having
• 26:23
  access to, you know, you that I was able to cut myself or, you
• 26:26
  know, trade from friends. And it's a beautiful wood and
• 26:30
  it, it has a magic to it that it's kind of hard to describe.
• 26:36
  It's also definitely more finicky than than Osage.
• 26:42
  It it, you know, the out of all the failures that I've had over
• 26:48
  the years, most of them I'd say were you bows.
• 26:51
  And when it when it goes it, it's exciting.
• 26:53
  It, it So, you know, I have, you know, I have mixed feelings
• 27:00
  about it. And I, you know, I, I've got
• 27:02
  some really nice U staves now that I've been able to work with
• 27:05
  and I've been making some really nice bows out of it and
• 27:08
  definitely learned. I think most of my failures with
• 27:12
  you that I had in the past were really just pushing the limits
• 27:15
  of what was a quality stave to work with.
• 27:18
  I mean, I, I think that for the most part, you really does best
• 27:21
  when it's a very, a very clean, pristine piece of wood and you
• 27:24
  can make character bows with it. But it's definitely flirting
• 27:28
  with some excitement. But really Osage is, is hard to
• 27:34
  beat. And it's definitely when I'm,
• 27:37
  when I'm making a bow for someone that's it's my default
• 27:40
  to, to reach for. I also work some with Eastern
• 27:43
  hophorn beam, which is also known as ironwood.
• 27:46
  It's it's my favorite white wood to work with.
• 27:50
  And after that, Hickory is, is pretty good.
• 27:52
  The issue I run into here in North Carolina, and you'll
• 27:56
  probably laugh being in Costa Rica, but the humidity here
• 27:59
  makes it harder to get real quality bows out of white woods
• 28:04
  that are lacking a bit of compression strength compared to
• 28:08
  what's like Osage or you. They, they tend to take set and
• 28:11
  be a little bit more sluggish and humid climates.
• 28:14
  And you can counteract that with heat tempering in the belly,
• 28:18
  which is what I do when I I work with white woods here.
• 28:21
  But it's just another, another step to the process.
• 28:24
  I would love to. Learn more about that because in
• 28:26
  Costa Rica I've I've lost so many bows.
• 28:30
  They worked fine in the Pacific Northwest even though it's
• 28:33
  really humid there as well. But I think it's the combination
• 28:36
  of the extreme heat and humidity.
• 28:38
  And I've I had one ubo buckle like it was APVC pipe and it
• 28:45
  didn't break. It still looks fine when it's
• 28:47
  unstrung, but you can see where that crease is in it.
• 28:50
  But it just fully buckled while I was shooting it.
• 28:52
  And my my first, my first year, well, I made it too.
• 28:56
  So let's just say it didn't have a perfect tiller.
• 28:58
  I'm sure of that. It was a, it was an early, early
• 29:00
  bow, but I went through many, many bows when I first moved
• 29:04
  here and it was really disappointing.
• 29:06
  I was. At the point.
• 29:08
  Point of tears often. And teaching to teaching
• 29:11
  archery. When equipment starts failing
• 29:14
  it, it gets a little nerve wracking.
• 29:16
  Yeah, I'm kidding. I'm fascinated with all the
• 29:19
  different types of woods and part of this podcast is
• 29:23
  educational for bow making. So I'd like to take a few
• 29:26
  minutes to actually talk about like some of your favorite
• 29:29
  woods. So when when I give lessons and
• 29:31
  people see my quiver of bows, they're always curious about
• 29:34
  what kind of woods I have some laminates.
• 29:35
  I have some self bows. My first bow ever that I bought
• 29:38
  off of Jamie McDonald or Ravenbeak bows was AU Wood
• 29:41
  Longbow. The first two or three bows I
• 29:45
  ever made were with Jamie and MacDonald.
• 29:47
  They were all you would long bows and when I tell people you
• 29:51
  would, most of them never even heard of it and they hadn't
• 29:54
  heard of Osage orange until years after that when I started
• 29:59
  to get into bow making. It was my understanding though
• 30:01
  with I guess we'll start with you would it is in the Pacific
• 30:04
  Northwest of the States and Canada and it grows throughout
• 30:07
  England. I'm pretty sure it grows through
• 30:09
  many countries in Europe and and then you would I have I have a
• 30:13
  farm in British Columbia and the you would trees I have on there
• 30:16
  are really gnarly. It's.
• 30:18
  Hard to. Imagine getting a section that's
• 30:21
  even 2 feet long and straight versus 6 or 7 feet long.
• 30:25
  And it's my understanding that in England it's now protected,
• 30:29
  or at least they had to protect it at some point because the
• 30:31
  tree was going extinct. Because most of them are being
• 30:34
  cut down for bow making. Yeah.
• 30:37
  My, my, so there's two, there are two distinct species.
• 30:41
  The European U is called Taxis piccata and the North American U
• 30:46
  is taxis prefolia. And there, there's some
• 30:49
  differences, but they're both good quality.
• 30:53
  Beau Wood and I, I think that some people like to quibble
• 30:57
  about one being better than the other.
• 30:59
  I, I really don't think that they're, I, I think it has a lot
• 31:05
  more to do with the individual tree and the individual state
• 31:07
  than it does between the difference between the species.
• 31:10
  So I think from a bow making standpoint, I think it's pretty
• 31:13
  reasonable to just kind of talk about them as one type of bow
• 31:16
  would in Europe. It's pretty widespread and, and
• 31:20
  the most sought after you would in Europe came from the high
• 31:24
  elevation and the Alps in like France and Spain and Italy.
• 31:27
  The the more resource starved the tree was, the the thinner
• 31:32
  the growth rings that it laid down.
• 31:34
  And so the resulting wood was much denser and just had better
• 31:39
  bow qualities, better compression strength, less
• 31:41
  likely to take set. And so back in, you know,
• 31:44
  medieval times when they were mass producing these bows for
• 31:49
  the, for the English army, they quickly, you know, depleted good
• 31:56
  bow wood. And in England, and my
• 31:58
  understanding was that during the height of their time with
• 32:03
  the bow being so prominent that there was even a, an import tax,
• 32:08
  any ship that was coming to England to trade goods was
• 32:11
  required to have X amount of use staves per ton of cargo or
• 32:17
  something. You know, there was some ratio
• 32:18
  that they had, you know, and, and these states were all coming
• 32:20
  from the mainland continent, you know, ideally from, you know,
• 32:25
  the mountainous regions. And so they had this massive
• 32:28
  influx of staves coming in with all the trade goods so that they
• 32:31
  can keep their, their armies armed with good U bows.
• 32:35
  And yeah, today I think the British bowyers that I talked
• 32:41
  to, if they're getting you from England, it's mostly coming from
• 32:45
  private like church yards and stuff like that.
• 32:48
  Like they're, they're, it's not uncommon for you trees to be
• 32:53
  planted at in graveyards or church yards.
• 32:56
  And so there's these really old massive Yew Tree is, you know,
• 33:00
  of course they, they're not cutting down the whole tree.
• 33:02
  They're just getting permission to cut a branch here or there.
• 33:05
  But otherwise, I think most British billiards today are are
• 33:09
  primarily relying on wood from mainland Europe or from North
• 33:13
  America getting shipped over. But it's definitely a a precious
• 33:18
  commodity over there. I mean, it is everywhere in the
• 33:21
  Pacific Northwest. It it mostly grows in the
• 33:24
  Cascade and coast range like you said up in the British Columbia
• 33:27
  down spar in the California there's a patch and Montana and
• 33:30
  Idaho and the mountains as well. Like you said, when you go out
• 33:35
  to cut you, you can walk past a lot of trees before you find
• 33:41
  anything worth cutting and that's if you find any trees at
• 33:43
  all. I talked to guys that cut Osage
• 33:47
  and they are complaining about how hard it is hard the work is
• 33:51
  and, and they're not wrong. Cutting Bo wood and splitting it
• 33:54
  and seasoning it, it's all, it's all hard work.
• 33:57
  But I don't think that they always fully appreciated what we
• 34:01
  had to go through in the Pacific Northwest to get to get you wood
• 34:05
  because usually we'd have to drive at least three hours to
• 34:08
  get out to where we wanted to cut.
• 34:10
  You'd have to go out to the Ranger station, try to get
• 34:13
  permission. And it was all about who you
• 34:16
  talk to, like you've talked to the right person.
• 34:18
  They'd be like, Oh yeah, you want to cut some U staves,
• 34:21
  That's great. Here's circle on the map.
• 34:23
  Go over here, there's some good. You can cut as many as you want,
• 34:26
  which is a dollar a stave. And then you'd go back another
• 34:28
  time and you'd talk to someone and they were acting like they
• 34:31
  were going to call the cops just 'cause you asked.
• 34:33
  Like, it's like, OK, what is it? Can we cut it or not?
• 34:36
  And there's definitely a lot of you out there.
• 34:40
  It's it's not as common as like Doug Furr, hemlock or things
• 34:44
  like that. It's not whole forests of it,
• 34:45
  but there's definitely big patches out there.
• 34:49
  And I've never really felt concerned about, you know, us
• 34:53
  handful of lawyers going out there and cut, you know, 'cause
• 34:56
  like I said, we're going to cut, we're going to walk past, you
• 35:00
  know, 50 trees before we find one that we want to cut.
• 35:03
  And. And as you said, that's a
• 35:05
  branch. Well, even cutting a tree, but
• 35:09
  loggers, they're just, they're going to clear cut the whole
• 35:12
  area. They're going to throw all that
• 35:13
  yew onto a pile and burn it. And also the a big impact on the
• 35:17
  the population out there was the taxol that you is toxic and, and
• 35:22
  they found that they could make a chemotherapy drug out of the
• 35:26
  bark. And so there was a period there
• 35:28
  where people were going out and any Yew Tree that they could
• 35:31
  find, they were stripping the bark off of it and selling it
• 35:34
  for Taxol. And that, that definitely hurt
• 35:37
  the population because they were able to be pretty indiscriminate
• 35:40
  and they weren't even cutting the trees down a lot of times.
• 35:44
  And you can still find yew trees out there that have been
• 35:47
  stripped to bark, but they, they synthesize the drug and so they
• 35:51
  don't need the yew bark anymore to, to make it, but it still had
• 35:55
  an impact on the population out there.
• 35:57
  So it's, it's getting harder to to legally harvest you on public
• 36:02
  lands. They're, I think they're
• 36:03
  tightening down on it from what I've heard.
• 36:05
  So if you don't have access to it on private land, it can be a
• 36:08
  little trickier. I don't know what things are
• 36:09
  like in British Columbia, but. Well, it's a sad story because
• 36:14
  as you mentioned, the logging industry, they clear cut entire
• 36:17
  mountains and EU wood is considered just a byproduct of
• 36:21
  that and a waste product. So what I have been told by some
• 36:25
  of my teachers that work with you is that those yew trees that
• 36:29
  are destroyed and the and the clear cuts just become Rd. base.
• 36:32
  They literally just put them down and build the roads on top
• 36:35
  of them. And at the time I started bow
• 36:38
  carving anyway, Jamie MacDonald had said you can't get permits
• 36:42
  as an artisan to harvest wood in British Columbia.
• 36:45
  You can only get permits if you're one of these giant
• 36:47
  corporations that's taking down an entire mountainside.
• 36:51
  And so you had to have contacts within the forestry industry to
• 36:55
  let you know when a tree had been taken down and before it
• 36:58
  got destroyed in a road base or in a fire.
• 37:01
  You might be lucky enough to go out and salvage it, but.
• 37:04
  That's with with with loggers in Oregon was these companies, they
• 37:10
  didn't want to deal with the liability of anybody that wasn't
• 37:14
  one of their loggers going out into their property and cutting
• 37:18
  stuff. And so they just would blanket
• 37:20
  refuse anybody to cut anything, just I think for liability
• 37:24
  purposes if nothing else, which was frustrating but well, in
• 37:28
  British. Columbia, it's not typically
• 37:30
  private property that gets logged.
• 37:31
  That's normally what's called Crown land, which is owned by
• 37:34
  the government. And these forestry companies get
• 37:36
  permits to go into Crown land and do this.
• 37:38
  So it's not even, I don't even think it's a liability issue in
• 37:41
  that case, Sure. So when you know talking about
• 37:46
  Pacific Northwest woods, have you heard of vine Maple?
• 37:49
  Yes, the Vine I. Worked with it.
• 37:52
  Is. A really good bow wood.
• 37:54
  I, you know, I was turned onto it by John Strunk and he's
• 37:57
  definitely the one that I think popular as the idea of vine
• 38:01
  Maple being used for a bow. I don't know if anybody was
• 38:03
  really talking about it much beforehand aside from, you know,
• 38:06
  the natives in the area. The nice thing about vine Maple
• 38:09
  is it's like a weed. It's all over the place.
• 38:12
  Finding a straight enough peace can be challenging.
• 38:15
  It grows in clumps and kind of goes out at an angle.
• 38:17
  And with that, that angular growth is actually one of its
• 38:21
  features of what makes it a good bowood.
• 38:23
  So you've got this trunk that's, you know, growing out at an
• 38:26
  angle for the entire life of the tree.
• 38:28
  And so on that top portion of that trunk, the entire life of
• 38:32
  that tree, it's under tension. And so when we harvest by Maple,
• 38:37
  we mark the top part of the the section or the we mark the top
• 38:41
  part of the trunk, the part that's facing up.
• 38:44
  So when we cut it and we're able to remember, and that's going to
• 38:47
  be the back of the bow, that's the tension side.
• 38:49
  And a lot of times when you start taking wood off the other
• 38:53
  side to reduce it down to, to bow proportions, that that
• 38:58
  tension gets released and the whole stable just pull into
• 39:02
  sometimes pretty unmanageable amount of reflex to the point
• 39:05
  where you have to like heat some of the reflex out of the bow
• 39:08
  because it's more than you would want.
• 39:09
  But it it makes for a really snappy bow because it's really
• 39:15
  still wanting to to, you know, pull against the string in that,
• 39:20
  in that way. And it if you if you treat it
• 39:23
  right and and build it right, it, it makes a really, really
• 39:28
  incredible bow. It's it so the top?
• 39:33
  Sorry, the top part that becomes the back of the bow and is it
• 39:37
  originally, is it growing in a bit of a deflux then?
• 39:41
  Not necessarily no. Some sometimes it does,
• 39:45
  sometimes it it you know, it's relatively straight.
• 39:48
  Sometimes it's, you know, already reflex.
• 39:51
  You know, it's tricky to find pieces that are not real gnarly
• 39:57
  and you know, have kind of jogs and you know, almost every vine
• 40:02
  Maple bow has some character to it.
• 40:04
  And you know, it's it's it's tough, stringy wood like it, it
• 40:09
  doesn't work well with draw knives or scrapers or it clogs
• 40:14
  up rasps. Like the best tool we found for
• 40:16
  use for working at was those microplane rasps.
• 40:21
  They're kind of like a sure form, but like they they don't
• 40:24
  clog up. As as badly as you know, a
• 40:27
  farrier's rasp or something like that would.
• 40:30
  But it definitely, if I'm Maple, makes you work work for your
• 40:33
  bow. But when you know, if you if you
• 40:35
  do it right, it it makes a pretty great bow.
• 40:38
  And so I think it's a good alternative for bow years in
• 40:42
  that area that for whatever reason are not able to access.
• 40:46
  You would just to know that there's another very common wood
• 40:51
  species that most people wouldn't care if you cut, that
• 40:56
  you can make all the bows you come out of with it.
• 40:59
  And is that with AD section or is that more of a flat bow?
• 41:03
  It's like. Other white woods in that it it
• 41:05
  does best when it's a a flat bow with a a wide flat belly because
• 41:10
  it you know, it will have similar compression issues with
• 41:13
  a narrow rounded belly that any other white wood would go with.
• 41:19
  And, and it's typically a pretty small, it's a pretty small
• 41:22
  diameter tree most of the time. And so a lot of times you're
• 41:26
  going to have that high crown, you deal with the crown and you
• 41:29
  make the, the belly as as wide and flat as you can.
• 41:34
  It it, it lends itself to that, that kind of flat boat, flat
• 41:37
  boat design. I'm going to seek some staves
• 41:43
  out this season and get them through the end of the drying
• 41:46
  process because it yeah, they do grow like weeds.
• 41:49
  They're clumps of them everywhere and the nice.
• 41:53
  Thing about them too is they, they don't take as long to
• 41:55
  season as you would need, like a new stave or something like
• 41:59
  that. You know, if you, you cut it,
• 42:01
  if, if, if it lets you peel the bark off.
• 42:03
  If it's with the SAP is running and you can peel the bark off,
• 42:05
  go ahead and do that. You might want to wipe a little
• 42:09
  something on the back like some shellac or something to, but
• 42:12
  typically it doesn't. It doesn't check very readily
• 42:17
  and you can even reduce get some of the wood off the belly, kind
• 42:21
  of reduce it down to roughed out proportions right away.
• 42:25
  Some people like to strap it down so it doesn't get squirrely
• 42:28
  as it's as it's drying out because that that tension can
• 42:32
  want to pull it in different directions.
• 42:35
  But if you, if you get the, if you get the bark off it and you
• 42:39
  rough it out some, especially during the summer months where
• 42:43
  it's hot, dry, you know, in the, in the Pacific Northwest, you
• 42:48
  know, you could work with it, make a bow out of it.
• 42:50
  You know, in a few months, you know, John Strunk has even, you
• 42:55
  know, done it over a campfire, you know, cut, cut a sapling
• 42:58
  and, you know, kind of dried it out over the campfire while he
• 43:01
  was working on it and made a perfectly serviceable bow, you
• 43:05
  know, in a day or two. Wow.
• 43:08
  Did you say Douglas fir earlier as a bow would?
• 43:11
  No, I was just saying you said a.
• 43:15
  Friend was using Douglas or he uses.
• 43:18
  It for aeroshaft. Sorry.
• 43:19
  So Sherwood shaft. Is.
• 43:21
  A is a shaft, a wood shaft company that's been around for
• 43:25
  his dad was one of the owners of it and he ended up taking it
• 43:30
  over from the old timers that were running it with his dad.
• 43:33
  And so they're they're they're my favorite wood shafts to use
• 43:35
  by far. A lot tougher.
• 43:38
  Your Porter for theater shafts. Yeah.
• 43:41
  OK, yeah, I was, I I misheard you there because I was thinking
• 43:44
  of Douglas Burke. Can be used.
• 43:46
  I've got a lot. That's great.
• 43:47
  I know. I always looked at all like
• 43:49
  that. We had a lot of big leaf maples
• 43:51
  where I lived in Oregon, you know, and they were just all
• 43:54
  these straight perfect trees all around.
• 43:56
  And I would just always think to myself, like, man, I really wish
• 44:00
  you could make a good bow out of big leaf Maple, but it's just
• 44:02
  too soft and you could make a bow out of it.
• 44:05
  It's just, it's not, it's not a great option.
• 44:07
  It's just it, it's not hard like you know, sugar Maple or
• 44:12
  something like that. It's it's a much softer, lighter
• 44:14
  wood. Yeah, well, let's wrap up the
• 44:18
  wood wood lesson with Osage 'cause it's it's a wood that I
• 44:23
  know very little about. I've only worked with it now in
• 44:26
  laminates. I haven't actually made a self
• 44:28
  bow out of it 'cause I don't have access to it in the Pacific
• 44:30
  Northwest and in Costa Rica I definitely don't have access to
• 44:33
  it. Yeah, Osage is, is something
• 44:36
  pretty remarkable. The historic range of it that
• 44:39
  was actually quite small area like in northern Texas, parts of
• 44:43
  Oklahoma and Kansas, Missouri. Like there's this kind of small
• 44:49
  area where the, where the Osage Native Americans lived and they,
• 44:54
  they used it for bows and they traded it prolifically for
• 44:58
  hundreds of miles in all directions like other tribes
• 45:01
  would trade for it to make to use as a bow wood.
• 45:04
  And it's, it's different from white woods or from you where
• 45:10
  you're typically just removing the bark and using the SAP wood
• 45:14
  under the bark as the back of the bow.
• 45:15
  With with Osage, you're typically getting down past the
• 45:20
  SAP wood and you're chasing a single growth ring of the heart
• 45:24
  wood and you're the so the entire bow is comprised of the
• 45:29
  heartwood. You can use sapwood on the back
• 45:33
  like you might with those like, like you might with you, but
• 45:36
  typically people get rid of the sapwood it it has, it's much
• 45:39
  more likely to check and the drying process.
• 45:44
  And so anyway, it's, it's a very dense kind of resinous wood and
• 45:52
  it has a really nice kind of depth and luster to it just in
• 45:56
  terms of looks. And it, it starts off typically
• 45:58
  as a real kind of electric yellow color when it's fresh
• 46:01
  cut. But as with exposure to UV, over
• 46:05
  time it will darken to kind of a honey gold and then you know,
• 46:09
  more and more brown until it's almost like chocolatey brown
• 46:12
  after years of, of seasoning. And it it's got, it's got good
• 46:20
  tension strength when you've got that single ring chased on the
• 46:23
  back and it's got great compression strength on the
• 46:26
  belly. So it does well in humid
• 46:28
  climates. And it really lends itself to a
• 46:30
  real wide variety of designs. You know, anything from a, you
• 46:34
  know, D cross section English Longbow to a, you know, real
• 46:37
  short, you know, Native American style horse bow or anything in
• 46:43
  between. But there's really not many
• 46:46
  designs that it doesn't do well for.
• 46:48
  And that's it's, it's got a pretty cool Natural History too.
• 46:53
  Apparently. It's got these, it's got these
• 46:55
  fruit balls that are like this big green, kind of brainy
• 46:59
  looking fruits that are not edible for people.
• 47:03
  Is that the hedge? Hedge Apple?
• 47:05
  Yeah, the. Hedge apple, I mean, and that's
• 47:06
  the thing, you know, people know the tree by different terms.
• 47:09
  Some people call it hedge, some people call it hedge apple, some
• 47:12
  people call it bowed arc. And so sometimes you'll be
• 47:15
  talking to somebody who, who lives where it is and they
• 47:18
  don't, they've never heard the word Osage before.
• 47:20
  They just call it hedge or whatever it it.
• 47:22
  It virtually does not rot. So the they make fence posts out
• 47:27
  of it. Farmers love it for fence posts
• 47:30
  because those fence posts will just be there forever.
• 47:33
  I know people that have dug up 150 year old fence posts out of
• 47:37
  the ground, gotten down past the weathered wood and made a bow
• 47:41
  from what was inside. It's, it's really incredible
• 47:44
  stuff. And it, you know, it got spread
• 47:47
  throughout all, you know, the, the Midwest and up into the
• 47:50
  Northeast and by farmers, you know, but they will also plant
• 47:54
  like live, live hedgerows along the edge of their, their fields,
• 47:58
  as you know, wind breaks. And so it, it, it's, it's spread
• 48:02
  quite widely from its original range.
• 48:05
  What I was going to say about the Natural History of it, It's
• 48:07
  pretty cool. Like apparently the original
• 48:09
  seed dispersal was done by megafauna, like giant ground
• 48:13
  sloths and stuff like that. They were the ones that ate the
• 48:17
  fruit and dispersed the seeds. And so it's kind of this like
• 48:25
  holdover, you know, from a bygone era.
• 48:28
  And it doesn't really have an ecological niche any more like
• 48:33
  it used to because all the animals that it had evolved to
• 48:37
  interact with for seed dispersal are gone.
• 48:39
  So there were. Giant ground sloths in the US
• 48:42
  area. Yeah, really did not know that.
• 48:48
  Yeah. Is this?
• 48:49
  Like dinosaur time or recently No.
• 48:52
  After dinosaurs. So this is like like the I'm not
• 48:57
  a scientist so I might be slightly wrong, but kind of like
• 49:00
  the place to see an era where there was like woolly mammoths
• 49:03
  and giant ground sloths and you know, all the, all the big mega
• 49:07
  phonic when the the original migrants to the North America
• 49:14
  came over the land bridge or yeah, we're hunting these
• 49:17
  animals. It's kind of kind of during that
• 49:19
  era. OK.
• 49:22
  And do you have any Osage growing near you in North
• 49:24
  Carolina or is it still in that region you mentioned north?
• 49:28
  Carolina's marginal like I don't know of any that's like
• 49:32
  naturalized there. There's hedgerows planted by
• 49:35
  farmers. I've harvested some hedge row.
• 49:38
  Osage is not usually all that great for bows because they have
• 49:43
  so much sun exposure that they just kind of grow all over the
• 49:46
  place and tend to be pretty gnarly trees and finding
• 49:49
  straight sections can be harder. The best Osage is growing down
• 49:53
  in dark Creek bottoms where it's really reaching for the light
• 49:56
  and growing straight and clean, trying to get up to the light.
• 50:00
  And, and we just don't have stands of it like that in North
• 50:03
  Carolina, but there are some in Virginia, there's some in
• 50:06
  Tennessee that I, I've been trying to connect with somebody
• 50:10
  that's got access to some that I can do a day's drive with a
• 50:14
  truck and a trailer and load up, but I haven't quite pulled that
• 50:17
  off yet. But it, it's not, not too far
• 50:19
  afield for me. But I actually had a friend when
• 50:23
  I was at the Tennessee Classic a few weeks ago, a friend of mine
• 50:26
  gifted me a, an Osage sapling. So I'm going to, I'm going to
• 50:30
  plant one. I just, we just bought a house.
• 50:32
  We're moving in this weekend and I'm going to try to find a good
• 50:35
  place in the yard to to plant that tree.
• 50:37
  And maybe that's fitting for a Bowyer.
• 50:41
  Right. Yeah.
• 50:42
  I thought so that was it was pretty cool gift, yeah.
• 50:46
  Well, let's thank you for that. Thanks for the history of some
• 50:49
  of the woods. I'm sure we could talk long
• 50:51
  about those, but I want to get back to you.
• 50:53
  You'll be you'll. Be intimately familiar with
• 50:55
  Osage after. Good taking them both me.
• 50:58
  That's awesome. I'm really excited for that.
• 51:00
  How long have you been teaching Ogar?
• 51:05
  Let's see, I taught informally here and there with individuals,
• 51:12
  some in Oregon, you know, typically nothing that was paid,
• 51:16
  you know, it was just a friend or you know, so I, I got some
• 51:20
  practice out there teaching classes and my friend Carson
• 51:24
  was, he was teaching formal classes before I was.
• 51:27
  And so I would, I went out and, you know, hung out with one of
• 51:30
  his classes one time and kind of, so how he was going about
• 51:34
  it. And, and it wasn't until I got
• 51:36
  to North Carolina and started doing this full time that I
• 51:38
  started putting together formal classes.
• 51:41
  And I can't remember what year my first class was, but I bet
• 51:44
  I've been doing it for about 6 years now.
• 51:47
  I try to do about 5 classes a year ideally.
• 51:50
  And lately I've been limiting it to, to four people at a time so
• 51:55
  I can really give people dedicated attention.
• 51:57
  I feel like I used to do 6 people and I, I always pulled it
• 52:01
  off, but when I started charging more for my classes, I felt like
• 52:05
  it was only fair to limit the amount of people in it.
• 52:07
  So people really felt like they were getting their money's worth
• 52:09
  out of it. And boys, it's always been
• 52:11
  really important for me for everybody to walk away, you
• 52:15
  know, feeling successful, having a, a beautiful bow that, that
• 52:18
  takes, that takes a lot of hard work and, and a lot of focus for
• 52:25
  me to make sure that, you know, people are able to stay on track
• 52:28
  and, and finish their bow, you know, by the end of the four
• 52:31
  days. And I know people teach classes
• 52:34
  on shorter time timelines than that.
• 52:36
  But to me that seems super stressful and risky because if
• 52:39
  any little hitch comes along or you got to backtrack or start
• 52:43
  over with something like having less than four days seems like
• 52:48
  it would risk the possibility of people not being successful.
• 52:53
  And when you teach, are you using only Osage Orange?
• 52:56
  Yeah, typically that that's my go to.
• 52:59
  But what just because it's because it has such good
• 53:02
  compression strength, it's forgiving, forgiving of errors.
• 53:06
  If you have some tillering issues as you're going along,
• 53:09
  are you much less likely to develop a hinge or set or, you
• 53:13
  know, compression fractures or something like that?
• 53:17
  A lot of people would say like a good beginner would would be
• 53:20
  Hickory and in some ways that's true.
• 53:22
  I mean, it's quite forgiving as well because it just has such
• 53:25
  great tension. We have to deal with the
• 53:40
  compression issue of of Hickory and this climate and I don't
• 53:44
  want to deal with heat tempering everybody's bows.
• 53:46
  If we don't do that, if we don't do that, then I run the risk of
• 53:49
  people having bows, you know, taking a bunch of set or even
• 53:52
  picked up compression fractures. Excuse me.
• 53:58
  So I really feel like Osages is the ideal wood for my classes.
• 54:04
  How tedious tedious is it to chase that growth ring on the
• 54:07
  back? Yeah, I was just.
• 54:08
  About to say, I mean, that's what people consider to be the
• 54:11
  biggest obstacle for Osage and beginners is chasing that ring.
• 54:15
  And it really depends on the the piece of wood.
• 54:20
  And so typically when I'm looking at Osage and choosing
• 54:24
  whether it's a good stave or not, I look one thing I look at
• 54:27
  is the rings and if if they're nice and fat, that's really
• 54:32
  helpful because it's real lot easier to chase a thick ring.
• 54:35
  If you got real thin rings, it's real easy to accidentally cut
• 54:37
  through it with your draw knife and have to start over again.
• 54:40
  But you're also looking at the ratio between the, the early
• 54:44
  wood and the late wood. Every, every growth ring is
• 54:46
  made-up of lighter, more crumbly layer of early wood and a
• 54:52
  thicker, denser, darker layer of late wood.
• 54:57
  And so I look at the ratio between the two.
• 54:59
  I want to see real kind of pencil thin early wood lines
• 55:03
  and, and thicker late wood lines.
• 55:05
  And if you've got all that in place and you don't have a knots
• 55:08
  to deal with and you don't have, sometimes there'll be a little
• 55:10
  dips and valleys on the back. Those sorts of things will
• 55:13
  really slow you down. I can if, if I don't have any
• 55:15
  real obstacles, I can chase the ring on a bow in four or five
• 55:19
  minutes, really. Wow.
• 55:22
  But if I've got valleys to deal with or, you know, significant
• 55:25
  knots to work around, or if the rings are real thin, you know,
• 55:28
  could definitely get slowed down and, and need to take longer.
• 55:31
  You know, typically in a class, you know, I have a lot of
• 55:35
  experience and confidence, so I'm able to, to go faster.
• 55:39
  It's understandable when you're, I mean, I remember chasing my
• 55:42
  first ring. It took me forever.
• 55:43
  So I encourage people to pace, you know, slow down as much as
• 55:46
  they need to, to be careful. And so sometimes people will
• 55:49
  spend four or five hours chasing that ring, But ideally I'd like
• 55:54
  them to get it done sooner just in terms of pacing class.
• 55:57
  But like I said, with a four day class, we can have a little bit
• 56:00
  of wiggle room if somebody gets bogged down in one particular
• 56:03
  aspect of the the bow making. We can usually catch up in other
• 56:07
  areas, but it just really depends on the state more than
• 56:10
  anything. Even if you're inexperienced, if
• 56:13
  you have a state that's really set up for success, you can
• 56:15
  chase it in fairly short order once you get the feel for it.
• 56:18
  And a lot of it is about feel for me.
• 56:20
  I I wonder I should try sometimes see if I could chase
• 56:23
  the ring with my eyes closed. I'm sure it wouldn't go well.
• 56:26
  But I feel like a lot of it has to do with the feel for me.
• 56:29
  Like I can feel when the draw knife is skating along that
• 56:33
  dancer late wood and biting into that crumbly early wood.
• 56:37
  And and, you know, you really have to do it to understand what
• 56:41
  I'm saying. But you'll, you'll see what I'm
• 56:43
  talking about. Yeah.
• 56:45
  Yeah, I look forward to that. So what I'm learning as I go
• 56:48
  along and meet different Bowers is not all Bowers are avid
• 56:51
  practitioners of archery. I think.
• 56:55
  Probably most of them got into carving bows from doing archery,
• 56:59
  but I've met quite a few who do archery to test their bows.
• 57:03
  But outside of that there's not much.
• 57:04
  What about you? That's a good question.
• 57:06
  We were talking a lot about that when I was at the Tennessee
• 57:09
  Classic. I definitely think that I'd say
• 57:13
  it's a pretty fair rule that anybody that is a really
• 57:17
  accomplished bow year is typically not also a really
• 57:20
  accomplished Archer. You know, just largely I think
• 57:24
  because of people that are really good Archers spend a lot
• 57:27
  of time shooting and refining that.
• 57:29
  And when your focus is is making the bows, like you said, most of
• 57:33
  the shooting you end up doing as a bow year is just putting each
• 57:36
  bow through its paces. And when I'm doing that, it's
• 57:40
  hard for me to focus on all the important details of good
• 57:45
  archery. I'm really paying attention to
• 57:47
  how the bow feels and like how the air flight looks and stuff
• 57:50
  like that. And it's easy for me to forget
• 57:52
  about all the things that I should be thinking about when
• 57:55
  I'm shooting. Plus, you know, every bow's got
• 57:58
  a different draw length and a different draw weight.
• 58:00
  And often I'm not able to tune up.
• 58:03
  I'm usually, I'm not able to tune up arrows with a particular
• 58:05
  bow that I'm just shooting in. So it's not great practice for,
• 58:12
  for my archery. And so I, I definitely am not a
• 58:15
  world class shooter by any stretch.
• 58:17
  Like going to the Tennessee classic, which is a competitive
• 58:20
  3D shoot. And there's a lot of people that
• 58:21
  come there to seriously, you know, compete.
• 58:25
  And some of the people that I camped with and shoot with are
• 58:29
  world class Archers. Some of them have competed for
• 58:31
  the US team abroad and they consistently win the categories
• 58:36
  that they compete in. And so going out with them, it's
• 58:38
  even more humbling because they're really showing me how
• 58:42
  it's done. And there's a couple exceptions,
• 58:46
  I think to that, that split between Archers and and bowyers.
• 58:53
  Robert Garcia, one of the guys that I I camp with, he's a a
• 58:56
  prolific Bowyer, you know, does it full time for a lot of the
• 58:59
  year and makes great bows, but he's also an incredible shot and
• 59:05
  beats regularly. And another another one is Tony
• 59:08
  Tall. I don't know if you've heard his
• 59:09
  name. He's a he's a friend of mine who
• 59:14
  he's not a professional Bowyer. He sells bows here and there
• 59:18
  often builds him for raffles and fundraisers and stuff like that.
• 59:23
  But he's a very good Bowyer, but he's also just a incredible shot
• 59:27
  with the self boat especially. And he almost always wins or
• 59:32
  comes close to winning these these tournaments.
• 59:35
  And but aside from a few exceptions like that, people
• 59:38
  tend to either be one or the other, but not both, right?
• 59:42
  Yeah, I just interviewed, it's been a couple weeks now, just
• 59:45
  about to release an interview with Corey Hawk of Organic
• 59:48
  Archery. And he seems to be an avid
• 59:50
  Archer. He does it daily.
• 59:51
  And we talk in that podcast about how it's, it's therapeutic
• 59:55
  for him and that if he doesn't do it daily, he can really see
• 59:57
  it, the impact, the negative impact on his overall health.
• 1:00:01
  So it's something that he's, he takes very seriously.
• 1:00:03
  And he also hunts with it. And is, yeah, he's, he's a very
• 1:00:07
  dedicated as an Archer and as a Bowyer.
• 1:00:09
  But a lot of bowyers I've met have shared similar things that
• 1:00:13
  you shared. And my first teacher, Jamie
• 1:00:15
  McDonald, when I was there at his workshop carving my first
• 1:00:18
  bow and in British Columbia, he mentioned that he rarely ever
• 1:00:22
  shoots. I was like, well, how's that
• 1:00:23
  even possible? But I can understand it.
• 1:00:25
  And it's it is something where the.
• 1:00:28
  Art of bow crafting is such a specialty in it, it's consuming
• 1:00:32
  great meditative sort of way. But I've been able to pass 12
• 1:00:37
  plus hours a day just in my barn carving bows and not coming up
• 1:00:41
  for air. So yeah.
• 1:00:43
  I mean, I really intend to improve my shooting.
• 1:00:46
  It's something that I would like to do, and I've been putting
• 1:00:48
  more work into it in this last year.
• 1:00:50
  Last year at the Classic, I pulled my friend Robert aside
• 1:00:53
  and was like, OK, I'm really plateauing here.
• 1:00:56
  Like I need, I need some help. So we went out and he, he
• 1:00:59
  coached me through and gave me some really good solid pointers.
• 1:01:02
  And I'm kind of trying to veer out of the instinctive route a
• 1:01:06
  little bit and play around with the point of aim style shooting,
• 1:01:11
  you know, because it's, I was pretty stubbornly instinctive
• 1:01:15
  for a long time. But at a certain point I just
• 1:01:17
  had to admit like, I'm not getting any better.
• 1:01:19
  Like I I need something to work with to focus focus on and and
• 1:01:25
  I've been struggling with target panic for years now.
• 1:01:28
  Just really bad. What's?
• 1:01:29
  That it's. It's a psychological thing and,
• 1:01:35
  and there's a lot of debate about whether it's even real or
• 1:01:38
  not or, you know, it means different things to different
• 1:01:40
  people. But for me, what it means is my
• 1:01:43
  intention is to have a nice smooth draw, you know, good back
• 1:01:47
  tension good, you know, tension in my bow arm.
• 1:01:50
  Get to my anchor point, settle for a second, make sure
• 1:01:53
  everything looks and feels right and then release.
• 1:01:55
  I don't I'm not going to hold it there forever, just just a solid
• 1:01:58
  second. It's good enough.
• 1:01:59
  But what I do is every time I get even if I just barely get to
• 1:02:04
  anchor, sometimes not even, and then I release.
• 1:02:07
  And it's so frustrating is every time I just tell myself, like
• 1:02:10
  Waylon, get to full draw, settle for a second.
• 1:02:13
  Like, you know, I'll be talking to myself, you know, and it
• 1:02:17
  doesn't matter what I say to myself, especially if I'm in a
• 1:02:21
  social situation like on a 3D course or something like that,
• 1:02:24
  it's even worse. And I just, I really struggle to
• 1:02:29
  settle into my anchor and I'm just snap shooting when I don't
• 1:02:31
  mean to. And it's really frustrating.
• 1:02:34
  But some of the things that I was working on with my friend
• 1:02:39
  help a lot. And if, if I can really sit down
• 1:02:42
  and implement them, I think it'll, it'll probably take care
• 1:02:45
  of the problem largely, you know, because what he talks
• 1:02:50
  about is, is like really knowing what your whole shot sequence is
• 1:02:57
  like from the very, very beginning, the very first thing
• 1:02:59
  you do, that's a ritual part of you getting ready to shoot.
• 1:03:03
  And like you said, like literally sit down and write
• 1:03:05
  down every step of your process and like, and then just get out
• 1:03:09
  there and like go through your process step by step until
• 1:03:13
  you're ready to shoot, but then don't shoot and let down and
• 1:03:16
  then go through it again. And like, get really used to
• 1:03:19
  just going through that process without the, the stress or
• 1:03:22
  pressure of actually shooting. And you know, he said, like, if
• 1:03:27
  you're ever about to shoot and you feel yourself skip a step or
• 1:03:33
  something feels weird or wrong, like give yourself permission to
• 1:03:36
  stop, let down, take a deep breath and start over.
• 1:03:39
  And I can't believe how hard that is.
• 1:03:42
  Like my brain will not let me do that.
• 1:03:44
  I don't know that I've ever successfully done that.
• 1:03:47
  When I, when I intend to shoot, I just, I just push through all
• 1:03:52
  the, you know, mistakes and I shoot anyway and with, you know,
• 1:03:57
  predictably bad results. But I, I just, it's amazing how
• 1:04:00
  difficult it is to tell myself to actually just abort and start
• 1:04:05
  over. This is.
• 1:04:06
  Fascinating for me because mostly I teach people have never
• 1:04:08
  done archery. And so as you were describing
• 1:04:11
  what your friend told you, I walk them through every step of
• 1:04:15
  the mechanics of the physics behind it.
• 1:04:19
  And I think most importantly is I get them.
• 1:04:22
  It's, it's a deeply somatic exercise for them.
• 1:04:24
  I get them to actually drop into their bodies and really feel
• 1:04:27
  every part of their body and what it's doing and engaging
• 1:04:29
  everything. And so for me, my shot is always
• 1:04:34
  very meditative and it's always deeply connected to my breath.
• 1:04:38
  And so if my breath is not right, then nothing else is
• 1:04:41
  going to be right. So I teach that first and my
• 1:04:43
  students, every shot, connect it with your breath and I'll see
• 1:04:47
  them, they'll be going through the motions and either they'll
• 1:04:49
  have a bad shot or I'll, I'll say, well, they're mid shot and
• 1:04:52
  I'll just ask, are you breathing?
• 1:04:54
  And then you'll see everything changes.
• 1:04:55
  They start breathing again. So it's, and it's everything
• 1:04:58
  from the draw arm coming up higher than the clavicle so that
• 1:05:01
  the clavicle can fully rise up, so the chest can fully expand.
• 1:05:06
  And the whole process, it's for, it's fascinating for me.
• 1:05:09
  And I think because I've been teaching it, that's where I
• 1:05:12
  really kind of put my focus is in the intention behind the
• 1:05:16
  archery. And I actually just was shooting
• 1:05:18
  with Chuck Leffler a couple days ago.
• 1:05:20
  He's with Heartwood Bows in Salt Lake City.
• 1:05:24
  Yeah, and he's here in Costa Rica right now.
• 1:05:26
  We went surfing together just a couple hours ago, but a couple
• 1:05:28
  days ago we did archery, and he has very different form than
• 1:05:32
  anything I would ever teach. He actually.
• 1:05:34
  He actually owns one of my bows or owned one of them.
• 1:05:37
  Years, years ago, there was a, a a bow trade on the primitive
• 1:05:41
  Archer forum and I drew his name to make a bow for.
• 1:05:44
  I mean, he made not happen anymore, but it was a long time
• 1:05:47
  ago. But I made him a you self bow.
• 1:05:48
  Yeah, nice. Small world.
• 1:05:51
  Yeah. And it's and a lot of people who
• 1:05:52
  I shoot with, some of them who are more consistent Archers than
• 1:05:57
  me, have form that I would never teach.
• 1:05:59
  But everyone kind of finds a way to do it.
• 1:06:03
  You know, like consistency means a lot.
• 1:06:06
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:06:08
  What is your favorite or your go to draw away or do you have one?
• 1:06:14
  Well, so. When I lived in Oregon, I, I was
• 1:06:18
  out hunting elk and I felt like I needed to have as close to 60
• 1:06:23
  lbs as I could manage. So I often I was going out with
• 1:06:27
  a, you know, a 60 LB self bow. I can't say I ever felt great
• 1:06:32
  shooting that weight. I felt like I struggled with it
• 1:06:34
  a little bit more than I should. Certainly if I would have
• 1:06:37
  practiced more, I probably would have felt more confident with
• 1:06:40
  it, but that always felt like it was a bit much for me.
• 1:06:42
  You know what? Now that I'm here in North
• 1:06:44
  Carolina and I'm focused on whitetails, I I've been going
• 1:06:48
  for more like like my current hunting bow is like 52 lbs and
• 1:06:52
  at my draw length of 27 and that feels a lot more more
• 1:06:58
  comfortable and under control. I could even see myself maybe
• 1:07:01
  going a little bit lighter. What's the minimum?
• 1:07:04
  For hunting where you are, think it's. 40I yeah, I bet it's 40.
• 1:07:10
  I think that's what it. Is in British Columbia too, but
• 1:07:13
  I I. I don't, I don't think I would
• 1:07:15
  go that low. I certainly, certainly you can
• 1:07:20
  kill a deer with that or even lower.
• 1:07:22
  It's really just about being super confident about your shot
• 1:07:26
  placement, having good aero flight, having a sharp broadhead
• 1:07:30
  and just knowing what your limitations are.
• 1:07:32
  But that all that said, I like having a little bit of extra
• 1:07:37
  assurance with some extra draw weight, you know, being more at
• 1:07:40
  that £50 just in case you hit that rib or shoulder or
• 1:07:45
  whatever, you can have a little bit of more umph behind your
• 1:07:48
  arrow to punch through. But I do think that what's much
• 1:07:52
  more important than draw weight is, is shot placement, arrow
• 1:07:56
  flight, and having a sharp broadhead like those.
• 1:08:00
  Those are all much bigger factors in my opinion, than
• 1:08:03
  having an extra 5 or 10 lbs of draw weight.
• 1:08:05
  Because if you're not hitting a deer where you need to hit them
• 1:08:07
  at the angle you need to hit them, it really doesn't matter
• 1:08:10
  how much power is behind that arrow in a lot of cases anyway.
• 1:08:15
  Yeah. And is that, do you hunt
• 1:08:17
  regularly or is that part of your regular routine?
• 1:08:21
  Yeah, I. Mean I not nearly as as
• 1:08:24
  prolifically as I would like I've the last really my whole
• 1:08:28
  bow hunting career. I've always had to make
• 1:08:32
  compromises. You know, when I was a teacher,
• 1:08:34
  bow season was always like the month of September and that was
• 1:08:38
  literally right when school was starting.
• 1:08:40
  And so I always felt like my attention was divided and I had
• 1:08:43
  to be a weekend warrior. You know, I couldn't go out to
• 1:08:46
  Eastern Oregon on some big long hunt.
• 1:08:48
  I always had had to hunt, you know, on the weekend in the
• 1:08:51
  Coast Range where I could just drive out to for a couple days
• 1:08:53
  and get back in time for work. And you know, I, and now you
• 1:08:59
  know, it's I, I just haven't like settled on a location that
• 1:09:05
  I've really learned well and that is reliable.
• 1:09:08
  I keep hunting in a different place every year.
• 1:09:09
  And so not getting enough time to scout.
• 1:09:12
  And so I'm really just going out there and hoping something walks
• 1:09:14
  past me. And my, my hunting has been more
• 1:09:19
  marginal than I would ideally like.
• 1:09:21
  And I'm hoping that my life will settle down in ways that will
• 1:09:28
  allow me to focus a little bit more on it so I can experience,
• 1:09:33
  you know, more success than I, I have.
• 1:09:35
  And doing it with self bows, limiting me that much more in
• 1:09:40
  terms of shot opportunities. And I took AI taught a boat
• 1:09:44
  building class in Alaska last July, and I had the opportunity
• 1:09:48
  to go on a Caribou hunt up in the art in the tundra.
• 1:09:51
  It was a bow hunt. It was pretty.
• 1:09:53
  It was pretty fun. We saw lots of animals and my
• 1:09:55
  buddy got a couple, so I got some sympathy meet to bring home
• 1:09:59
  with me. But it was a tough self boat
• 1:10:01
  hunt. Like I was the only person out
• 1:10:03
  there that had a bow that wasn't a compound.
• 1:10:06
  You know, everybody else had compounds and because there's no
• 1:10:10
  cover out there, it wasn't an unreasonable proposition to get
• 1:10:15
  with them. Forty 50-60 yards of these
• 1:10:18
  animals, because they're not super skittish and sometimes
• 1:10:21
  they're even curious. But to get in that 1520 yards
• 1:10:24
  that I wanted was different, you know, because they would get a
• 1:10:28
  whole lot more nervous at that kind of range and, and not
• 1:10:31
  having much cover to ambush them from.
• 1:10:33
  There was definitely a lot of foiled attempts to to get a shot
• 1:10:38
  at an animal. Yeah.
• 1:10:41
  Well, Waylon, thanks so much for joining me for this.
• 1:10:44
  It's been great to get to know you a bit better before I come
• 1:10:46
  and see you in a couple weeks. Can you let everyone know where
• 1:10:50
  they can find out more about you and what you offer?
• 1:10:54
  Yeah, I'm on most social media platforms, Facebook, you know,
• 1:11:00
  TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and all of those.
• 1:11:06
  I'm under Swiftwood bows, and if you want to reach out to me,
• 1:11:09
  e-mail or Facebook Messenger works.
• 1:11:12
  You know, I've got a website, swiftwoodbows.com, and I post on
• 1:11:16
  my bow building workshops on my website and that's where you can
• 1:11:22
  reach out to me if you're interested in in buying a bow or
• 1:11:26
  Yeah, All right, cool. So one part in question, you're
• 1:11:30
  named after a tree, All of us, your last name.
• 1:11:34
  A lot of fruit bearing trees are good bow woods.
• 1:11:36
  Can you carve a bow out of all of wood?
• 1:11:39
  That's a good question. I don't know.
• 1:11:44
  So people talk about Russian olive, but I don't think that's
• 1:11:46
  a true olive tree. I think it's a different
• 1:11:49
  species. My guess would be it would
• 1:11:53
  probably be tricky to find an olive tree that had straight
• 1:11:58
  enough section to make a bow out of.
• 1:12:00
  You see a lot of those orchard trees and they're always twisted
• 1:12:03
  and gnarly. But yeah, it's a good question.
• 1:12:06
  Maybe someday I'll get my hands on a piece.
• 1:12:10
  Cool. Yeah, thank you for sharing all
• 1:12:13
  of your knowledge and I look forward to catching up with you
• 1:12:16
  soon. Yeah, sounds.
• 1:12:18
  Good, I'll try to get my shop set up and cleaned up ready for
• 1:12:21
  you. I'm about to move around to be.
• 1:12:23
  Be brand new right? Yeah wow.
• 1:12:27
  OK, only a little bit of pressure there to get it all set
• 1:12:30
  up for some photographs. Yeah, I'll.
• 1:12:32
  Do my best. Do you have a good?
• 1:12:33
  You have a good spot in the new house.
• 1:12:35
  Yeah, it's a, it's a like an attached 2 car garage that's
• 1:12:39
  pretty spacious. We'll see once I get all my
• 1:12:41
  stuff in there how spacious it feels.
• 1:12:43
  But I've I've got a vision in my head, I think.
• 1:12:45
  I think it'll be a good good place to work on those.
• 1:12:49
  Nice. My look.
• 1:12:49
  Forward to it. Thanks again.
• 1:12:51
  All right, good. To talk with you, Todd.
• 1:13:04
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• 1:13:07
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• 1:13:10
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• 1:13:20
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