Latest / Salish Wolf / #90 Jaap Bolt on Project Quiver

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#90 Jaap Bolt on Project Quiver · Salish Wolf

• 0:00
  We are extending the official presale for our new book, Quiver
• 0:03
  the Art of Life through Bow Craft until July 20th.
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  Published by Tropa Chicago, this 336 page coffee table book
• 0:10
  features more than 350 photographs and explores the
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  legacy of primitive archery through the lives and work of 14
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  of the world's finest traditional bowyers.
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  The Founder's Edition presale is available exclusively through
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  Project quiver.com. Each copy includes A numbered
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  book plate hand signed by Ella and me, and you can add a
• 0:28
  collector set of 14 bookmarks to your book purchase.
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  We'd be honored to have your support and to share this
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  project with you. Visit projectquiver.com.
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  Welcome to Project QUIVER, Father daughter, journey across
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  the globe to document the artistry and spirit of the
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  world's finest traditional bow years.
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  I'm Todd and Ella is my daughter.
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  Together we've traveled to the workshops of Master bow years,
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  carving bows under their guidance, photographing their
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  work in extraordinary detail and preserving the stories behind
• 1:01
  one of humanity's oldest crafts. The result is Quiver, the Art of
• 1:05
  Life Through Bow Craft, a photographic and narrative
• 1:08
  exploration of traditional bow carving, this podcast shares
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  stories and experiences of the remarkable individuals who are
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  carrying forward the enduring legacy of the bow and arrow.
• 1:17
  The book is Quiver. The journey is Project Quiver.
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  Welcome to the Salish. Wolf podcast, good to meet you.
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  I've been seeing your work for quite a while, so it's nice to
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  finally connect with you. Yeah, man, thank you for
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  inviting me here. It's a pleasure.
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  Are you located? Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
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  Nice. I was.
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  I wish I knew that when Ella and I were there on route to going
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  to see Stefan Tim in September. I know.
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  Yeah, I know. Yeah, I knew you guys were
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  coming over. Yeah, I was and I did.
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  I did consider dropping by, but I was otherwise occupied so
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  couldn't make it by then. Are you right in the heart of
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  the city? Not in the hearts, pretty close
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  to this, to the heart. 10 minute drive, I guess, yeah.
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  Awesome. How long have you lived there?
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  For about 11 years now, I guess. No, I know a little less I get.
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  Well, no, no, this could be 11 or 12 years even.
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  Wow, Yeah, it's a cool place. Do you like it there?
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  Yeah, yeah. Did you visit?
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  Did you visit the city? Yeah, we are in Amsterdam just
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  for maybe a day. That's where we that was our
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  entry into Europe and Jesse, Stefan, so we are going to stay
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  longer, but we ended up going on route to Europe.
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  We stopped in to see Jake Fenwick on the East Coast of
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  Canada and that was a very last minute kind of decision.
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  So it took a few days out of our European trip, but it was well
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  worth it to visit with Jake. So yeah, that's cool.
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  But yeah, we had a quick little visit in Amsterdam.
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  It was fun to be there. I've I've been there a few times
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  in the past when I was much younger.
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  But yeah, it was interesting. Yeah, Yeah, it was.
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  My daughter really liked it and we wandered around the canals
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  and went to some cafes and whatnot and yeah, it was fun.
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  Awesome, awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  I'd like to meet you guys on your next trip.
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  Well, let's make that happen. Yeah, Yeah.
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  Then yeah. So tell me, tell me a bit about
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  your archery and Bo carving. When did this all begin for you?
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  So I guess it began when I was very young, probably 6 or 8,
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  when I was already interested in, in history and especially in
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  medieval times. And I got this, this game from
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  from my parents for my birthday called Knights Emergence.
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  And that really well fired my my interest that yeah, that that
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  really got my interest. And I always tried to make
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  weapons to see pipes, use them as as bows.
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  Of course, you know how it starts as as a little boy.
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  And so at a certain moment, it was 2005, we went to on holiday
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  to Denmark with the family and we visited the RIBA Viking
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  Centre, Viking Viking Museum. And those guys were building
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  their own bows, long bows. And well, they, they told our
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  parents in English, like how they did it, what the idea was.
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  And on the way back, my dad was maybe overconfident and he, and
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  he told me and my brother in the car like, oh, we can give that a
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  go. We can probably make a bow at
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  home. My dad is a handyman.
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  So and, and so we got back and, and my brother and I, we just
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  started cutting down small trees and tried to try to make a bow
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  out of it, soaking wet wood. So it was really difficult, but
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  we just started them. We didn't know anything about
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  it, but our dad showed us how to use some, some tools in the
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  garage and and there we there we went.
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  And yeah, that was the start of it.
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  And and I guess a year after that or some or so, maybe two
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  years after it, there was yeah, my I don't exactly remember how
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  it, how it went, but we found an artery club in Arnhem and yeah,
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  we went there and we became members and I was hooped from
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  the first second. I remembered it very well when
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  one of the one of the instructors there told us a
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  little bit about long bows and stuff and I was I was completely
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  hooked from that moment on so and I never stopped.
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  How old were you when you started carving those first
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  green bows? Oh, that was probably 12-11
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  maybe. Yeah, around that time.
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  And do you know, you must know Stefan?
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  Do you know him quite well? Yeah, he's a he's a good friend
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  of mine, yeah. You guys both have that passion
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  for history. Which is cool.
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  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  We, we met through another friend.
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  He brought us together. We didn't know each other before
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  that, but apparently Stephen was a member of the same club.
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  But we never, yeah, I've never met him there.
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  So another friend of ours introduced each other to and we
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  went on many 3D competitions together.
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  And obviously our love for bows, historic history, historical
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  bows, yeah, we, we connected very well and we're still good
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  friends to this day. Yeah, very cool.
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  There's quite a few bowyers in the Netherlands.
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  There's Axel. Do you know Axel?
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  Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, not not personally, but I
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  OK. And are there others that you
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  know of? Yeah.
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  Yeah, for sure. Yeah, another friend of ours who
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  also lives well near Arnhem anyways, is is Simon from
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  Simon's Bow Company. And he makes fiberglass and
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  carbon and horse bows, but absolute great bows that
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  they're, they're considered, well, top hand in the world
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  basically. So it's definitely worth the
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  checking him out as well, you know?
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  He doesn't make perimeter bows. Sorry, what's?
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  That he doesn't. He doesn't make primitive bows,
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  only with no. No, he started making primitive
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  bows, but now he's all into paraglass a bit.
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  Yeah, And perfected this, this horse bow.
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  And it's really impressive, I have to say.
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  Yeah. So you started doing archery in
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  R&M. Was that the beginning for your
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  archery practice, and are you still regularly practicing
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  archery now? Oh yeah, yeah, for sure.
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  Yeah. I have to admit on this podcast
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  or vocal podcasts pretty much only shoot World Archery Bell
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  ball now. So it's like a modern for the
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  listeners. It's like a modern recurve, but
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  you take the sides off and the and the stable Archers off to
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  have you have a bare bow, but it's aluminium riser with carbon
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  limbs. So it's pretty modern.
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  But yeah, so I'm usually shoot that for yeah, it's time and for
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  the past couple of years, but I also still shoot some
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  traditional and I've never stopped building the bows.
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  But yeah, at a certain point I got more interested into
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  shooting them for some reason. And why do you shoot that
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  particular bow the mouse? I guess I was, I go into into
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  target competitions and I used to only do 3D competitions, but
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  then you go into target more and more.
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  And also I was in search of improving my technique.
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  Basically that was the, that was the biggest reason.
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  And then I started recurve, doing recurve for a while
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  because it was yeah, I mean, it was hard for me to to find
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  thread Archers to I guess to learn from started me and a
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  friend of mine, we started taking some lessons from an ex
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  Olympian woman who lives here in the Netherlands.
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  He caught my interest, let's say, also got a regroup and and
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  went through another clinic. You know, Chef and Steve Valley
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  probably known in the world. There are two Dutch England
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  horses and in France with both of them mostly with chef and he
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  got me into recurve from modern bows.
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  And that's why I, and then I went to some target competitions
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  and then I, I experienced how difficult recurve is and how
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  heavy I thought that traditional was, was working because we, we
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  often pull a heavier bow, but pulling through that clecker
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  with on a recurve like, Oh my, my gosh, that was, yeah, that
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  was pretty cool to experience that.
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  And then and then I, I went to a big international target
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  competition here in the Netherlands with the recurve.
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  And then I noticed some guy shooting with the bearable.
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  And one of them is a, is a Dutch guy who is also really good.
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  And he, he just, yeah, he just got me into it.
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  Yeah, he's also a friend of me now.
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  And that's how it went. And yeah, it's, it's a, it's a
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  great mix of of technical because it's pretty technical
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  still, but it's also pretty in a sense, it's not as modern as a
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  recurve, right. So it's not as not as advanced,
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  I should say. So it's still comes down to you
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  and your, yeah, your skill. Yeah.
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  When you're in these competitions, are you doing
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  aiming or is it instinctive or a bit of both depending?
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  It's, it's aiming. It's all aiming, Yeah, it's all
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  aiming 100%. And what is it that draws you to
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  the competitions versus just going out and shooting?
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  I've always been competitive from a young age and also at the
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  3D competitions I was always very competitive, but I couldn't
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  first. Yeah, I I would you put that I
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  couldn't get, I couldn't win often.
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  I really tried but that frustrated me a lot and and my
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  my 2 friends were yet Stephen and another one another guy.
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  They were winning a lot. Stephen is is very relaxed
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  during competition. He he just enjoys it and I tried
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  to but I couldn't really. And I was it was really
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  frustrating to me that I couldn't win any or nearly any
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  competitions. So I did, you know, I was
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  looking for those technical changes that I had to had to
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  make, but the competitiveness was always there.
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  I always wanted to to win and perform.
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  And so once I started looking into the the technique and
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  learning that, then, yeah, came even more interesting because,
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  yeah, you know, if you dig into something, there's so there's a
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  whole world behind it and you're like, whoa, this is so
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  interesting, right? Yeah.
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  Do you ever go out and just shoot without worrying about
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  training? Do you ever go out and just
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  shoot instinctively and just for the the joy of shooting?
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  Or is it mostly training for you now?
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  It's, you know what, almost never it's, it's almost always
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  training, which I obviously really enjoy it.
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  It's almost never worked for me. It's always I, I really like to,
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  to, to, to train and, and, and still, yeah, if I get an
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  inserted mindset and it's still a really nice flow and a really
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  nice rhythm to it. And it's, it's kind of more
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  technical, I guess. But it's at the same time it's
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  it's it's still that same feeling that I had when I was
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  just snap shooting my primitive bow, which I've always, yeah,
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  which I've done for 1314 years probably.
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  What you mentioned your a bit about your progression, what
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  have been some of the the biggest lessons that you've
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  learned or tips that you've been able to pick up on so that you
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  can improve your shooting? So for the technical parts, the
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  biggest, the biggest one, the biggest change that I've made
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  and the most important is definitely having a solid anchor
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  and from there finishing your shot instead of just snap
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  shooting. Because I, yeah, I've done that
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  for 13 years and for €1,000,000. But during competitions that
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  often fell apart. And, and I have to say we, we
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  also went to European Bowling Championships, which is 3D, but
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  it's, it's a yeah, it's a European competition.
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  And most of the time the Germans, the the Austrians and
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  the and Swiss were winning those with the in the primitive bowl
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  class. And the winners that they really
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  create, almost none of them were snap shooters.
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  Pretty much all of them had a solid anchor and then went,
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  yeah, could, could aim at the target for a couple of seconds
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  and then finish that fill. So that was those.
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  Thank you. The most important thing there
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  was this. This is what I'm talking about
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  the past couple of years now I also dove really deep into
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  mindset because I at a certain point the pretty decent
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  technique I would say. But then I still had trouble
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  executing during the competitions and that's when I
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  went looking into mindset a lot. Also something that always
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  interested me, but yeah, we're talking about a competitive
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  mindset here. So that's yeah, that's why I
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  also dove into and. And the biggest lesson there, I
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  think is the biggest change perhaps is, is every competition
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  now is, is purely practice. It's just, yeah, it sounds so
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  simple, right? What do you need to spend a
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  couple of years on that? Perhaps, but that that's the
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  biggest change I, I every competition is just practice.
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  I, I, I really enjoy it now instead of having to, you know,
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  forcing myself to to achieve something which is eventually
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  pretty empty anyways. If it's about the achievement,
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  I, I did, I did eventually become a national champion after
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  years of chasing it. But two weeks later I almost
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  forgotten that I I won it because I mean, and the point
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  I'm making is it doesn't change anything.
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  It doesn't change anything. It's, it's just you're yeah, you
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  it's about the journey towards it, right?
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  It's not about the result itself, but I beforehand, I did
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  really think that it would change me.
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  And I'm like, oh, when I'm national champion, you know, And
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  then, yeah, you, you expect something, you expect to to feel
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  different. But they didn't.
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  So, yeah, that was really good, yeah.
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  And so with that practice mindset, does that take away the
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  pressure performing? For sure, yeah.
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  And, and I also did a lot of inner work, a lot of meditation,
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  a lot of digging why I, I felt like the way I did.
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  And that's also, I really worked through so that also, and that,
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  and that helps in, in every area of life to, to have made me much
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  more confident and much more calm and, and trusting and, and
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  loving even. And yeah, that's also a, a big,
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  big change for me. So.
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  Can you share anything specific about what you gain through
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  meditation and that inner? Yeah, for sure.
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  So, yeah, we're talking about the competitiveness.
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  Anyways, a big part of the competitiveness that I always
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  had was well, I found was mostly because I didn't feel enough
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  like I like I am enough Laura. And, and that was also pretty
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  interesting. I grew up with a brother who was
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  just under 2 years older than me.
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  And we, I always followed him from, from a very young age, I
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  always followed him. And I was totally fine with
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  that. That was totally cool.
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  He was just a natural leader and I was the natural follower.
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  And so we, but we did any, everything together.
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  We played together. We, we built bows and wooden
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  weapons together and this and that.
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  But in our early teenage years, yeah, we did.
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  We let's say we, we both made a sword, a wooden sword.
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  And I, I got the feeling like, oh, I've gotten a great idea, so
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  I'm going to execute that. And then my brother saw that and
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  he was like, that's cool. And he may also made a sword,
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  but he made it much better. And that's something that was
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  really difficult for me at the at the time because I was like,
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  he's stealing my ideas and he's even yeah, making them better
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  than me. And and yeah, and and I was
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  also, I guess I was also at that age finding my own independence.
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  But that really got me in a into even more of a competitive
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  mindset. Like OK, I I got to be better,
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  then I got to improve my. Sort of my, my artery skills or
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  whatever. And my brother was really, he's
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  really natural leader, I guess. So he was like never worried
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  about that. And he just, yeah, he was just
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  flowing. So also during archery
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  competitions that we went together, he was just, he just
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  enjoyed it and, and he won. And I was like really trying
• 20:38
  hard and I couldn't, yeah, I was in my own way to, to put it like
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  that. So that's, but that's an, an
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  awesome realisation, right? Like, oh, that's where it came
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  from. At the time, I couldn't, I
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  couldn't see that in that, in that light.
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  So but now I can. And I, I, that's one of the
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  things I, I, I did with meditation, an active form of
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  meditation to, to get that, to get those memories up and to, to
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  really feel through them and really accept them and stuff to
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  a point where. Yeah, you, you never, Yeah.
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  You, you lose the, you lose the, that, that sense of
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  competitiveness. No, I'm not saying that, right.
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  I didn't lose the sense of competitiveness, but I, I lost
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  the, the, the pressure behind it.
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  It's not, Yeah. Like the external validation of
• 21:38
  it. Exactly.
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  Yeah, you're. Doing it for yourself now, and
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  probably for the love of it. For the love of it exactly.
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  That's that's exactly why I'm doing it.
• 21:46
  So when you when you had that awareness about that feeling of
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  never being enough and you had the awareness of kind of where
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  that came from, were there any specific tools or things that
• 21:59
  you did to help integrate that into your being in existence So
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  then that would carry forward and help you in other areas of
• 22:06
  your life? Awareness is a huge component of
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  it, but sometimes awareness is only part of the change that is
• 22:15
  needed for that to then become part of the fiber of your being.
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  So was there anything that helped you do that?
• 22:21
  Absolutely, yeah, yeah. Like you're like you're saying
• 22:24
  Iranians is just a start. And and then you have to, yeah.
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  I mean, if you want to change, you have to choose and choose
• 22:34
  again and again, make choices, use your free will to choose.
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  And what I mean by that is you don't necessarily choose what,
• 22:44
  what, what the world's like, the impulses that you get.
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  That's not what you choose necessarily.
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  But you can choose how you respond to that always.
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  And you that's using your free will to to respond to that.
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  And what I did, what I, what I learned through coaches is that
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  I now respond with acceptance and forgiveness.
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  Like, OK, so an example, you're you're in a competition and you
• 23:15
  have these negative thoughts coming into your head that that
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  bring extra pressure and you're and for example, you're nervous
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  and now you're annoyed because you're nervous and you shouldn't
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  be nervous. And now you can't win the
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  competition because you're so nervous, right?
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  That's something that OK, Did you choose that?
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  Did you choose those feelings? No.
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  But you, yeah, you can choose how you respond to that.
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  So the trick is for me to, to respond with that with first
• 23:42
  forgiveness, forgive myself for, for thinking negatively and, and
• 23:46
  feeling those things. They're just from the past.
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  It's, it's what was useful in the past for me, but not
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  anymore. So first forgiveness, then
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  acceptance, then I'm, I'm accepting that I'm feeling it
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  and it's totally fine. I can still shoot, I can still
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  do my thing. It doesn't mean anything.
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  The the nervousness, it doesn't say anything about me, right.
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  So then accept it and then let it go, basically, which goes
• 24:16
  hand in hand with accepting. But it's also pretty difficult.
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  I mean, it can be it can be difficult.
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  So when, yeah, sometimes you think you've let something go
• 24:29
  like, Oh yeah, I've I've got rid of that, but that's not really
• 24:33
  letting go. It's it's, it disappears on its
• 24:35
  own, but if it comes back, you apparently you haven't let go of
• 24:42
  at least everything about it. So, but my point was, I choose,
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  I choose those responses, right? I choose those.
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  And that's the work that you have to do if you really want to
• 24:53
  change, you have to choose and again and again, how no matter
• 24:57
  how difficult, sometimes you're like, oh, this is hopeless.
• 25:00
  I, I thought I'd dealt with this and now here we go again, right?
• 25:04
  And that's why, why you got to choose like, OK, forgiveness
• 25:08
  first acceptance, right? That's why.
• 25:12
  So those are the those are the most important tools for me.
• 25:16
  So you're you're creating a situation where you're basically
• 25:19
  forging new neurological pathways.
• 25:22
  You're again and again making decisions differently than what
• 25:27
  you had made them in the past when you were seeking external
• 25:29
  validation. Yeah, no.
• 25:31
  And. Through through that, you're
• 25:33
  able then to change kind of your your, your reaction.
• 25:36
  Your habitual reaction is now 1 of forgiveness and acceptance.
• 25:42
  Very cool. Exactly.
• 25:44
  Yeah. And does do you find that those
• 25:47
  old demons still creep up from time to time or?
• 25:52
  Yeah. Sure.
• 25:54
  Yeah, so. The work continues.
• 25:58
  The work continues and I I'm not sure if you ever, yeah, if
• 26:04
  you're ever past that, maybe I don't know, but it doesn't
• 26:07
  matter because I mean, I've got the tools and.
• 26:10
  And of course the great thing is you get better at it.
• 26:14
  So it's much easier now to to see something as it is and just
• 26:18
  go, oh, wait a minute, bang and get rid of.
• 26:22
  I mean, when I say get rid of it, it's like it's not exactly
• 26:27
  the right wording, because if you want to get rid of it,
• 26:31
  you're still failing it. Yeah, you can kind of alchemize
• 26:35
  it into a strength rather than a weakness, which it sounds like
• 26:38
  what you've been doing. No, no, I think so.
• 26:41
  What is your kind of goal or your hopes now with competitive
• 26:48
  archery? Are you continuing to pursue it
• 26:50
  and are there things that you want to accomplish through it?
• 26:55
  I don't have to be honest, I don't have really clear goals
• 26:58
  like I want to win a World Championships or or anything.
• 27:02
  I definitely want to compete. Sure, that's that would be
• 27:06
  awesome to to go to a world champs or, or whatever.
• 27:12
  But I'm I'm definitely here for the journey and not for the
• 27:15
  results. So yeah, I don't.
• 27:19
  And at this point I don't have really clear goals in that
• 27:22
  sense, yeah. Is there a a prime age range for
• 27:28
  competing in archery or are there people from all ages doing
• 27:31
  it? Ha, that's that's a funny one,
• 27:35
  because very often during 3D championships for example, we
• 27:42
  find that the the 50-60 year olds are actually performing the
• 27:46
  best in the primitive class. Wow, Yeah, that's really, that
• 27:51
  also really surprised me. They've got a lot of experience,
• 27:54
  maybe more time on their hands. I, I, I we met a German family,
• 28:01
  husband and wife who shot 50 competitions during in a year.
• 28:07
  I tried to match that, right. So that was really, yeah, that
• 28:11
  was really impressive. But but maybe it's just I, I'm
• 28:15
  not sure if that's the the best age class.
• 28:18
  I mean, and with the recurve and compound, it's definitely not
• 28:24
  the older guys. And but yeah, I I think it's
• 28:28
  really pretty interesting for the primitive bow class, we
• 28:30
  always looked up to those guys. OK, how is this?
• 28:34
  How is this happening? Yeah, pretty interesting.
• 28:37
  Are you competing much in the primitive bow class or you?
• 28:41
  In class now, yeah, I'm I'm Yeah, mainly in the bearable
• 28:44
  class and and I did. That's considered the primitive.
• 28:48
  Even the bow that you describe is that.
• 28:50
  No, no, no, no, not at all. No, no, no, no.
• 28:53
  Primitive is purely historical. Self self bows and whatnot.
• 28:58
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and the bearable
• 29:01
  thousands. So you're not doing a primitive
• 29:05
  class at all. Not at the moment, no, no, no.
• 29:11
  OK, so. Sorry to disappoint, no?
• 29:13
  You're not, you're not disappointing me.
• 29:15
  I'm just learning about this stuff.
• 29:16
  I've never done any archery competitions.
• 29:18
  I've never seen one. So this is all through the
• 29:21
  podcast and the Bowers that I meet, I'm learning about them.
• 29:24
  So I'm just just curious. Sure, man.
• 29:29
  All right, well, let's talk a bit about your bow craft, so.
• 29:33
  This is a Bowers podcast. Well, that's that's archery too.
• 29:36
  So you were carving green bows when you were quite young.
• 29:39
  When did you carve what you would consider like your first
• 29:44
  real? Bow, that was a couple of years
• 29:49
  later. That was probably a 2009, I
• 29:55
  guess maybe 2000. Yeah, 10, I think 2010.
• 30:01
  I made my first ash Longbow from a, from a, what was the name?
• 30:11
  The backyard Bowyer, I think was there was a guy who put a
• 30:16
  tutorial on online. Yeah, I made it, yeah.
• 30:21
  And it was, I think it was at the time and I was also really
• 30:25
  into into that stuff. And I found out that tutorial,
• 30:30
  the manual and I, yeah, I, I made a first 50 lbs successful
• 30:35
  ash Longbow when I was over the moon with that, of course.
• 30:40
  So you are like a mid teenager then?
• 30:43
  1516 exactly yeah. Where did you get your ash?
• 30:46
  Was it a board or was it a safe? It was a board, Yeah.
• 30:50
  We bought the boards that Yeah. Woods Wood Store, Yeah.
• 30:55
  Here's Wing. Oh, my dad probably went along.
• 30:59
  Yeah. He probably tagged along, yeah.
• 31:01
  Did your brother carve on too at that time?
• 31:04
  No, he was. At that time, he wasn't that
• 31:07
  much into it anymore. He's he's still shot sometimes,
• 31:11
  I guess. But no, it was, it was all me at
• 31:15
  that. Yeah.
• 31:16
  Yeah. He's taught.
• 31:20
  OK. So you carved that one
• 31:22
  successfully. Where you hooked from there or
• 31:25
  did it take a few more? I already was hooked.
• 31:28
  Hooked better. Yeah, no, I, I went on and built
• 31:33
  a couple of well, yeah, a lot of ash long bows from there.
• 31:39
  Also some 7080 LB long bows that I shot.
• 31:45
  Yeah, that was pretty fun. And, and from there I, I guess I
• 31:52
  went more into flat bows, mostly ash again.
• 31:57
  And I also got the got myself the traditional Bowyers Bible
• 32:03
  and yeah, experimented a lot with with the ash flat pose
• 32:08
  because it was easy to to get ash at our yeah, at the store.
• 32:14
  It was pretty cheap. And yeah, it's it's great Bo
• 32:17
  bold. So why not?
• 32:18
  Right. And yeah, I made a little of
• 32:20
  those. Yeah.
• 32:22
  And then I I guess at a certain point I tried to make they were
• 32:27
  all by the way a board goes and at a certain point I find found
• 32:33
  a piece of black locust somewhere and I made a well, bit
• 32:37
  of a character with a chased ring from that piece, some wood
• 32:44
  and some cell woods. Yeah, I really enjoyed that.
• 32:48
  Also, I'm really like the loops of it.
• 32:50
  So from that point I started building more ring chased cell
• 32:53
  flows from all kinds of woods that I could get my hands on.
• 33:00
  I remember I remember 1 specifically Hazel Hazel flat
• 33:06
  bow from a pyramid bow from from a Hazel from my parents
• 33:11
  guardian. Some special special for me was
• 33:19
  and some you bows and anything my hands on mostly mostly was
• 33:28
  black locust apps Hazel you sometimes yeah.
• 33:34
  Were you harvesting those yourselves or you were finding
• 33:36
  them most? Harvesting.
• 33:39
  Yeah. Harvesting.
• 33:40
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe I've got got one or two from from the
• 33:43
  State Farm who was also into it, of course.
• 33:46
  So yeah, sometimes you will need to be there.
• 33:50
  How? Long did it take to season and
• 33:52
  dry the wood? I'd imagine like even now I'm
• 33:56
  I'm always anxious and eager to get started when I have a stave.
• 34:00
  So as a teenager it was deeply passionate about this.
• 34:03
  I imagine you were chomping at the bit to start carving.
• 34:06
  Yeah, that was one of my weaknesses.
• 34:10
  No patience and just, I remember very well.
• 34:13
  Stay Film gave me a beautiful piece of you.
• 34:19
  And he knew. He knew I was probably going to
• 34:23
  well, cut it. Yeah, I cut into it too soon.
• 34:26
  And he, I I also think you, you told me like let it rest for for
• 34:30
  a while, but I just couldn't wait.
• 34:33
  And I read in the Bohus Bible that if you reduce it to to both
• 34:36
  dimensions to right, then should be fine.
• 34:39
  So I did that soaking wet you. And yeah, there were there were
• 34:45
  belly on the belly side. There were so many checks and
• 34:48
  cracks. It was and it was a beautiful
• 34:51
  piece. So, yeah, I, you know, messed
• 34:54
  that up. But I mean, that's how I
• 34:56
  learned, right? So I did have to experience that
• 34:59
  apparently for, for, for me to, to become more patient.
• 35:04
  But, but on the weights, I mean, on Hazel, it's absolutely fine,
• 35:07
  right. So I also, yeah.
• 35:11
  But most of the pieces I I I reduced them to to low
• 35:15
  dimensions within a week or maybe even quicker so.
• 35:21
  And then you let them dry before bending.
• 35:25
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Couple of weeks.
• 35:28
  Have you had any issues doing that?
• 35:35
  Not really sure. Sometimes there would there
• 35:41
  would be some twisting and stuff or maybe drying.
• 35:45
  Check here and there, most woods, nothing, nothing special.
• 35:49
  Also because I I guess they mostly use white woods, they
• 35:52
  take them drying quite well. So and, and yeah, I mean a piece
• 35:58
  of Hazel, it's just, it's going to be fine.
• 36:01
  But so and yeah, yeah, especially EU was difficult for
• 36:06
  some reason. And sometimes black locusts
• 36:08
  could also be checking. But yeah, I guess most of the
• 36:14
  time it was fine. So take me through kind of the
• 36:19
  arc of your carving. So you started out with ash
• 36:21
  board bows, then you moved into staves, but all primitive type
• 36:26
  of bows. Where did you go from there?
• 36:28
  Absolutely, yeah from there I explained some some recurves
• 36:34
  always always loved the look of the look of that so self bow
• 36:38
  recurve. So yeah, I started started steam
• 36:43
  bending and boiling and heat treating with the heat gun,
• 36:49
  trying to bend in some some solid recurves.
• 36:53
  I remember AAU recurve bow that I made that I was really, really
• 36:59
  proud of was absolutely yeah. It exploded later as U does
• 37:03
  sometimes when you yeah keep it in a in a dry environment right.
• 37:09
  But yeah, yeah, it was also a funny story.
• 37:13
  But so recurves mostly and and and and some, yeah.
• 37:20
  But I really enjoyed making still is a bit of a deflexed
• 37:25
  recurve bow. It's still the favorite bow for
• 37:29
  me. Slight deflex in the handle and
• 37:32
  then some solid recurve static, static recurves.
• 37:37
  I mean, just the looks of it. It's, it's one of the best bows
• 37:42
  you can build in my mind. But then later I, I also started
• 37:48
  laminating with bamboo and also inspired to stay fun again
• 37:55
  because he was all about laminations and bamboo.
• 37:59
  Well, his brand is bamboo bows. So, so I started and I and I
• 38:05
  wanted to, to make a bow that I could replicate and and sell.
• 38:10
  So I, but of course, knowing me, it had to be extreme.
• 38:14
  So I made a holo limb black locust recurve with bamboo
• 38:20
  backing. He treated locusts and some
• 38:24
  working recurves with a ton of reflex, bit too much of every of
• 38:29
  everything. I guess I really pushed that one
• 38:33
  and I made a ton of those and most of them failed because they
• 38:38
  they they there were how do you call them the the things in the
• 38:44
  in the belly. The and the belly wood is
• 38:46
  collapsing. The crystals.
• 38:50
  Yeah, exactly. Crystals.
• 38:51
  Yeah. That's the word I'm looking for.
• 38:52
  Yeah. So most of them feel in the
• 38:54
  belly. Yeah.
• 38:56
  I mean, they were quite extreme. Is that because of the amount of
• 39:03
  reflux you had in it and also the strength of the the backing?
• 39:07
  Exactly the combination, yeah. And also it was a hollow limbs
• 39:10
  sum if if you don't get that exactly right, yeah, the outer
• 39:15
  edges are just yeah, going to develop crystals.
• 39:19
  Yeah, but yeah, I mean. You were you were selling those.
• 39:26
  I was selling those, those that was, that was the plan.
• 39:28
  But eventually, yeah, it was, it was too, too, too difficult to,
• 39:34
  to maintain a standard. And I had my website and my
• 39:37
  photos and my, the whole stuff was presented.
• 39:39
  But then I couldn't really make them efficiently.
• 39:44
  If you, if you make 2 bows and only one survives, I mean, yeah,
• 39:48
  what are you doing? Right.
• 39:49
  So I, I maybe I should have used the Osage, but that was that's
• 39:54
  pretty difficult to to get here in the the Netherlands.
• 39:58
  I mean, you could order from the USAI guess, but it's so
• 40:01
  expensive, especially back at a time.
• 40:03
  So that's why I chose black logos.
• 40:06
  But yeah. How old were you when you
• 40:09
  started to sell bows, and what was the kind of impetus that got
• 40:15
  you to that point where you were able to sell them?
• 40:19
  What was what that was earlier ready That was then I'm talking
• 40:24
  about. I was still making ring Chase
• 40:29
  flat bows from Hazel and stuff. That's when I started selling
• 40:34
  because one of you know, one of the friends that I went to the
• 40:38
  competition with, he was 10 years older, 20 years older, OK,
• 40:47
  And he was he was just nudging stay for the me like your bows
• 40:51
  are great. You should sell them.
• 40:53
  And then he was like marketing them to everyone in the
• 40:56
  competition. And so that's why, yeah, that's
• 40:59
  when Stephen and I started selling them because they are, I
• 41:02
  mean, through through him basically.
• 41:07
  And I was at the time, I was like 1516, I guess, maybe even
• 41:11
  maybe even younger. I made a couple of ash longbows
• 41:15
  first. I sold those to some, to some
• 41:19
  reenactment guys who were in a medieval reenactment group.
• 41:24
  There were, there were probably the first that I sold and then I
• 41:26
  went to the yeah, yeah. So when I was like 1516.
• 41:32
  That's really cool to be able at that age to be building your own
• 41:36
  business and and selling something that you've created by
• 41:39
  your hands and absolutely love. Yeah, yeah, it was really
• 41:44
  satisfying, but but also quite difficult in in a sense of you
• 41:52
  feel so much, especially at that young age, you feel so much
• 41:55
  pressure like, oh, I hope this bow is going to last and I hope
• 41:58
  this is not going. Yeah, the customer is happy and
• 42:02
  this and that. And if you see the the customer
• 42:05
  a year later and they told and they tell you like, Oh yeah,
• 42:08
  that bow. Yeah.
• 42:09
  Had broke and you're like, oh God, no, this is yeah.
• 42:12
  So it was also that that also weighed heavy on me and I and
• 42:15
  also I put a lot of pressure on myself on my bows.
• 42:18
  Like it's never, they were never good enough.
• 42:20
  They were always like, Nope, got to be better, got to be going to
• 42:24
  be tailored better, got to be this going to be that's going to
• 42:26
  be faster. I put so much pressure on myself
• 42:29
  also there. So it was, it was, it was cool.
• 42:36
  But at the same time it was, yeah, pretty difficult.
• 42:39
  Was a tough journey now. OK.
• 42:42
  So back to the meditations and the awareness that you gained
• 42:45
  about your archery and kind of that external validation seeking
• 42:50
  and the pressure, did your awareness and learnings through
• 42:55
  that also change or apply to your bow making?
• 42:59
  Yeah, Also, yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's it's basically the
• 43:03
  same game. It's basically the same
• 43:05
  insecurities. You're not good enough.
• 43:07
  You need to prove yourself. You need to do this that and
• 43:10
  accomplish before you can sell something or before you can view
• 43:16
  yourself as someone who's who has value, right.
• 43:19
  It's all it's all nonsense, but if you believe it, it's true.
• 43:25
  Yeah, that definitely helped me up on with with selling bows
• 43:28
  also. And that can be as as hard as it
• 43:31
  is on your on your psyche, it can also be fuel.
• 43:34
  As you said you were dedicated to always improving always and
• 43:37
  making better. And so without that drive that
• 43:42
  you had you, you maybe wouldn't have had that same outlook.
• 43:47
  So, you know, in a way it's that weakness from your upbringing
• 43:53
  and never feeling good enough help to push you to, to be
• 43:56
  better, I guess. That's that's true.
• 43:59
  But I also I'm that like this is what yeah, this is this is the
• 44:04
  thing that that you would think, right?
• 44:09
  Yeah, it's all, yeah, it's the reason for achieving the things
• 44:14
  you have achieved because you push yourself so hard.
• 44:17
  But I'm actually not too sure about that because I if you, if
• 44:23
  you just love what you're doing. And it's, and still, I mean, I
• 44:27
  still, I don't have that pressure now building a bow, but
• 44:30
  I, I enjoy it so much and it inspires me so much.
• 44:35
  And I'm so I'm, I'm, yeah. I mean, when I'm in the zone,
• 44:38
  I'm all over the place like, oh, I want to build this and that
• 44:40
  and it's going to be so awesome. So I, I think maybe it pushed
• 44:48
  me, but on the other hand, maybe I always already had enough
• 44:54
  interest and intrigue what I was intrigued by it so much that I
• 44:59
  would have done it anyways, but then without the negativity and
• 45:02
  the pressure that it brought and just enjoyed it and loved it.
• 45:07
  Yeah, it's part of the evolution, I guess.
• 45:09
  You can never know. You can't.
• 45:10
  You can change that. You can't take that back, so.
• 45:13
  No. Yeah, so you're selling bows as
• 45:18
  a teenager. Now you're experimenting with
• 45:21
  bamboo and recurves and what's what then?
• 45:28
  So, OK, yeah. So I, I stopped doing selling
• 45:33
  those because I mean, was just pretty much impossible to, to,
• 45:42
  to sell that and to, to, to make them.
• 45:44
  You're talking about your recur Bamboo backed.
• 45:47
  Yeah, sorry. Yeah, exactly.
• 45:49
  I'm talking about those. So.
• 45:51
  So I stopped doing that and then I wanted to make some.
• 45:55
  Actually, can I just jump in for a second?
• 45:57
  Why? Why stop that design entirely
• 46:01
  instead of modifying it and correcting what you knew were
• 46:06
  the weaknesses and the design? That's a that's a great
• 46:10
  question. And that's where I was.
• 46:15
  So it was all or nothing for me. Yeah, that was basically it like
• 46:21
  everything or it's no, no bow at all.
• 46:27
  But yeah, I just, I never even thought about it.
• 46:32
  I mean, I did think about it, but I never seriously considered
• 46:36
  it. Like it was like, Nope, this is
• 46:38
  it. Or because I've done it before,
• 46:40
  I know I can do it. I know it can work.
• 46:42
  So I just couldn't, yeah. And also because I one of the,
• 46:48
  one of the things I believe I'm an INTGJ and one of the things
• 46:56
  that I love to do is to to experiment, to, to design
• 47:00
  something, to develop something. And once I've got the first
• 47:05
  version working, I lose interest.
• 47:08
  So I want to design something new, I want to try something
• 47:12
  new, develop something new. That's a very strong thing that
• 47:15
  I've always had. So I also lost interest in it
• 47:21
  and yeah, especially when it didn't work.
• 47:24
  So also that. So that's why, and that's why I
• 47:27
  never like went back and like, OK, if I probably, if I do a
• 47:30
  little less reflex and flatten the, the belly and made it a
• 47:35
  little more wide, it would have been, it would have been fine,
• 47:38
  right? Would have been a great bow
• 47:40
  probably. But it wasn't in me to do that.
• 47:43
  So, yeah. So I went on and I wanted to, to
• 47:49
  again develop something new and make something more easy to, to
• 47:54
  repeat. So I, I, I have a difficulty
• 47:58
  saying this, but I went into fibreglass bows.
• 48:02
  Yeah. I said, I went to to Simone that
• 48:05
  I mentioned earlier, who was already building those
• 48:08
  fibreglass horse bows at the time.
• 48:10
  And I asked him like, OK, what's it like to, to build them?
• 48:14
  And I, he taught me a lot about it.
• 48:17
  And I developed a takedown, a Reaper bow, a three parts Reaper
• 48:23
  bow, so a wooden 19 inch riser and fibreglass limbs with veneer
• 48:30
  in the, and also love doing that, of course.
• 48:33
  And I'm, yeah, I developed those while working at at my current
• 48:39
  job, which is I work at a school for woodworking.
• 48:44
  And so I can, yeah, it's really handy because I can use all the
• 48:48
  machinery and stuff. And I developed, yeah, I
• 48:52
  developed the, the, the riser, the middle part, so I could see
• 48:57
  and see route it on the machines at my work.
• 49:01
  Pretty much the opposite of a primitive approach, but again,
• 49:05
  something new, right? Something I could discover and
• 49:08
  develop and yeah, put my whole being into it.
• 49:13
  And so I made those and I, I sold those also, but again,
• 49:21
  eventually lost interest and, and then, yeah.
• 49:25
  And also because, I mean, I wanted to, I wanted to, to earn
• 49:31
  my living from, from building bows, but it's really difficult.
• 49:36
  I mean, let's be honest. Also my friend Simon, who's
• 49:40
  doing really well, he was still, I mean, it's still a struggle in
• 49:44
  a sense difficult to, to, to make your living from, from
• 49:48
  building those bows, even fiberglass bows.
• 49:51
  And so then Simon and I, I did a joint venture where we made,
• 50:01
  developed a couple of more simple fiberglass bows.
• 50:07
  So it was a Longbow of American flat bow, basically the Longbow,
• 50:11
  not an English Longbow and a recurve one piece recurve both
• 50:16
  with fiberglass and, and we, we developed them so we could make
• 50:22
  them really quick and, and, but still good and eventually
• 50:29
  ordered them in a sense. We, so we, we outsourced most of
• 50:33
  the work. So we did that and sold a lot of
• 50:37
  those. That was also really cool, but
• 50:40
  eventually also sorry. You weren't.
• 50:42
  You weren't making them. Eventually you were outsourcing
• 50:44
  the production. Yeah, eventually, exactly.
• 50:50
  But also that was still pretty difficult.
• 50:52
  And we ended that, I guess a year ago now.
• 50:59
  We we ended that venture. Simon went back to his horse
• 51:04
  bows. I focused on that, on the
• 51:07
  competitive archery. And now, well, a couple of
• 51:13
  months ago, I was like, I feel the urge to build a wooden
• 51:17
  affirmative bow again. So, yeah, so, and I had this
• 51:21
  really beautiful piece of laburnum golden chain lying
• 51:25
  around in, lying there for a couple of years, been drying for
• 51:28
  a couple of years. So that's for me.
• 51:30
  That's like, I don't know, right.
• 51:32
  A couple of years. Yeah, that's insane.
• 51:35
  And now I found like, this is the moment.
• 51:37
  This is the moment to build a beautiful recurve out of that
• 51:40
  piece. So that's what I did and that's
• 51:42
  why I started again. And now I'm, I have so many bows
• 51:47
  that I want to build primitive and laminated, but all boot and
• 51:52
  bamboo. So I'm really back into it.
• 51:55
  I'm, you know, OK, yeah. So you're move, you're moving
• 51:58
  away from fiberglass? Yeah, from the from the
• 52:02
  building. Back into all wood, OK?
• 52:04
  I love to hear that. Yeah, I guess so.
• 52:09
  I guess so. Yeah, that's just my personal
• 52:12
  preference. So that's great.
• 52:14
  So back in the building, primitive bows as of this year,
• 52:19
  does that feel kind of nostalgic in a sense?
• 52:22
  I mean, you're going back to what you were doing when you
• 52:24
  were a teenager. Yeah, 100% yeah.
• 52:28
  But it was it was quite an interesting and it's been years
• 52:32
  since I've built, built a wooden primitive bow.
• 52:35
  And so I just started and it was just the same thing as back then
• 52:41
  was so cool to do, to feel all the.
• 52:44
  I found myself like, not even, yeah, it was all automatic.
• 52:47
  I was just doing it and then realizing like, hey, I didn't
• 52:53
  and didn't even have to think about it.
• 52:55
  It was just, it was all there and it was.
• 52:57
  I was really awesome. And yeah, that feeling and
• 53:00
  nostalgia, yeah. Yeah, it struck me a couple of
• 53:04
  times as you were talking as contradictory because you were
• 53:07
  talking about your bamboo backed reflex bow and how you were
• 53:11
  trying to create something that you could repeat.
• 53:13
  But then at the same time you said you didn't want to iterate
• 53:16
  on that enough to make it good because you get bored of, of
• 53:19
  doing the same thing over and over.
• 53:20
  And then you wouldn't let the mass produce kind of fiberglass
• 53:23
  bow. So it seemed like you, you kept
• 53:25
  going down the path of doing something that lacked, I guess
• 53:30
  for better words lack kind of the heart of a bow.
• 53:32
  Your you're going more into the mass production type of easy
• 53:36
  repetitive thing and now you're coming back into the heart of it
• 53:40
  with the heartwood and the primitive bows.
• 53:42
  That's really cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 53:45
  And it's it, it, I mean during the the those ventures, it was
• 53:50
  all about the development for me.
• 53:53
  Even with the mass produced, it was all about the thing that I
• 53:56
  loved the most was designing them, making them, testing them
• 54:00
  a couple of times and then, yeah, losing interest because I
• 54:04
  wanted to develop a new, new bow.
• 54:08
  And that's yeah. And that's what with primitive,
• 54:11
  it's never the same thing, right.
• 54:12
  So it's. Totally the same.
• 54:14
  No, no, it's in a way for me, it's I'm a surfer too.
• 54:18
  And so building primitive bows is a lot like surfing.
• 54:21
  I can go to the my favorite surf break every day and the waves
• 54:25
  are always different and every wave is always different.
• 54:28
  It's just like a stave. Every stave is so different and
• 54:32
  so it's all brings new challenges and new opportunities
• 54:35
  and that's what I love about it. It's one of the things I love
• 54:38
  anyway. That's awesome.
• 54:41
  So do you feel like you have kind of arrived kind of back
• 54:46
  home now that you're doing working all with wood again and
• 54:49
  doing a lot of primitive bows? Or do you think this is still
• 54:51
  just part of the evolution and you might move on to working
• 54:54
  with other composite materials? And what?
• 54:58
  I I, I'm sure I'll do both. I, I also have plans for I'm,
• 55:04
  you know, I'm actually working on a aluminium riser.
• 55:09
  I'm designing one very low priority, right.
• 55:13
  But just as a fun side project. I mean, if I'm going to shoot
• 55:18
  competitions with that, how cool would it be to to design your
• 55:21
  own thing, right. And it's also a new thing for
• 55:24
  me. Yeah.
• 55:26
  I mean, so there we go. I've been in London.
• 55:29
  Now that you're doing primitive bow carving again, do you think
• 55:31
  you will do some primitive competitions?
• 55:34
  Yeah, yeah, I think so. Yeah.
• 55:35
  I've, I've already already, you already entered one of the
• 55:43
  tournaments and I, you know, signed up with a primitive bow
• 55:46
  again. So, yeah, yeah.
• 55:50
  Let's see. And so you learned a lot through
• 55:54
  your progression with archery about self development, personal
• 55:58
  growth, etcetera. And that is definitely factored
• 56:02
  into your bow carving. What specifically have you
• 56:05
  learned from bow carving that has helped to helped in your
• 56:11
  personal development? That's a good question.
• 56:17
  Well, I guess to know myself better.
• 56:21
  And patience is also one of the things that comes to mind
• 56:24
  quickly. Like, yeah, I was.
• 56:27
  Yeah. And.
• 56:30
  Yeah. Are you more, are you more
• 56:31
  patient now or are you just better resourced with more
• 56:34
  staves to work with? Do you find that you are more
• 56:36
  patient? Yeah, it's easy to be patient
• 56:43
  when you have 100 season staves waiting to go.
• 56:46
  Or no or no. It's like, OK, I want to, yeah,
• 56:51
  I want to make one of the out of those.
• 56:53
  Yeah, no, yeah, I'm, but I'm, I'm way more patient because of
• 56:58
  the yeah, the journey that I went through the.
• 57:03
  And actually I have to to, to build my my Steve collection
• 57:08
  back up again because I, yeah, I kept a lot of stuff that I, I
• 57:13
  recently threw away because it basically was all firewood.
• 57:18
  So I have to build it back up again but.
• 57:20
  You got rid of it because you didn't think you would be
• 57:22
  carving primitive bows again. No, because I know that's like a
• 57:26
  couple of weeks ago I threw threw away half of it because it
• 57:29
  was, it was worth this. Would that I say back in the day
• 57:35
  for somebody like, Oh yeah, one day?
• 57:39
  I still save every piece. It's like there's probably not a
• 57:44
  bow in there, but I save it anyway just in case.
• 57:47
  Exactly. Now I'm just like, I'm not going
• 57:50
  to spend so much time on this is this is not going to no, I mean,
• 57:55
  it's good to keep some character pieces, of course, but some
• 57:59
  stuff is just full of cracks and nothing special about it.
• 58:02
  Like, OK, throw it away, right, But.
• 58:07
  Yeah, but any any other pearls of wisdom or realization beyond
• 58:10
  patients? Well, through bow carving
• 58:17
  specifically. I mean the craftsmanship and
• 58:21
  stuff, but that's not like a real realization.
• 58:25
  Is it, well, let me ask you, is it a lot of Bowyers who I speak
• 58:31
  with and who I've written about, talk about the therapeutic
• 58:33
  aspect of it, Define therapy and bow carving?
• 58:38
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Funny.
• 58:40
  It's kind of was almost kind of obvious or something.
• 58:44
  Like when you're doing it is it is very therapeutic.
• 58:47
  Yeah, it's very calming. And most of the time.
• 58:51
  And yeah, you let your thoughts drift away, you know, just focus
• 58:56
  on your work. Yeah, I got, I was funny as one
• 59:02
  of my friends I got diagnosed with or no, I didn't get
• 59:07
  diagnosed, but somebody suggested that I, I, I checked
• 59:15
  out if I had ADD attention deficit disorder because I had a
• 59:21
  a hard time concentrating in school in, in in high school
• 59:25
  because I wasn't interested in it at all.
• 59:28
  So I somebody, so somebody we got help and somebody was like,
• 59:33
  oh, maybe you have ADD. And then another friend of mine
• 59:36
  said like, what do you mean you can't focus?
• 59:38
  You can't you're focusing on your bows for hours and hours.
• 59:41
  What do you mean? It's just you're just not
• 59:44
  interested in that stuff. So yeah, points right.
• 59:47
  So, so that, yeah, that's definitely a part.
• 59:50
  Just the hours fly by and you're, you know, fully focused
• 59:55
  on that thing. It's, it's so enjoyable, you
• 59:58
  know? And that the ADHD, that's a
• 1:00:01
  rabbit hole I could always go down because I find that it is
• 1:00:05
  so often used as a diagnosis and someone gets labeled with that
• 1:00:09
  typically by their parents and teachers forever.
• 1:00:12
  And I as you just said, I don't think it's because they have an
• 1:00:15
  issue. Focusing on something, it's just
• 1:00:18
  they're being presented with the wrong things.
• 1:00:20
  Like how many kids want to go sit in a chair at a desk all day
• 1:00:24
  long and listen to somebody talk about something they're not
• 1:00:27
  interested in. It's it's not easy to deal, but
• 1:00:30
  when you're 14 years old and you're focused on carving bowls
• 1:00:34
  for hours and hours on end, it's because you found something that
• 1:00:37
  you're passionate about. Exactly.
• 1:00:39
  So I mean, that's, that becomes, that becomes the healthier form
• 1:00:44
  of, of medication. I, I find when you find the
• 1:00:46
  passions and someone then focuses on that rather than
• 1:00:50
  taking the pharmaceuticals to help them sit still in class.
• 1:00:54
  I mean, that's just taking away the passion, taking away the the
• 1:00:57
  artistry and the inspiration. Right, exactly.
• 1:01:01
  Now that's something, you know, I think or two about, right.
• 1:01:04
  Yeah. That's it's so cool that you've
• 1:01:07
  you've found something so young that still all these years later
• 1:01:11
  is still what fuels you and keeps you passionate.
• 1:01:14
  Yeah, yeah. It's really interesting that it
• 1:01:16
  never, never got boring for me. That's somewhere else, Beijing.
• 1:01:21
  So something so simple basically.
• 1:01:26
  Yeah. Are you planning on or are you
• 1:01:28
  selling the primitive bows that you're making now or are you
• 1:01:31
  doing those more just for yourself?
• 1:01:35
  At the moment, I'm just I just make.
• 1:01:38
  I just make them. I've just started again, so I
• 1:01:41
  know I'm definitely not selling this golden chain.
• 1:01:45
  Yeah, bow, but but yeah, but but maybe in the future, I don't
• 1:01:50
  know. I mean, at a certain point you
• 1:01:52
  have so many bows. Yeah.
• 1:01:54
  And if you can make somebody happy with one of those bows,
• 1:01:57
  that would be cool. But at the moment, not now.
• 1:02:00
  But I am planning on the I mean, I, I teach woodworking, so I I'm
• 1:02:06
  planning on. Yeah, tell me a bit more about
• 1:02:09
  that. Sure.
• 1:02:11
  Yeah. So I, I'm planning on building a
• 1:02:15
  a Bowyer's course, a digital Bowyer's course to get our
• 1:02:19
  people into it. Yeah.
• 1:02:20
  Digital. Yeah, I think that would be very
• 1:02:22
  doable. Yeah.
• 1:02:25
  So would that be with pre recorded video of you carving?
• 1:02:30
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Yeah, I just explained
• 1:02:34
  that, yeah, it will be a basic course at 1st to see if it has
• 1:02:39
  merits and people like it. But yeah, that's the plan.
• 1:02:43
  So I'm going to do that in a couple of weeks time.
• 1:02:48
  You're going to start on that, you're starting on that in a
• 1:02:52
  couple of weeks time. Exactly.
• 1:02:53
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you already do you already
• 1:02:57
  have the the template in mind? You already have it kind of laid
• 1:02:59
  out in your head what you're going to do.
• 1:03:00
  You just need to start putting assets together.
• 1:03:03
  I have the stuff, I have the yeah, everything ready.
• 1:03:06
  And I just got to start and do it.
• 1:03:08
  And I, I'm nearly in my in the holidays.
• 1:03:12
  I mean, I work at a school, so I've got plenty of those.
• 1:03:17
  Yeah. So that's a great time to go
• 1:03:19
  through that. Do you have experience with the
• 1:03:22
  filming and the videography and editing?
• 1:03:25
  No, Also, yeah. Awesome.
• 1:03:28
  Yeah, that's going to be amazing.
• 1:03:30
  I hope so, yeah. And then are you, are you
• 1:03:34
  looking at a prescription or a subscription type of sale or is
• 1:03:38
  it you just you buy the the Evergreen product once and you
• 1:03:42
  have it forever? Exactly.
• 1:03:44
  An Evergreen product is it's yeah, that's the bad yeah.
• 1:03:49
  And and if it works and it's and the people like this stuff, I
• 1:03:53
  can I will definitely add on more like more modules and stuff
• 1:03:59
  and and maybe suggestions from people.
• 1:04:01
  And at the end you can always add in theaters and stuff.
• 1:04:04
  That's yeah, that's really cool. Or even listen, many things I
• 1:04:08
  got it's got to be. So that's, I think that's really
• 1:04:13
  cool too. Yeah.
• 1:04:15
  And I that's, I think so valuable right now because back
• 1:04:20
  when you were starting out and when a lot of the boggers who
• 1:04:23
  I've interviewed, we were, we were back in the day of books
• 1:04:27
  and reading books and going through the boggers Bibles or
• 1:04:30
  whatever books there were to learn how to carve.
• 1:04:32
  But this generation, my son's 13, he doesn't want to read.
• 1:04:38
  He wants to see videos and learn that way.
• 1:04:40
  And when he does, he learns a ton.
• 1:04:42
  So it really does seem to be something that I think will fill
• 1:04:46
  a huge gap because I don't other than YouTube and people's
• 1:04:49
  YouTube channels, which not to undervalue those, there's some
• 1:04:53
  amazing ones out there, But I don't know that anyone I've
• 1:04:57
  never heard of anyone with a a fully finished product that
• 1:05:01
  someone can access to take them through the entire Bo carving
• 1:05:05
  process with video. And that's that's really cool.
• 1:05:10
  And then we will you have supplementary information with
• 1:05:14
  that textual information, Yeah. Yeah, for sure, Yeah.
• 1:05:19
  And and and of the the template of the the bows that I they'll
• 1:05:24
  make. And stuff.
• 1:05:26
  Yeah, well, you know. There there's yeah, I mean, you
• 1:05:29
  can, you make, you can make a course 200 hours probably of of
• 1:05:34
  bow building. I'm, I'm really aiming to, to
• 1:05:36
  make this as short and precise and clear as I can.
• 1:05:41
  Not too much information on the side.
• 1:05:44
  Just this is the end product. This is what we're going to
• 1:05:47
  build in this course. And I'm showing you exactly how
• 1:05:49
  I do it with very little tools. So it is also really easy to to
• 1:05:56
  replicate for people and not like, oh, you need this and this
• 1:05:59
  machine and no, it's got to be, it's got to be like doable for
• 1:06:03
  an average person. And then yeah, show them how to
• 1:06:06
  use the tools and that's, that's a bit and make a great bow and,
• 1:06:11
  and show some variations that you can make out of the same
• 1:06:15
  route and stuff. Yeah, that's that's basically
• 1:06:19
  it. That's a big undertaking.
• 1:06:21
  Congratulations. Thank you and.
• 1:06:24
  You seem like you're comfortable in front of the camera too.
• 1:06:26
  So that's you make a great, great teacher on that medium.
• 1:06:32
  Yeah. Thank you.
• 1:06:33
  Thank you. Yeah, I'll do my best.
• 1:06:34
  Yeah. But I've had some practice with
• 1:06:37
  with videos and stuff. Yeah.
• 1:06:39
  So that's OK, That's cool. So.
• 1:06:41
  Tell me a bit more about your work as a woodworker.
• 1:06:45
  So, yeah, I, so I work at, it's called the Woot and furniture
• 1:06:49
  and school here in Amsterdam. And it is a school where, yeah,
• 1:06:55
  obviously we mostly make furniture, but we also have like
• 1:06:59
  a wooden boats building and restoration, that kind of stuff.
• 1:07:05
  Anything that's that has to do with, with wood we can do and,
• 1:07:10
  and even musical instruments, which is also really cool.
• 1:07:15
  Back when I was a student, yeah, I got into, it's a four year, 4
• 1:07:19
  year programme, at least the one that I was in and it's focused
• 1:07:24
  on furniture, but but the last two years I focused on acoustic
• 1:07:29
  guitars. Wow.
• 1:07:32
  Yeah, it's so awesome. And I, yeah, you get the freedom
• 1:07:35
  to, to build your own acoustic guitar.
• 1:07:40
  I mean, yeah, how cool is that? So that's also, that's also a
• 1:07:43
  thing that I did. And so, yeah, now I, I, I work
• 1:07:49
  there, I'm an instructor in the machinery room.
• 1:07:53
  So there's like 50-60 big, big machines, balls and, and routers
• 1:08:01
  and what have you and anything and everything.
• 1:08:05
  And I give instructions on how to use the machines.
• 1:08:09
  But also we walk around the place to keep the, keep an eye
• 1:08:14
  out, eye out on the students, of course.
• 1:08:16
  Because basically what they do is they're in their, their
• 1:08:18
  classroom where they have the, their project.
• 1:08:21
  And then they have to cut something piece of wood off.
• 1:08:23
  And then they come to us, to our place.
• 1:08:26
  And then they, they do their thing and we help them and at
• 1:08:30
  least keep them safe, right? But it's an, it's an awesome
• 1:08:34
  place to work. The atmosphere, atmosphere is
• 1:08:38
  really positive and really open and everything, everyone is
• 1:08:41
  welcome and everyone does the wrong thing.
• 1:08:44
  And it's, it's an amazing place to work at.
• 1:08:47
  So, and one of the big advantages, of course, is also
• 1:08:51
  that I can use the machines for myself.
• 1:08:52
  So that's also really cool. That's great.
• 1:08:55
  I have a lot of questions. So you started that out as a
• 1:08:58
  student. How long ago did you do the four
• 1:09:00
  year program? 10 years, I guess, No, maybe.
• 1:09:04
  Maybe 12. Yeah.
• 1:09:07
  I moved to Amsterdam, Fort Athol and it was 12 years ago I guess.
• 1:09:12
  So you're carving bows already by then and you just had an
• 1:09:18
  interest in other woodworking or you knew there are there are
• 1:09:21
  things you wanted to learn? So I first, I have no idea what
• 1:09:27
  the well, it doesn't matter. I did high school and was 19
• 1:09:31
  when I was when I finished that, I hated it.
• 1:09:34
  So then I was like, OK, now I'm going to do something that I
• 1:09:38
  love, right? So what I did was I wanted to
• 1:09:41
  become a blacksmith. So I saw, because I saw some an
• 1:09:47
  article in the in the newspaper about an educational programme
• 1:09:52
  for blacksmithing. So I was like, OK, so I went
• 1:09:54
  there and the guy there, the blacksmith told me like, oh, the
• 1:09:58
  best thing you can do is get some practical experience in, in
• 1:10:04
  metal working. This is the school that you can
• 1:10:08
  go to it. Yeah, it's all about.
• 1:10:10
  Yeah. So I did metalworking, welding
• 1:10:13
  and then grinding and all that stuff.
• 1:10:16
  And then the weekends I went blacksmithing with the with the
• 1:10:19
  guy did that for two years. And then that education was was
• 1:10:25
  was finished. I graduated.
• 1:10:27
  And then I was like, OK, now I can work or I can do another
• 1:10:32
  education, another school. And it was like, OK, what, what,
• 1:10:37
  what would be a cool combination, you know, maybe
• 1:10:40
  wood combine wood with metal with, with blacksmithing, maybe
• 1:10:46
  some restoring old buildings, that kind of stuff.
• 1:10:50
  That was yeah. So I went, yeah.
• 1:10:53
  And I came came here in Amsterdam and I completely
• 1:10:57
  switched around again because, yeah, I came there for restoring
• 1:11:02
  buildings probably, or at least combining with blacksmithing.
• 1:11:06
  And I went to the acoustic guitars.
• 1:11:09
  Another switch. The after that I did another
• 1:11:14
  after I graduated that school. I did, you know, I did another
• 1:11:17
  two years, 1 1/2 year on my own of, of some guitar building and
• 1:11:24
  I worked at a guitar builder and, and then somebody, I, I,
• 1:11:29
  yeah, I, I visited the school again on the, on the yearly
• 1:11:34
  exposition of all the, of all the stuff that students have
• 1:11:38
  made the graduates. And yeah, now a colleague of
• 1:11:44
  mine back then, he was just a friend, like, and he invited me
• 1:11:47
  like, hey, you should come work here at the school.
• 1:11:50
  I think you'd fit in fine. And I was like, I'm not sure.
• 1:11:54
  I don't think I'll, yeah, but whatever.
• 1:11:58
  I tried it anyways. And I, I stuck and now I'm
• 1:12:03
  working there. I've worked there for 5 1/2
• 1:12:05
  years now. I guess.
• 1:12:07
  So it's an awesome, yeah, it's an awesome journey again.
• 1:12:12
  Yeah, how? How big is the school?
• 1:12:15
  How many students do you have? For the woodworking, it's pretty
• 1:12:21
  small. I'm not actually sure, but it's
• 1:12:24
  a couple of hundreds because the biggest part of our school is
• 1:12:29
  interior and design. Those are the most students.
• 1:12:34
  Those make the bulk of it. But the woodworking is a couple
• 1:12:38
  of hundreds, yeah. What's the school called?
• 1:12:42
  HMC, the house and Mobil earrings collation, which means
• 1:12:47
  the wood and furniture college. So many things from going
• 1:12:54
  through my mind. So you did the the
• 1:12:57
  blacksmithing. Are you still doing any metal
• 1:12:58
  work of any sort? Not really, except only
• 1:13:03
  sharpening my sharpening my Yeah.
• 1:13:10
  But not putting your cheater program to good use.
• 1:13:17
  Yeah. And then are are you a musician?
• 1:13:20
  Do you play the guitars you make?
• 1:13:22
  Not really, no. I just found it fascinating.
• 1:13:25
  And and my dad bought an expensive handmade guitar at one
• 1:13:32
  time and he and he actually, yeah, he told me like, Hey, is
• 1:13:36
  there no, is, isn't there a guitar build that you can do an
• 1:13:39
  internship with? Right.
• 1:13:40
  It would be cool. And I was like, oh, that's a
• 1:13:42
  good idea. So I just, you know, ended up
• 1:13:44
  there and it really, you know, caught me again.
• 1:13:48
  And that's, but it's also like, yeah, it's also like the reason
• 1:13:51
  why I eventually stopped doing that because it didn't grab me
• 1:13:56
  like making Bose did. So I never really got that spark
• 1:14:01
  and, and deep interest in, in the musical world and stuff.
• 1:14:06
  I did love making them, but it was mostly for the making.
• 1:14:11
  But, and The funny thing is they are stringed instruments are
• 1:14:15
  actually really, yeah, close to, to, to wooden bows.
• 1:14:21
  It's the same things you're looking for.
• 1:14:23
  Basically. You need some light and strong,
• 1:14:25
  strong enough to withstand the tension, but you know, but not
• 1:14:30
  too weak and not too thick. And yeah, it's really, really
• 1:14:34
  funny how that works. Sounds like your dad's had quite
• 1:14:37
  an impact on you. Yeah, Yeah, I did.
• 1:14:40
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:14:42
  He's a handyman and he's always, well, he's, he's basically
• 1:14:48
  touched every spot in the house and in the garden.
• 1:14:52
  And he built his own workplace, his own garage and stuff where
• 1:14:57
  we also started. So that definitely had a big
• 1:15:00
  impact. And my mom is also awesome in a
• 1:15:03
  sense that she always stimulated us to just do those kinds of
• 1:15:07
  stuff. Like I'll go play in a garden in
• 1:15:09
  the garage, try to make stuff. And so that was awesome.
• 1:15:15
  Do you have any kids? Nope, not not not 3033 years
• 1:15:20
  old, but no kids. Not yet at least.
• 1:15:23
  Maybe I'll, yeah, but I'm not sure yet.
• 1:15:28
  So at the school are you teaching bow building at all?
• 1:15:32
  No, no, no. That's.
• 1:15:34
  Is that just not something they're interested in having in
• 1:15:37
  the curriculum or? No, it's, it's, it's too small,
• 1:15:41
  it's too too much of A niche to do that.
• 1:15:43
  Maybe, maybe there's also. AI mean guitar making sounds
• 1:15:49
  pretty niche too though. It is.
• 1:15:51
  And I mean, I didn't learn that at school to be honest.
• 1:15:55
  The guitar building I, I learned that from my, from my
• 1:15:59
  internships. So I, but I just got the freedom
• 1:16:02
  at the school to, to, to make them there also.
• 1:16:08
  But there there are, however, every year there's one or two
• 1:16:13
  guys who will be building a guitar or an instrument and they
• 1:16:17
  often help out the other guys that are also wanting to to make
• 1:16:21
  one. What if a student wants to do an
• 1:16:23
  internship internship bow building with you?
• 1:16:27
  Actually, I'm recently somebody asked that and I'm very open to
• 1:16:33
  that. I'm, I mean like, yeah, let's
• 1:16:35
  go, let's do that. Let's but, but The thing is, I
• 1:16:39
  don't have my own workplace, my own garage or something.
• 1:16:43
  And I, so I mostly built my bows still at my parents place where
• 1:16:48
  I often, yeah, I often visit them at my, my work, Of course.
• 1:16:54
  I mean, there's all the, there's enough tools and stuff there.
• 1:16:57
  So that'd be awesome, right. We let's, let's build some bows
• 1:17:01
  there at the school and that'd be awesome.
• 1:17:04
  I mean. So your parents live near you in
• 1:17:05
  Amsterdam? Not in Amsterdam.
• 1:17:08
  They live actually live near Arnhem.
• 1:17:11
  OK. And so, yeah, but I mean, the
• 1:17:14
  Netherlands is quite small. It's like an hour's drive, so.
• 1:17:18
  So you have to go on a. So when you want to cover a bow,
• 1:17:21
  though, you have to go somewhere.
• 1:17:23
  So it's not something you slip in to and out of for 20 or 30
• 1:17:27
  minutes. You got to exactly go.
• 1:17:29
  Yeah. OK, yeah.
• 1:17:31
  And I mean my, my work is really close by.
• 1:17:33
  It's like a 5 minutes, you know, 5 minutes drive, I guess.
• 1:17:38
  So no. Do you drive or bicycle everyone
• 1:17:41
  in a? Bicycle.
• 1:17:43
  Yeah, yeah. Everyone.
• 1:17:44
  Yeah, definitely. Ride a bicycle.
• 1:17:46
  Yeah. No.
• 1:17:47
  Yeah, somebody got part of the culture.
• 1:17:50
  Sorry. I love that about the culture
• 1:17:52
  there just bicycles everywhere, thousands and thousands of them.
• 1:17:56
  Crazy. There's more bicycles than
• 1:17:58
  people, no? Yeah, wow.
• 1:18:01
  More than people. Yeah, I think so.
• 1:18:06
  Everyone owns at least 2. Yeah, it's crazy.
• 1:18:09
  Yeah. Wow.
• 1:18:11
  Yeah. Let's see, tool.
• 1:18:17
  So at your school, you're teaching the big tools.
• 1:18:22
  A lot of the buggers I talked to love using not just hand tools,
• 1:18:27
  but antique hand tools because they talk about how the the
• 1:18:32
  tools have a soul to them. The older ones have definitely
• 1:18:37
  more soul than the newer ones. How how about the machines that
• 1:18:43
  you're working with? Do you find that there's that
• 1:18:45
  characteristic to them? Is there any sort of soul there
• 1:18:49
  that you're perceiving or do you feel relatively disconnected
• 1:18:53
  from them and it's just a just a piece of equipment to get a job
• 1:18:59
  done? Yeah, the leather, definitely
• 1:19:02
  the leather. It's not that, I mean, I no,
• 1:19:03
  it's not really. And the machines that we also
• 1:19:07
  have are like the the the newest of the new.
• 1:19:11
  So there's a lot of digital screens on them and stuff, which
• 1:19:15
  annoys the hell out of me, but OK.
• 1:19:19
  Because yeah, yeah. And you get a, you get a message
• 1:19:22
  like, oh, and stop working for some reason.
• 1:19:25
  But why? You never know, right?
• 1:19:27
  So that's the digital thing, OK. And so it moves all there for me
• 1:19:32
  at least. And I can imagine if you've got
• 1:19:36
  really old machinery and there's some salt to it.
• 1:19:39
  Like an old tractor, people love old.
• 1:19:41
  Tractors, yeah, for example, tractors, yeah, my, my dad has
• 1:19:45
  got like a 40 year old, 40 year old router and A and a soul and
• 1:19:51
  stuff, right. That has got some, yeah, got
• 1:19:55
  some soul. They're still working well, but
• 1:19:58
  also that, I mean, do you feel like you're in a but it's but on
• 1:20:02
  the other hand, like they're made for for the job and they're
• 1:20:05
  yeah, they're they're so convenient.
• 1:20:07
  I mean, if you would just want to have something, a square
• 1:20:11
  piece of wood, like that's actually 90 squares, yeah.
• 1:20:17
  So what about? What about in your personal bowl
• 1:20:20
  carving? Are you using a lot of machinery
• 1:20:22
  or mostly hand tools? Does it depend on the job?
• 1:20:27
  Both. Yeah, I used to.
• 1:20:29
  I had a period where I I'm pretty much only used hand tools
• 1:20:34
  and I absolutely love that. I did an internship with a guy
• 1:20:38
  who makes wooden chairs and he, he did everything by hand, like
• 1:20:42
  from cutting the trees to and it was, he was so good at it.
• 1:20:48
  It's insane how quickly and how efficiently he he made an joint,
• 1:20:55
  a wood joint, for example, was really incredible to see.
• 1:20:59
  But eventually he'll also, he still took up some machines
• 1:21:03
  because he he tried to make his living out of it.
• 1:21:05
  And no matter how efficient he was, yeah, you couldn't really
• 1:21:10
  get that going, I guess. But so, but I, I use a benzil
• 1:21:16
  often. Benzil is just yeah, it's so
• 1:21:19
  handy. And especially if like like
• 1:21:21
  this, that that piece of laburnum golden chain tree, it's
• 1:21:26
  pretty rare to get that here. So if I got if I got a piece,
• 1:21:31
  I'd rather use the bandsaw to cut it in in two than the two.
• 1:21:37
  Yeah, then risk splitting. And.
• 1:21:38
  Yeah, Right. So I use that and I use a belt
• 1:21:43
  Sander also. It's just so convenient for
• 1:21:47
  fattening bamboo backing and some rough shaping of knocks and
• 1:21:51
  stuff. Yeah, but.
• 1:21:53
  Those are so common, yeah. Hand tools for the rest of it,
• 1:21:58
  mostly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:22:01
  And I love the Yeah, I love those.
• 1:22:03
  What do you find you use the most?
• 1:22:08
  Draw knife, spoke, shave paper, Those are those are the most
• 1:22:13
  used. Yeah.
• 1:22:15
  The the spokeshave, do you find that that works across the board
• 1:22:20
  with all types of wood or does it work better with certain
• 1:22:22
  types of wood? And just works great I guess.
• 1:22:27
  Yeah, OK. I I mean if the if it's sharp
• 1:22:32
  incorrectly, I mean, yeah. Yeah, that's what I learned when
• 1:22:37
  I I first learned the car from Jamie MacDonald, a Raven Beak
• 1:22:40
  Bose. And he's primarily all always
• 1:22:43
  called Carving Pacific U And he taught me with spokeshaves
• 1:22:48
  originally. And I ruined so many bows with
• 1:22:51
  trying the spokeshade. But then I found every
• 1:22:52
  spokeshave was so different and the adjustments on them were
• 1:22:55
  different. And with, with Jamie I, I was
• 1:22:58
  able to make three beautiful bows using a spokeshave.
• 1:23:00
  But when I went back last a year ago for the book and to make
• 1:23:06
  another bow with him, I didn't even, I don't remember if I
• 1:23:08
  asked him about it, but I don't think we use spokeshaves at all.
• 1:23:11
  I think it was mostly draw knives and he loves using rasps,
• 1:23:16
  so much so that his right forearm is significantly larger
• 1:23:20
  than his left forearm because he's rasping away with these
• 1:23:24
  giant farrier rasps. That's crazy.
• 1:23:28
  That's crazy. Normally I OK, I, yeah, I won't
• 1:23:35
  say any other thing but so use use wood rasps mostly for for
• 1:23:45
  maybe for the NOx but and but and for the handle for the grip
• 1:23:48
  area. But I I'm not too keen about the
• 1:23:51
  using the Ras. I mean for the flat part of the
• 1:23:54
  bow. I don't think it's that
• 1:23:56
  efficient and I'd rather use a good spokeshave or plain even.
• 1:24:05
  And now? Draw knife and draw knife is so
• 1:24:08
  for most of the work and draw knife.
• 1:24:10
  Yeah, with your permitted bows now, are you, are you using any
• 1:24:15
  other materials? Are you using horns for the
• 1:24:17
  overlays or leather work? Mostly, mostly sorry.
• 1:24:22
  Yeah, yeah, mostly Horn for the Knox overlays some and there may
• 1:24:30
  be some, some leather for the for the handles, you know.
• 1:24:34
  I want to see some of your primitive bow builds because
• 1:24:37
  I've really, I think I've only seen your stuff on Instagram and
• 1:24:41
  I don't think you really have any of your primitive stuff on
• 1:24:44
  there so. It is on there, but it's down.
• 1:24:50
  Down, down, down. OK.
• 1:24:53
  Right. When I build some, yeah, it's
• 1:24:55
  definitely on my Instagram. Most of the mostly on my
• 1:24:57
  Instagram, I mean. OK, I haven't scrolled down far
• 1:25:02
  enough then. And on your primitive, are you
• 1:25:06
  still carving like distinct handle risers as you do when
• 1:25:09
  you're more modern bows? Are you going more like old
• 1:25:12
  school style? Most of the time I yeah, I shape
• 1:25:18
  it somewhat to to a handle like yeah, like a recognizable like
• 1:25:24
  something like this. It's quite.
• 1:25:26
  Subtle still, yeah, but no arrow pass.
• 1:25:30
  I like that. Just just a plate.
• 1:25:33
  No arrow shelf. Sorry, just the plate.
• 1:25:36
  Not yet. I mean I will I make a letter
• 1:25:40
  handle this one and there will be a very thin just an edge to
• 1:25:44
  keep the arrow on. What's the What's the inlay
• 1:25:47
  there for the arrow pass? Cow horn.
• 1:25:50
  So that's why it's, yeah, that white stuff is cow horn, yeah.
• 1:25:53
  Very cool, thanks. How do you how do you create the
• 1:25:58
  the etching in the bow to put the cow horn into?
• 1:26:01
  What do you use? Hand tools only or using a
• 1:26:04
  Dremel or hand tools. Only hand tools and chisel and
• 1:26:07
  the and the scalp, like what's it's called, the scalp is a very
• 1:26:13
  fine little sky. Yeah, like for for surgery.
• 1:26:17
  Yeah, Yeah. Cool.
• 1:26:21
  You always do that on your bows. You always put in a narrow pass.
• 1:26:26
  Pretty much, yeah, pretty much, yeah.
• 1:26:29
  I like the like the looks of it and it's just a nice inlay work
• 1:26:34
  to do. I mean, yeah, I just love to
• 1:26:36
  love it also. So when you're doing one of
• 1:26:39
  those aeropaths inlays, because I've I've only ever worked with
• 1:26:44
  like with Jamie, we would use ground up stone and we kind of
• 1:26:48
  glue it into a pre drilled hole. And now he's using knife maker
• 1:26:53
  pins. So I've only used kind of those
• 1:26:56
  substances. What's it, what's the
• 1:26:58
  preparation like to put a bone or an M or a piece of ivory in
• 1:27:02
  there? So what I do is I, I first,
• 1:27:09
  yeah, well, I cut a piece of that, that horn, for example, I
• 1:27:14
  roughly cut it and then I, I shape it to the to the end shape
• 1:27:19
  that I want. And I try to keep the edges
• 1:27:23
  slightly under 90°. So it yeah, if you can imagine
• 1:27:29
  if you make the the hole where it should fit in, then yeah, if
• 1:27:33
  the edges are slightly under 90°, yeah.
• 1:27:36
  It always fits like I and I, I like to also when I glue them
• 1:27:40
  in, I glue them in this with, with wood glue sidebones, for
• 1:27:43
  example, I, I like to push them really hard like with a, with a
• 1:27:48
  glue and clamp. So, so that's how I, yeah,
• 1:27:52
  that's how I prepare them. And that's, that's basically it.
• 1:27:56
  I just send them to the right shape and then put the how
• 1:28:00
  thick. Is how thick is the horn?
• 1:28:04
  Probably 4 millimetres, something like that can be
• 1:28:08
  thinner, but I mean, that's, sorry, that's what I that's when
• 1:28:11
  I got the shape. And then when I glue it in, it
• 1:28:14
  goes in probably a millimetre or two at most.
• 1:28:18
  And then I, you know, sand it down exactly.
• 1:28:22
  So it's very thin. It's very thin in the end.
• 1:28:26
  Yeah. It's got a slight curve to it.
• 1:28:28
  So the arrow will only touch the middle, I guess.
• 1:28:34
  Yeah. Got a Yeah.
• 1:28:35
  Very, you know. I love that.
• 1:28:37
  OK, I'm going to I I plan on start doing that more and and my
• 1:28:42
  bow builds because I love the look of it.
• 1:28:44
  It's beautiful and the function and I shoot both sides so I like
• 1:28:47
  putting them in on both sides. Cool.
• 1:28:50
  Yeah, that's, that's nice. Yeah.
• 1:28:52
  And I, I, I just, when I, when I carve that piece out before I do
• 1:28:58
  that, I just put the, the, the, the ender or the bone, whatever
• 1:29:02
  the horn on the handle and clamp it down or the clamp and then
• 1:29:06
  use the knife to trace the outline.
• 1:29:10
  Yeah. And once you've got the outline,
• 1:29:12
  yeah, you can take it all. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:29:16
  That would be part of your part of your course, right?
• 1:29:20
  Putting in the Aeropass in lies maybe one of the advanced videos
• 1:29:26
  that you can add on. Yeah, thank you so much for
• 1:29:32
  doing this. So one last question before we
• 1:29:34
  go. I presume Bolts is your last
• 1:29:37
  name. Yeah, that's my last name, Bolt.
• 1:29:39
  Which I guess is not a great leap to figure out that that's
• 1:29:43
  where your brand bolt bows came from.
• 1:29:47
  Is that? Has that always been your brand
• 1:29:49
  for? Bows.
• 1:29:51
  Yeah, yeah, it's always been bolt bows.
• 1:29:53
  Yeah, kind of. And where can people learn more
• 1:29:59
  about you and your work and stay up to date or posted on this
• 1:30:04
  upcoming course you're doing? So mostly on the Instagram and
• 1:30:08
  Facebook both on both, you can find me under Bolt Bose.
• 1:30:13
  So BOLT Bose and I've also started a YouTube channel, which
• 1:30:21
  you can also find on their bolt Bose archery.
• 1:30:24
  And I've I've up till now, I've posted the first two full videos
• 1:30:29
  of the, of the building of this, the Burnham recurve flow.
• 1:30:33
  So that's some more like I posted the short reels on
• 1:30:35
  Facebook and Instagram, but there's like 20 minute, no,
• 1:30:40
  that's 15 minute, 50 minute videos on on that post.
• 1:30:45
  So if you're if you want to learn more than definitely check
• 1:30:49
  that out. Awesome.
• 1:30:52
  Thank you so much. This has been really great
• 1:30:55
  having this. Thank you for getting to know
• 1:30:56
  you. My pleasure.
• 1:30:58
  Excellent. Yeah, and let's stay in touch.
• 1:31:01
  I will. I would love to come and see
• 1:31:03
  what you do in Amsterdam. Yeah, man, let's say yeah, let's
• 1:31:06
  do that. And yeah, I mean, it's an honor
• 1:31:09
  to be here and I'd love to come on podcast again, I guess,
• 1:31:13
  because this was great. And then maybe here's a little
• 1:31:16
  bit more about your bow building adventures.
• 1:31:20
  Yeah, well, feel free to, I'm if, if you have any questions
• 1:31:23
  for me, feel free to ask away now and I would love to have you
• 1:31:25
  back on too, especially once you get that course ready or closer
• 1:31:28
  to being launched. Awesome.
• 1:31:30
  Yeah, let's I was. I was actually.
• 1:31:33
  Well, how many bows have you built up till this points about?
• 1:31:36
  I mean roughly? Very few compared to most of the
• 1:31:40
  people I'm interviewing. So before I went on Project
• 1:31:44
  Quiver and during that I built 15 bows, it was 14 for the book
• 1:31:49
  and then with Enrico Miraji, we ended up building an extra 1
• 1:31:53
  just to have a backup. I would say probably prior to
• 1:31:58
  that I have made 30 to 40 successful bows or at least
• 1:32:03
  temporarily successful and probably destroyed about that
• 1:32:09
  many more. So so I'm, I'm probably
• 1:32:12
  somewhere in the, the 50 range, but I don't know.
• 1:32:16
  I I'm certainly not counting and I live in Costa Rica most of the
• 1:32:20
  year and I just literally a month ago finished the building
• 1:32:25
  on my workshop and I still haven't carved there yet because
• 1:32:29
  I don't have my I haven't made a workbench yet.
• 1:32:32
  I'll be setting up my tiller tree when I get back in a couple
• 1:32:35
  months. So I've limited my bow carving
• 1:32:39
  then to my farm in Canada on Vancouver Island and I'm not
• 1:32:44
  here that often. So when I am here, my, my kids
• 1:32:47
  and my wife kind of grumble because they lose me for a long
• 1:32:50
  period of time because I go out to my barn and I make up for
• 1:32:53
  lost time and I carve those. So this is where other than
• 1:32:57
  working with bowyers in their workshops, this is where I've
• 1:33:00
  carved basically all of my bows. And I'm working on 2 right now
• 1:33:04
  from staves that Ryan Gautier gave me, which is pretty cool.
• 1:33:07
  And I finished one, almost finished one last night at
• 1:33:10
  Persimmon, which is a fruit that I enjoy but I've never worked
• 1:33:16
  with the wood. And then I'm finishing up a
• 1:33:18
  sassafras 1 today, a hollow limb sassafras sapling bow.
• 1:33:21
  And I might recurve the tips on that so.
• 1:33:25
  But every build I go into is I am learning and I'm making
• 1:33:32
  mistakes and I never know if it's going to be a successful
• 1:33:36
  bow or not. I enjoy the process.
• 1:33:39
  Sometimes I cry when I break them, but for the most part I
• 1:33:42
  just. I love.
• 1:33:44
  I love doing it. My son comes out and helps me a
• 1:33:47
  fair bit. He's he's 13.
• 1:33:49
  He's been helping me in the workshop since he was like 6.
• 1:33:53
  And that's, I think that's I made my first or I made, I think
• 1:33:57
  the third bow I made second or third bow was for him.
• 1:34:01
  And I made that with Jamie McDonald on one of the
• 1:34:04
  internships I did at his place and and Raven Beak nature work.
• 1:34:07
  So my son's definitely been into it and my neighbor here on my
• 1:34:12
  farm is Pete Woodland of Heritage Boats.
• 1:34:15
  Oh, no way. No way.
• 1:34:16
  Yeah, so he, he lives a 5 minute walk away from my farm and so I
• 1:34:22
  get to go and visit with him and see his his work, 'cause he's
• 1:34:28
  incredible, just absolutely incredible.
• 1:34:30
  And so that's always fun to anytime I have questions, I can
• 1:34:34
  walk over there and ask him or. That's so hot So do you have
• 1:34:40
  like do you have at the moment? Do you have like a certain type
• 1:34:44
  of bow or something that you that's like this is the dream If
• 1:34:48
  I could build this that's. Not at all.
• 1:34:52
  And I don't know that I'll ever be a Bowyer that I would put on
• 1:34:57
  the level of the people like you and the people featured in in
• 1:35:01
  the Buck quiver. And I don't even think that's
• 1:35:04
  my, it doesn't feel like that's my goal.
• 1:35:08
  I'm doing it because I absolutely love it.
• 1:35:11
  I find that I'm immersed in bow craft because I love it.
• 1:35:15
  But for me, it's not only about carving the bows.
• 1:35:18
  I love archery. I love teaching archery.
• 1:35:21
  I use archeries as a therapeutic tool in Costa Rica.
• 1:35:25
  I teach archery therapy. And so I, I'm also an
• 1:35:28
  acupuncturist. And so I combine acupuncture and
• 1:35:32
  Tai chi and Qigong and some meditation and breath work into
• 1:35:37
  something I, I've coined artery therapy.
• 1:35:41
  So it's basically taking all of my passions and kind of rolling
• 1:35:44
  them all up into one thing. And I don't do them all
• 1:35:47
  simultaneously, but it's all part of the, the program that I
• 1:35:51
  take people through. And then of course, I got to go
• 1:35:55
  on this journey with my daughter, project Quiver and
• 1:35:57
  create this book. So Bow Craft has touched my life
• 1:36:01
  and so many profound ways. And it's not just about carving
• 1:36:07
  bows. It's, I think I, I guess part of
• 1:36:10
  my, my calling is as a storyteller to share the stories
• 1:36:15
  of bowyers like yourself and, and those in the book.
• 1:36:18
  I don't know where that came from.
• 1:36:19
  I love writing. I've always loved writing.
• 1:36:22
  And so it's, yeah, it's, it's all part of it for me.
• 1:36:26
  So it's not so much about making some type of bow or the perfect
• 1:36:32
  bow or ever working full time is a Bowyer.
• 1:36:35
  That's not an interest of mine. I'm with my workshop in Costa
• 1:36:39
  Rica. I'm hoping in the next year or
• 1:36:41
  so that I can start teaching some people with some of the
• 1:36:44
  local woods that we have there because I don't know of anyone
• 1:36:47
  who's really carving with those woods.
• 1:36:49
  But that's it's just all part of the bigger archery bow craft
• 1:36:55
  umbrella that I find myself under.
• 1:36:57
  And just absolutely grateful that this came into my life.
• 1:37:02
  I love it. Beautiful.
• 1:37:04
  Yeah. So I was like, you've got an
• 1:37:05
  amazing life. I I think so, yeah, it's perfect
• 1:37:10
  for me, that's for sure. And I get to do this stuff with
• 1:37:14
  my kids and that's incredible. My daughter taking the photos on
• 1:37:17
  our book. We're hoping to do a volume 2 of
• 1:37:20
  the book, and I would love to start it next year, but we have
• 1:37:24
  to wait until the first book is released and see how it's
• 1:37:27
  received among the community and the broader community of people
• 1:37:31
  who love artisanal work and woodcraft and whatnot.
• 1:37:35
  So if it's if it's well received, then we're definitely
• 1:37:39
  going to be planning the second version, second volume.
• 1:37:44
  Amazing. Really.
• 1:37:45
  Yeah. I'm just grateful to get to do
• 1:37:47
  all this. And I have these podcast
• 1:37:48
  conversations. It's it's all part of my
• 1:37:51
  journey. So I really love it.
• 1:37:55
  I love it too, man. That's awesome.
• 1:37:57
  Yeah. Inspiring.
• 1:37:59
  Really inspiring. Thank you, thank you, thank you
• 1:38:03
  too. And so yeah, let's stay in
• 1:38:06
  touch. We'll do another round sometime
• 1:38:09
  in the future and hopefully we'll have a face to face visit
• 1:38:12
  at some point. Yeah, man, I hope so.
• 1:38:14
  That would be awesome. I mean, let's do that.
• 1:38:18
  Thank you. Thanks for listening to Project
• 1:38:27
  Quiver on Stylish Wolf. Follow our journey on Instagram
• 1:38:30
  and YouTube at Project Quiver Official as we discover the
• 1:38:33
  world's most extraordinary traditional bowyers and join our
• 1:38:36
  newsletter at projectquiver.com. Quiver the art of life through
• 1:38:40
  Bow Craft, Our photographic and narrative exploration of
• 1:38:43
  traditional bow carving published by Trope, will be
• 1:38:45
  available in fall 2026. We are honored to share with you
• 1:38:49
  the beauty. Thanks for listening to project
• 1:38:51
  Quiver on Sailor bow and arrow. Follow our journey on Instagram
• 1:38:54
  and YouTube Journey as project We're official as we discover
• 1:38:57
  the world's most extraordinary traditional bow years and join
• 1:39:00
  our newsletter at projectquiver.com.
• 1:39:02
  Quiver the art of life through Bow craft, our photographic and
• 1:39:06
  narrative exploration of traditional bow carving
• 1:39:08
  published by Trope will be available in fall 2026.
• 1:39:12
  We are honored to share with you the beauty, tradition, and magic
• 1:39:15
  of the bow and arrow. The book is Quiver.
• 1:39:18
  The journey is Project Quiver. This is the Salish Wolf podcast.