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#71 Paul Comstock on Project Quiver · Salish Wolf

• 0:06
  Welcome to Project Quiver, a father daughter journey across
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  the globe to capture the artistry and spirit of the
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  world's finest traditional bow carvers.
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  I'm Todd, the father. Ella is my daughter.
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  Together we're on a mission to create a stunning coffee table
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  book that profiles more than a dozen master bow years and their
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  unparalleled skill. For each chapter, we travel to
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  the Bow Years workshop. Carve a bow under his guidance,
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  photograph his woodcraft in detail and share his story here
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  on the Salish Wolf Podcast. The book is called Quiver the
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  Art of Life. Through bow craft and this
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  journey, our living story is Project Quiver.
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  How are things? Not too bad.
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  I listen to our first podcast and there were a couple of times
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  when the things that I said were either omissions of error are
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  not are not very clear. And with your permission, I'd
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  like to start with a couple of clarifications on some of the
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  things we talked about first time.
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  Absolutely. I'll take the lead on that.
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  First off, the Perry reflex bows.
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  I was very remiss in failing to point out that this concept was
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  developed by a flight shooter who lived in Utah at the time by
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  the name of Dan Perry, and he wrote a chapter about flight
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  shooting in the fourth volume of the Bullier's Bible.
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  And and also while I'm on the subject, I pointed out that in
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  order in order to get the concept to work most
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  efficiently, we need to do a thickness taper of the belly
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  wood before we glue it up in reflex.
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  And I've done a little checking around to see what other people
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  said about that. And a couple of folks pointed
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  had were of the opinion that the belly wood need to needed to be
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  tillered before you glue it up. And I think there's a
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  distinction there. When we think of tiller, we're
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  thinking of very even perfect curve.
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  You've been on a on a tillering tree or whatever.
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  And with the thickness taper, it doesn't necessarily have to be
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  tiller. You know what the thick, the
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  thickness taper could be 1 long limb than the other limb and it
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  will still work because you're going to level everything out
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  when you, you know, when you tell her the bow after it's
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  glued up. So I would say in that regard,
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  the thickness taper is the critical element and you don't
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  need to be terribly fussy on how the thickness taper is executed.
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  Another thing I think I said that needs to be pointed out as
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  I talked at length, as you'll remember about wooden bows, all
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  bows made of all wood taking on excessive bend in the lower
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  limb, most often caused by the way that they are strung.
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  And I think I need to point out that that is something that
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  people with fiberglass laminated bows will never see.
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  And they'll hear what I said and say how can that happen?
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  That never happens with my fiberglass laminated bow.
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  Yes, yes, that is the entire point.
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  It will happen with a wood only bow.
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  But because fiberglass has essentially perfect memory and
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  cannot be permanently deformed by bending the things that I
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  described, the kinds of problems I described with wooden bows
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  going out of tiller is you. The odds of that happening with
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  the fiberglass laminated bow are 10 million to one.
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  You're just not going to see it happen.
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  And as we know, I'll go further, that I know for a fact that some
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  people who are new to traditional archery are confused
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  about what a wooden bow is and what a wooden bow is not.
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  And that is, there's some couple reasons for why that can happen.
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  One reason is that the people who use fiberglass laminated
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  traditional bows exclusively tend to say that if a such a bow
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  does not have a metal riser, it is a wooden bow.
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  Well, this the distinction being from our standpoint, from you
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  and me and people like us that make self bows.
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  The distinction is if it's got any fiberglass in it, it's not
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  the truck kind of wooden bow that was used before World World
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  War 2. And and I can further point out
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  that as I've said before, I believe some folks have my phone
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  number and if they ever encounter somebody has questions
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  about archery, they give them my phone number because they know
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  I'm happy to talk to anybody. I got a call from one guy who
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  had gotten his very first traditional bow is a it was a
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  fiberglass that were shot recurved and he was seeking some
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  advice on how to shoot it. And he mentioned and we were
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  sending back his word text messages and he sent and he
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  mentioned at one point that the bow was a wooden bow.
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  And I said, yeah, I need for you to send me pictures of the limbs
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  of the bow, the side facing the target, the side facing the
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  Archer. Send me some pictures.
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  Well, what he sent back was a bow that used brown fiberglass,
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  but it was still fiberglass. And because it was brown, he
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  thought that was wood or the fiberglass distinction just went
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  over his head. Now, I know I'm belaboring this
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  and it's kind of a boring thing to talk about, but this sort of
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  confusion, the more I look at postings on social media, the
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  more I understand that this kind of confusion is rather common
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  these days. I'm certain for the all the
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  folks that are participating in Project Quiver with you, they
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  have there's they have no question in their mind about the
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  stuff I'm talking about. But other folks that are
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  relatively new to the whole thing may.
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  So I felt it was necessary to kind of point all that out and
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  one world thing in retrospect to the first chat, you remember we
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  talked quite a bit about Hickory backing, Hickory backing and I
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  had an experience since then. I think it was is interesting to
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  share with you. I have a 64 inch Mulberry bow
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  that was made Perry reflex style with the Hickory backing.
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  There was 68 inches long and I cut the 64 so I could use it
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  while shooting behind a blind. And I've been shooting the
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  daylights out of the thing for at least three years.
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  Well, I went hunting with it and I was getting my stuff out of
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  the car and I strung the bow and I put the bow on top of the car
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  and I looked at the lower whim and to my amazement I saw a
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  little tiny splinter in the backing on the lower limb.
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  And I thought, what is this? Where did this come from?
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  So I picked it up and ran my finger over it and I could
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  barely feel it. And I unstrung the bow and look
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  at it and the little, oh, the little crack, tiny crack where
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  the grain had lifted disappeared.
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  It was so small that when the moon was strong, I couldn't see
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  it. So, so I patched that.
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  I was able to do that by basically just gluing a piece of
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  rawhide over the top of it. And that solved the problem.
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  But the reason I point this up is you're questioning, you know,
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  and with good reason, you know, was exploring how do we know
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  that we're really in on safe ground when we use Hickory
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  batting strips? And this experience that I had,
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  which it was a new one to me, it's just support the idea that
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  if we use Hickory backing strips, we probably want the bow
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  to be long for the draw. You might remember I told you of
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  a friend I had who would try to put Hickory backing strips on
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  both 60 and 62 inches long that he drew all the way out to 27
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  inches and they exploded on him every time and he had to switch
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  to bamboo. You know, bamboo while it's
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  harder to work with the odds of it is possible to break a bamboo
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  bow by overstressing the bow, but it's much easier to do it
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  with Hickory. So if we want to use Hickory
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  backings, I think going along for that is to say adding bow
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  length in compression to the draw length is the safest
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  approach. And to all the in addition to
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  all that I think we talked about previously.
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  So I thank you for your patience during that.
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  I thought it was a good thing if we cleared some of that stuff
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  up. Thank you.
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  Can you give us a refresher on what the Perry Reflex is?
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  Yeah. Essentially the situation is you
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  take a, you take a a piece of wood that is most typically
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  going to be in the form of a board and you take a backing
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  strip and this backing strip is usually going to be Hickory or
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  bambooed. Either one will work and it
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  really doesn't matter too much which one you use in terms of
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  the Perry reflex effect. Let's say for example, is behind
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  this conversation. Again, you do have a piece of
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  wood that's going to be the belly dance and the shape of a
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  board and you do have a flat backing strip and you have a
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  form or some manner in order to bend the two of them together in
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  reflex wood and glue them together that way.
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  Bend them in a reflex and you when the glue is dry, you take
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  them off and you have a bow stay that is essentially reflexed.
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  If we do what I have described using a belly wood that is in
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  the shape of a board, they use parallel thickness from one end
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  to the other. It will behave by it will behave
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  once the bow is made like any other bow, be it from a log
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  stave or whatever that had that much initial reflex.
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  And this is something that I demonstrated myself before
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  because before I ever heard the Perry reflex idea I had made,
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  man, I don't know, maybe 6 or 7 bows that way, gluing them up
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  like that in the reflex with no thickness taper in the belly
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  wood. So when I say they will behave
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  like any other bow with that kind of initial reflex, what
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  that means is it will tend to have less string followed than a
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  bow that was a perfectly straight stave to begin with.
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  That will in fact happen, but it will still take on string follow
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  and it will still have the kind of mass in the limbs.
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  And that's another thing I failed to say before when I
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  talked about mass of the limbs before.
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  That is measured by weight, that is measured by the physical
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  weight of the wood. That is how that mass is
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  determined. And size has a lot to do with
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  it. But the way the wood is really
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  what counts. And at any rate, you'll have
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  what's what's a routine bow is basically The upshot of what I'm
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  saying. If we use the message I've
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  described up to this point. Now if we put a thickness taper
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  in the belly wood before we When the backward things change, the
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  glue line is. The stress of the glue line is
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  equally distributed all along the length of the bow limbs in a
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  manner that could not be attained when we used belly wood
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  that was a uniform thickness from one end to the other.
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  As a result of that, that glue line is in essence doing more
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  work compared to the other routine bow, and it will tend to
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  hold onto its reflex much more tenaciously than that other more
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  routine bow that began with initial reflex.
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  And as a further consequence there will be less mass that is
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  the same physical weight in the limbs of the ferry of the Perry
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  reflex made with the bellywood first tapered.
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  All these things will make the bow shoot very quickly compared
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  to the routine bow made either from a solid stave or a board
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  that was not thickness tapered before we glued it in reflex.
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  So that's that's so that's basically the summary of that.
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  And again, like I said before, the Perry reflex was first
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  described and one of the boogers bought, but one of the boogers
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  Bible volumes and a lot of confusion, you know, appeared
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  immediately. And there was also a group of
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  folks who were happy and eager and dying to miscredit any new
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  idea they heard who, who became very vocal and said that this
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  Perry reflex thing was something that had been done in years
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  past. And I told you like I told you
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  previously, if there's anything written about woman, excuse me,
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  if there's anything written about wooden and primitive bows
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  in the English language, it's a virtually a sure thing that I
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  have read it. And I have found nothing in the
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  historical record that describes those being made that way with
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  the thickness taper before they were glued together.
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  And I am confident that had that had such a process existed
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  before 1941 and had such a process that had widespread use
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  as Tracy Stalker fellow I mentioned previously, who was a
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  very long time writer and all things about construction of
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  bows going back to the 1920s, he would have known about it.
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  He would have written about it in his book in 1954 and he did
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  not know about it. It's just that simple.
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  So I say that with some emphasis to uphold the idea, which I
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  believe is an absolute fact, that what Dan Perry came up with
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  was very distinctive and never before had justified.
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  And thank you for your patience. You are very welcome, Sir.
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  Thank you for all the clarifications.
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  Something came up while you were talking.
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  Between self bows and laminated bows, do you find one to be
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  superior to the other? In the that book that Tracy
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  Stalker wrote in 1954, which I think I told you I accidentally
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  got a copy of that way back in the early 80s, and it was a
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  godsend because I'm not sure I would have successfully made a
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  really good one bow without that book.
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  It can. It includes a section on making
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  woods. Excuse me.
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  It includes a section on making wooden bows, all wood, 100%
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  wood, no fiberglass and laminated with more with maybe
• 16:18
  three or four or five laminations.
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  And what he said in there is that the such A and he and and
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  he was and he did describe it did tell how to glue these
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  laminations up into reflex before you tell her the bow.
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  So he was he was talking about an all wood laminated bow glued
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  up into reflex. Now, he said that these bows,
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  and I'm quoting him word for word here, sometimes these bows
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  quote, sometimes will keep the reflex and be very, very fast.
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  And the fact that he said sometimes is absolutely dead.
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  My mind is just a 100%, you know, solid proof that the peri
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  reflex concept was unknown in 1954, but it also underscores
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  the idea that even with laminated bows all would gluten
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  the reflex. This was kind going to be a twin
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  cost as to whether they would behave like a more like a very
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  much a routine bow or one that athlete had superior performance
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  in terms of cast per pound of drawing.
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  I the end of 4th volume of the Boogers Bible, there is a
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  chapter on those like that, and I don't remember.
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  And the fellow who wrote it, I'm ashamed to say, ashamed to say I
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  forgot his name. Well, what do you say?
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  Everybody, if anybody's interested, they need to get
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  volume 4 and read that. But I think he'll tell you
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  whatever the latest word on the subject is from somebody who has
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  some real experience with it. That chapter should be the
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  source. All right.
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  So it's undecided for you. You mean the laminated the issue
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  between? Laminated and a self.
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  Bone yeah, I've never I I have. I can tell you this.
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  I can tell you this. First off, I would remind, you
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  know, our conversation here that one of the things I said before
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  is that back in the 1920s and 30s and 40s, it was obvious if
• 18:56
  we read bow making instruction, you know, And so if we read
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  instruction on making wooden bows from that period that
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  appeared either in magazines like Popular Mechanics or in
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  books like a little book written by Steel or Archery, that they
• 19:13
  were thinking of the person who has some experience with a
• 19:19
  modest number of tools. In other words, we're talking
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  about a home crafter that not that they did not have a very
• 19:26
  elaborate shop or much elaborate equipment.
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  And I would also point out again that that kind of approach has
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  always been in my mind with in regard to everything I've
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  written about wooden bows, because that's how you get
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  people started in it. It does the, the people who do
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  have very fancy and elaborate woodworking shops with a lot of
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  equipment, you know, I, I commend them.
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  That's a very good thing. But we also have to think for
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  the vast number of people, for whatever reason, don't have
• 19:59
  access to that those people, the latter group, need to know that
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  they can still get involved in firmative archery and make great
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  wooden bows, and that you fantastic.
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  The lack of that kind of sophisticated equipment is not
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  an impediment. Having said all that, I fall in
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  the latter group because I've never had a designated bow
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  making shop. So really working with working
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  with all laminated stuff is something I just never explored
• 20:34
  for that reason. But having said all that, I can
• 20:36
  tell you this. I did make a couple of heavy
• 20:39
  Reflex bows on which I put not one backing strip, but two
• 20:46
  backing strips. This means that despite
• 20:49
  everything I just said, those bows are technically laminated.
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  They have 3 layers, they have two backing layers, they have
• 20:58
  that tapered belly layer and they absolutely are.
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  Even if they're all, even if they're all Hickory, they're
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  going to hang on to that reflex and there's nothing you could do
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  to get rid of that reflex. I have made a couple of them
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  that way and one I have at the moment that I still use with
• 21:21
  some frequency. I have left that thing strong
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  for 36 hours. I have drawn it 30 inches during
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  that 36 hours, and then I would unstring it and wait two or
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  three days. And that little tenacious sucker
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  went right back to the reflex it had before it was subjected to
• 21:46
  that abuse. So like I said, technically
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  that's a laminated bow and that's the high results you can
• 21:53
  get. That reminds me of another thing
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  that I my reading suggests I should point out that is not a
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  factor with glass fiberglass eliminated bows and that is as
• 22:08
  follows. If we have a all wood bow, no
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  matter what kind of wood it is or how it was made, and we
• 22:19
  should for for a couple hours and we unstring it and we
• 22:22
  measure it, we have a measure a way to accurately measure the
• 22:27
  string follow right there when we just unstrung it after
• 22:31
  shooting for several hours and then we check the string follow
• 22:34
  again the next morning, the string follow will be lower than
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  it was the day before. What I'm saying is every time we
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  shoot 1 and unstring it, it has string follow plus one and when
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  it rests overnight, that's drink fault.
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  That plus one goes away and it goes back to its original
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  position. Now this is something you never
• 22:57
  see where the fiberglass laminated bow and I have in
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  social media counted a couple of remarks from folks that you
• 23:06
  shoot would boast. They seem to have no idea this
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  happens but it most certainly does and I have a gap there way.
• 23:13
  I have a pretty good way to measure strings off.
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  You want to know what it is, but the very one of the very first
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  really good bows I made was a 66 Osage bow that pulled about 63
• 23:24
  lbs. And I could, I would unstream
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  that thing and watch it and hold it in my hand and almost in a
• 23:30
  matter of minutes start to see those limbs go back to their
• 23:33
  normal position. And that's something that not
• 23:36
  everybody understands is a factor, but in my experience, it
• 23:41
  happens 100% of the time. And what is your method for
• 23:47
  measuring string follow? First, let's talk about what
• 23:51
  folks often do. What they often do is they put
• 23:56
  the back of the bow handle, that's the side facing target
• 24:00
  against some flat surface. It use a rule or measure both
• 24:04
  hands and divide it by two. What I do is I have a long piece
• 24:10
  of cotton string stored ordinary string.
• 24:13
  I tie a loop in one end and I slip the thread through the loop
• 24:18
  to create a very primitive noose.
• 24:21
  I put that noose in the lower knock and I pull it tight so
• 24:28
  that the string is level with the back of the bow facing the
• 24:33
  target. I pull that string to the other
• 24:36
  end, wrap it two or three times around.
• 24:40
  I pull it tight, fairly tight, wrap it two or three.
• 24:44
  I'll wrap it 10 or 20 times around the upper knock.
• 24:49
  That is to say, the string that's enough to hold the string
• 24:52
  that's into position by friction.
• 24:55
  And then I scoot the string up so that it, like the lower limb,
• 25:01
  is right on the edge of the back of the bow facing the target.
• 25:05
  Then I take a ruler and I measure the distance from the at
• 25:09
  the aeroplate from the backside of the bow facing the target to
• 25:14
  the string. If in fact that distance is 11
• 25:20
  sixteenths of an inch, which is a little on the precise side, I
• 25:25
  think I can measure that. And that's the way I do it.
• 25:30
  And I've been doing that way a long time because it's, I think
• 25:34
  it's just a little bit more precise.
• 25:37
  You know that doing it the other way by holding it against a flat
• 25:41
  surface. And one of the reasons I do that
• 25:45
  is because I keep detailed records on all the stuff I shoot
• 25:50
  from time to time because I've been, I've got stuff I've been
• 25:54
  shooting for 30 years. I can still, I can still shoot.
• 25:59
  And every so often I'll check the draw weight of everything
• 26:03
  and I'll check the string fall of everything to see if anything
• 26:07
  has ever changed. And most of the time it has had,
• 26:10
  you know, I mean, 15 years ago by they're exactly the same.
• 26:13
  But that's how I keep tabs on it.
• 26:15
  And that's how I know exactly what's going on.
• 26:21
  All right. What are you working on right
• 26:23
  now in your workshop? Well, not in your workshop, but
• 26:26
  you're not in a workshop. I that, that Osage bow, I told
• 26:30
  you out before that was like a stay that good sitting around
• 26:34
  for three years, 30 years. I finished it and it was and I,
• 26:42
  I and I, I didn't, I did, I didn't do it for a great job
• 26:49
  because I pulled it a little too much.
• 26:51
  You know, I first had a tiller. One of the things that I got in
• 26:55
  the habit of doing, which I think is a good habit, is once I
• 27:00
  had a bow at the state where I thought the tiller was good.
• 27:09
  And this decision that that determination was made by very
• 27:14
  carefully measuring everything as I described before.
• 27:19
  I would measure the curve of the bow on a chilling board by
• 27:22
  sliding the stick up and down the limb to check the curve.
• 27:26
  You put a straight edge on the belly side.
• 27:30
  You put it up against the bent limb.
• 27:31
  You'll see an arc between the limb and the straight edge.
• 27:34
  You slide it. If the bend is even, that arc
• 27:39
  will remain even from fairly even from handle to limb tip.
• 27:43
  And I also tie a string from while the bow is on the towing
• 27:48
  board from lower knock to upper knock to simulate the the effect
• 27:56
  the visual effect of having to go strong.
• 27:58
  And I measure the difference between a distance between the
• 28:02
  string and both limbs at their at their widest points to find
• 28:08
  out if it has a positive tiller. And again, I do all this because
• 28:11
  I've never had a string a Tillery tree.
• 28:14
  I've never used a Tillering tree.
• 28:17
  And Tracy Stalker didn't say anything about a Tillering tree.
• 28:21
  But Tillering's tree back in the 50s and similar archery didn't
• 28:25
  say anything about a Tillering tree back in the 1930s when they
• 28:30
  wrote their book. That's just a very old way of
• 28:32
  doing it. But The upshot is I measure
• 28:35
  thing everything, you know, very, very, very carefully.
• 28:40
  And that's what allows me to get away with what I do is pretty
• 28:46
  much what it announced to. And I, I, I see.
• 28:52
  Well, I see and I understand why this happens.
• 28:55
  I see go making videos where people just are just we're going
• 29:03
  away, we're going away and really not explaining much of
• 29:06
  anything. And I'm not criticizing that at
• 29:08
  all, mind you, because because they're doing it because it's an
• 29:13
  entertaining thing if it has values.
• 29:17
  If we look at strictly from that standpoint, and I, and I get it
• 29:21
  and I, and I'm not criticizing what you're saying, but if we
• 29:27
  really want to get into it, I, I am saying that measuring
• 29:30
  everything like an obsessive maniac is, could be one of the
• 29:33
  best things we could do to help ourselves.
• 29:37
  I hope that helps. Yeah, you've, you've carved all
• 29:41
  these bows over the years without a tillering tree.
• 29:44
  And do you find that your method is better?
• 29:49
  Is that why you've never had a tillering tree?
• 29:52
  No, it's strictly a matter of of of a facility and access to a
• 29:58
  facility and economics that would create a facility.
• 30:02
  Like I said, Tracy Stalker and similar archery.
• 30:05
  They knew that, you know, that people would, who would want to
• 30:11
  make bows would include, for example, 13 and 14 year old
• 30:15
  kids, Boy Scouts or something and live with their mom and dad.
• 30:18
  And you know, they weren't going to build anything elaborate like
• 30:21
  that. But they had, you know, that dad
• 30:24
  would have a smokeshave and he'd have a rasp someplace, you know,
• 30:28
  and he's probably the kids probably got a Boy Scout
• 30:30
  hatchet. That's all I needed to get into
• 30:32
  it. And those people back then, they
• 30:34
  understood that. So it's simply a matter of what,
• 30:37
  what you have and what you have to work with.
• 30:41
  And I have, since I've been making wood boats.
• 30:48
  I did live in a, in a little small house that I rented, but
• 30:52
  there was certainly no room, that little small house,
• 30:55
  rotillery tree. And I've lived in apartments
• 30:58
  ever since then. So it's just a, it's just a
• 31:00
  matter of, of circumstance. And I, you know, and, and if
• 31:05
  somebody, I don't know if this is if this is the case or not,
• 31:08
  but I would imagine it's conceivable that if somebody
• 31:12
  watches a lot of social media in which the Tillering tree is
• 31:19
  featured rather exclusively, they might conclude, well, I
• 31:23
  can't make wood bows because I don't have a touring tree.
• 31:26
  Well, actually you can. And people have been making wood
• 31:30
  bows without a touring tree for going back on sex and Pope and
• 31:34
  Art Young were, you know, running around shooting bows and
• 31:37
  arrows. It just, it's, I'm not, it's I
• 31:47
  obviously people who have a lot of resources get great results
• 31:52
  and that's a great thing and I'm all for it.
• 31:54
  But if we don't have a lot of resources, but we're careful
• 31:59
  about what we do and we measure things and we, I don't know if
• 32:03
  it takes a little more thought or not.
• 32:04
  The point is it's, you can still do it, it still works and you
• 32:07
  can still great results and it's no impediment all at all to your
• 32:11
  success. And my experience means
• 32:13
  anything. Yeah, I think it's great to be
• 32:18
  it's, it's reminds me of gardening and people who live in
• 32:22
  apartments say they still can find space to garden even though
• 32:26
  they don't have a bunch of acreage.
• 32:28
  So you've managed to make it work with without a proper
• 32:30
  workshop, and you've made it work an amazing way so.
• 32:34
  But. Yeah, I take that.
• 32:37
  But yeah, I emphasize that before World War 2, doing it the
• 32:41
  way I'm doing it was routine, yeah, for a lot of people.
• 32:51
  Had a question and then it just slipped my mind.
• 32:58
  Huh. Had it all keyed up and ready to
• 33:00
  go and then I forgot about it. Well, that was probably being my
• 33:03
  big mouth that created that problem.
• 33:07
  Oh no, I do remember him. No, for any Bowyer and not just
• 33:12
  the beginning Bowyer. Do you have any advice for how
• 33:16
  one can know when going through the tillering process with the
• 33:21
  tiller tree or not, how far they can they can stress the bow?
• 33:27
  If you're trying to get a bow that draws at 30 inches, for
• 33:31
  example, and you're at 28 and you're at you're kind of on pace
• 33:35
  for your target weight, do you have any ways of knowing that?
• 33:38
  Yeah, I can. I can pull that bow an extra 2
• 33:40
  inches and it's going to be fine.
• 33:43
  That is a brilliant question. I cannot, I cannot, I cannot
• 33:49
  overemphasize what is fantastic question that is, that is a
• 33:53
  really good question, OK. One guy came back to me.
• 34:00
  I, I, I recommend a deliberate, slow, methodical approach
• 34:09
  because you know that you know that because I have to.
• 34:14
  That's something I've paid a lot of attention to and try to keep
• 34:19
  in mind, You know, how does 1 extrapolate?
• 34:23
  What if you could pull the thing, you know, like you said,
• 34:28
  24 inches or whatever you want to pull another 3 or 4.
• 34:32
  How do you extrapolate the safety and the draw weight
• 34:35
  involved in pulling it further lengths?
• 34:39
  OK, So this is going to be a little organ unorganized, but
• 34:42
  I'll try to I'll try to go through this and sort of a
• 34:44
  sequence and sort of in a seek kind of sequence that one would
• 34:49
  experience. The first thing I think with a
• 34:53
  with a tillering tree or a tilling board.
• 34:55
  The first thing we want to do when we know that we have a good
• 35:00
  tiller is we want to string the bow and we'll and when we string
• 35:05
  the bow, I always measure how the bow is strong not from the
• 35:12
  belly side of the handle, but the backside of the handle.
• 35:15
  And I do that because the thickness of handles will vary.
• 35:20
  So you will get different results based on how deep the
• 35:24
  handle is. Therefore, for consistency, I
• 35:27
  always measure from the back of the handle at the arrow plate.
• 35:32
  So when we strengthen that very first time, the distance from
• 35:36
  the back of the handle at the airplane to the strain, in my
• 35:41
  experience, even if if the bow is let's say 64 inches or
• 35:47
  longer, that distance can be 6 1/2 inches with no harm
• 35:53
  whatsoever likely to happen. Even if the bow would pull £150
• 36:01
  if we drew it because draw pulling in very heavy weights,
• 36:08
  it's not a big deal as long, and this is very important.
• 36:11
  This is in capital letters. As long as we don't pull it very
• 36:15
  far. So and if it and if it's £100
• 36:21
  bow and we're stringing 100 LB bow and all our other ones pill
• 36:25
  50 lbs, we know when we string a thing it's going to be mighty,
• 36:28
  mighty heavy. Now I'd further point out that
• 36:32
  in our first chat, I went into a long explanation on why I have
• 36:39
  stringed knocks on all the bows I make and I have double loop
• 36:44
  strings. I use the stringers and I never
• 36:48
  string a bow with the push pull method or the step through
• 36:52
  method, especially when they're brand new.
• 36:55
  Because now this is something that ever happens with
• 36:59
  fiberglass, but it happens with all wood when you very first
• 37:02
  string a very brand new bow and, and let's say you have it on the
• 37:06
  chilling tree and it looked great, perfect.
• 37:08
  And then you string it with the step through method or the push
• 37:12
  pull method. And you look at the tail, where
• 37:15
  now it is not impossible for that lower limb to be now
• 37:20
  bending too much. And in my own case, odds were
• 37:29
  high that the lower limb would be bitty too much.
• 37:33
  And I don't want, and maybe some people are just absolute
• 37:35
  geniuses at stringing bows that way.
• 37:37
  Now I want to disparage their skill by saying that it could
• 37:41
  happen to them, but it could basically happen to anybody.
• 37:44
  And the reason I say that is because if we use a bow
• 37:48
  Stringer, a tip to tip bow Stringer or we use tillering, or
• 37:54
  if we use stringing knocks in the matter that I've described,
• 37:57
  there is zero and I mean absolutely no chance that that
• 38:01
  lower ones can take on too much bend.
• 38:04
  So protecting the tiller is the very first thing we want to do
• 38:08
  every, every single minute of of the process.
• 38:12
  And I am emphasizing this because I have founded that in
• 38:16
  my own case. And when it comes to doing
• 38:19
  things with wood, I could be as clumsy as anybody else.
• 38:22
  But I found that in my own case, using a Stringer and stringing
• 38:28
  knocks in the now I've described, there is zero chance
• 38:31
  it's going to go out of tour with first ringing.
• 38:34
  So that was, that's a, that's kind of a wrist phase.
• 38:36
  We have to get past. OK, now, now we have the bow and
• 38:40
  it's real super heavy. What do we do now?
• 38:44
  Remember, and again, I wouldn't mind what I just said.
• 38:47
  It doesn't matter if the boat is super ultra heavy.
• 38:50
  No damage will take place as long as we don't pull it very
• 38:54
  far. And another and there's another
• 38:58
  thing that happens when we first I'm going to go back to Robert
• 39:05
  Elmer, the guy that wrote all those books in the 20th century.
• 39:08
  He said that an all would bow when it comes to stress and an
• 39:12
  all would bow. The all would bow will be
• 39:15
  somewhat and these are his words, self relieving in terms
• 39:21
  of dealing with that weight. Now what he meant was if you had
• 39:25
  a bow that was too heavy and you could shoot it without breaking
• 39:31
  it, it would just take on more string follow.
• 39:34
  Same thing if you got a bad tiller.
• 39:36
  Let's say you have a bow with too much bend near the handles.
• 39:40
  Too too much bend near the handle.
• 39:43
  If you can manage to keep shooting without breaking it,
• 39:46
  what will end up happening is it will just have too much string
• 39:49
  follow at that spot. That's what Elmer was talking
• 39:53
  about. That too much string follow is
• 39:57
  how the bow relieves itself from the effects of from the strength
• 40:03
  of bending. Now if that and what is string
• 40:07
  follow? String follow is where the belly
• 40:10
  side of the wood gets compacted. You know, it actually gets
• 40:14
  shorter, it actually gets pushed in on itself.
• 40:17
  It could not take on string follow if that did not happen.
• 40:20
  When the bow has never been strong, none of that has
• 40:23
  happened. This means that.
• 40:25
  The relatively unbent belly wood is going to provide more
• 40:30
  resistance in terms of weight compared to the bone that is
• 40:34
  sort of broken into the strain that takes on some kind of
• 40:37
  string follow, be it normal or excessive.
• 40:40
  That bone that is that is brand new.
• 40:43
  The belly wood has never been bent.
• 40:45
  It's going to have a lot more resistance, so much so that if
• 40:52
  we draw the thing, pull the thing to full draw right then
• 40:55
  and there, if there's any problem whatsoever, the bow may
• 40:58
  break. I was talking to the guy once
• 41:00
  who had an Osage bow and he had this experience.
• 41:04
  He's stronger for the first time and it had no stringing time.
• 41:08
  A drop of sweat fell off from the forehead and landed on the
• 41:11
  back of the bow. And he wiped it off with his
• 41:13
  finger and he and, and so here's here the bow is it's been struck
• 41:17
  the very first time and he immediately threw it to full
• 41:20
  draw and it broke right there where that drop of sweat hit the
• 41:23
  back of the bow. This is an example of how if the
• 41:28
  bow hasn't been bent much, there's that there's that danger
• 41:33
  caused by that extra, you know, resistance that the bellywood
• 41:39
  will yield. I will say that if guys have
• 41:42
  children trees and they like pull them past, you know, brace
• 41:46
  height and get away with it, they that might not be much of a
• 41:49
  problem for them, but I don't I'm not so sure it's a kind of
• 41:54
  thing that could be completely ignored.
• 41:56
  The reason I've gone through this long boring explanation is
• 42:00
  because when that bow is brand new and it's wrong for the very
• 42:03
  first time, what I do is I lay it down someplace and let it sit
• 42:07
  there for at least 8 hours, maybe 12.
• 42:11
  And all the problems I've described in the past couple of
• 42:13
  minutes in this regard have been will be eliminated.
• 42:16
  If we do that now. We and we do that now, we know
• 42:21
  the bow has the capability of being bit a little bit further.
• 42:27
  And this is the operative part, no matter how heavy it is with
• 42:31
  nothing bad happening. OK, so now we get that far.
• 42:35
  Can you, can you repeat, can you repeat that last detail one
• 42:38
  time, one more time? When the bow is brand new and I
• 42:45
  have strung it for the very first touring and again, I don't
• 42:49
  string them until I'm convinced that the tiller is good.
• 42:53
  This is because I do very so. You're stringing.
• 42:55
  The bow for. String the bracelet.
• 42:58
  Yeah, bracelet. Yeah, and that is so, so.
• 43:02
  Well, when I when it's on the chilling board, I'm using a
• 43:04
  chillering string. It's not being braced.
• 43:06
  The string is so long that you can bend it without stringing
• 43:10
  the bow. Chillering string is long,
• 43:14
  longer than the bow. So now we come to the point
• 43:18
  where I am convinced that the chiller is OK and I do string it
• 43:21
  and I actually string it for real with the chip to chip bow
• 43:25
  Stringer and the stringing knots as I knocks as I had described.
• 43:30
  OK, so that's. So what we're talking about is
• 43:33
  the bow is being braced as if we could shoot it for the very,
• 43:37
  very first time. And that is why I said the
• 43:39
  thing. Let the thing sit and just sit
• 43:42
  somewhere for 8-12 hours. I've left them.
• 43:45
  I've left them. Yeah, strong.
• 43:47
  And the reason I do that is so that that extra, that super high
• 43:54
  level of resistance that the wood has before it's been a lot
• 43:58
  will be eliminated by that string time.
• 44:02
  But that reduces the risk of fracture.
• 44:08
  That's the whole point. So you leave it strong.
• 44:11
  For 8 to 12 hours. Yeah.
• 44:13
  Now if somebody wanted to do it, 4 or 6 probably that's OK.
• 44:17
  But you know, the, but the point is, I have seen and others have
• 44:23
  seen if we strangle on brand new for the very first time and
• 44:26
  hasn't been very far in the turning tree, it's it's a, it's,
• 44:30
  that's a time of risk. We might make 50 bows that way
• 44:36
  and have no problem. And then we might make three in
• 44:38
  a row that blow up on us. You know, I can't, I can't
• 44:42
  quantify what that risk is in terms of percentage, but it's
• 44:44
  there. That's why I do what I describe
• 44:48
  now we've made it this far A. 100% of bow built.
• 44:53
  You got it, you got it. If I don't and if I don't, and
• 45:00
  if I don't do it, I, I, I get burned.
• 45:03
  That Osage, that Osage bow with that really old stave.
• 45:08
  I guess I forgot to finish what I was saying.
• 45:11
  I've been a little too far and I got a little bitty ping in the
• 45:15
  back of the thing and I was going, you stupid.
• 45:19
  You know, the reason I, the reason I, I mean, I, the reason
• 45:23
  I pay so much attention this stuff like measurements and so
• 45:26
  much attention to detail 'cause I can't be trusted even now I'll
• 45:30
  screw something up. And, and I got a little tiny
• 45:34
  ping in the back of the, of that thing, which I was able and it
• 45:38
  was tiny too. It was like, it was, it was like
• 45:42
  the the little tiny ping in the back of that Mulberry Berry bow.
• 45:47
  They what you, you could call it a splinter, but it was just all,
• 45:50
  I mean, it was a, you almost had to have a microphone glass to
• 45:54
  say, but it was there. So I so I patched that.
• 45:59
  And that's just an example of of in my own case, somebody who's,
• 46:06
  oh, he's got a lot of experience, but oh, did he screw
• 46:10
  up? Yeah, he could screw up.
• 46:11
  I can screw up, of course, again.
• 46:13
  So at any rate, to go back to our heavy bow scenario, that
• 46:20
  long stringing time initially before pulling the bow to full
• 46:23
  draw or even remotely close to it.
• 46:26
  The whole thing all, all of this stuff I'm talking about is
• 46:30
  designed to protect the wood of the bow during this stage of the
• 46:34
  whole deal now. So now we get, we come more
• 46:39
  directly to your question. Let's, let's pick a, let's pick
• 46:44
  a number. We, we want the boot pool of £50
• 46:48
  at 28 inches. Is that a good scenario for
• 46:51
  example, here? OK, so that's what we're going
• 46:54
  to do. And so the first thing we do is
• 47:00
  we grab a scale. I have, I have a collection of,
• 47:05
  of drawing sticks. What is a drawing stick?
• 47:11
  It's a long wooden dowel with an arrow knock on one end and a
• 47:16
  rubber arrow blunt on the other hand.
• 47:21
  OK, so I yeah, if it gets away with me, there won't be too much
• 47:25
  damage. And they're not made for
• 47:28
  shooting. They're made for drawing,
• 47:30
  pulling the string back. And I'm not I measure the the
• 47:34
  length of draw along these things in inches, you know, and
• 47:39
  so the first thing I want to know so the.
• 47:42
  The rubber and rest against the belly of the bow.
• 47:45
  No, no, it's it. It works like an arrow, except
• 47:48
  they're they're these all. I've also failed to point out
• 47:51
  these things could might be 30 or 32 inches long, but they have
• 47:55
  inches marked all along them. You see.
• 47:58
  And let's say you wanted to know what your draw length was.
• 48:02
  I will put one of these things on your bowstring to tell you
• 48:05
  draw your bow and I would look at it to see how free you draw
• 48:08
  because I have the drawlings marks on marked in inches.
• 48:12
  So I use them to pull something and I to tell me how many inches
• 48:16
  I'm pulling it with a level of certainty I'm not guessing.
• 48:19
  I know if I pull up 20 inches, the stick says it's 20 inches.
• 48:23
  It is 20 inches. So the next thing I do is I grab
• 48:26
  a blue scale. All right, The first thing I
• 48:29
  want to know is where is £50 on this brand new bow?
• 48:33
  I want 20 to 50 lbs to 28 inches.
• 48:36
  Where is it right now? And yeah, and it very well could
• 48:42
  happen. And just a quick clarification,
• 48:45
  Paul, you're measuring, you're measuring the drawing to the
• 48:48
  back of the. That's right, because like I
• 48:52
  said, the. The depth of the.
• 48:55
  Handle will vary. The back of those is always in
• 48:58
  the same place. I do this for consistency.
• 49:03
  I mean, I've made a lot of, I've made a lot of those without
• 49:05
  carry on. I've made, I would should add,
• 49:08
  I've made a lot of those without paying any attention to how deep
• 49:10
  the handle was. You see, if I was very
• 49:13
  fastidious about it and make sure you know, every single time
• 49:17
  going back to day one, they're all the same depths would be
• 49:19
  different. But I never done that.
• 49:21
  So I want to know where is it? Where is 50 lbs and would be
• 49:24
  very typical for at this stage for me to draw the bow 18
• 49:28
  inches. I had 50 lbs at 18 inches.
• 49:32
  Now obviously this is an issue. We're not going to get that £50
• 49:37
  back to 28 unless we take some wood off.
• 49:43
  How do I take? And another thing is we've got
• 49:47
  to protect the tiller. So the question is how do we
• 49:50
  take the wood off and how do we protect the tiller?
• 49:54
  And I use the same system all the time.
• 49:56
  I told you before, one of my favorite tools is a Nicholson
• 50:00
  Four in one Wrath. And one of my other favorite
• 50:02
  tools is a scraper. So here's what I do.
• 50:05
  I say I if the belly of this bow has not been sanded smooth, I
• 50:10
  sanded smooth and I mean I stand at glassy smooth.
• 50:16
  This helps. Even at an 18 inch draw.
• 50:19
  Yeah, that's right. I'm doing that because this is
• 50:21
  going to help me keep track of of wood removal in this process.
• 50:25
  Another thing that here's here's The upshot of what I usually do.
• 50:31
  I, I smooth the belly so it's really smooth and I take that
• 50:35
  Nicholson rasp and I and I scuff the belly up with the Nicholson
• 50:40
  rasp. Now it's, we've got to keep in
• 50:45
  mind that we wanted to work very evenly.
• 50:49
  The Nicholson rasp will help us do this.
• 50:52
  If we're starting with a very smooth belly and we scuff
• 50:55
  lightly, we can tell where we scuffed because it's scuffed and
• 51:00
  where we have, where it's perfectly smooth.
• 51:02
  We haven't scuffed it. So we want to scuff the belly,
• 51:06
  both limbs very evenly from handle off the knock, and we
• 51:09
  want to be able to look at it and see that we have done an
• 51:12
  even job at this. We haven't gone in too deeply
• 51:17
  anywhere. We can work real fast with the
• 51:21
  spokeshave, but with the spokeshave, the danger is we
• 51:25
  would go in too deeply somewhere and create a potential weak spot
• 51:30
  and that weak spot gets ahead of us.
• 51:33
  It's better that we stay ahead of the weak spots and not like
• 51:36
  weak spots get ahead of us. So next thing I do is I take the
• 51:41
  scraper and I scrape it so that all of that scuffing has been
• 51:45
  removed. And it's very easy to keep track
• 51:50
  and in the interest of keep working very evenly and not
• 51:54
  working too much in one spot that the scraper will help us
• 51:58
  because what we have scraped is now smooth and what we have
• 52:01
  scraped is not. And we scrape it just enough so
• 52:05
  that it's smooth. And we do that with both lens.
• 52:08
  Now, this is obviously a very laborious process, but I have
• 52:14
  and every time we do this, we might take a pound or a pound
• 52:22
  and a half off the draw away. I don't know if everybody has
• 52:28
  the kind of patience for this kind of this thing, but I do
• 52:32
  because I have never, I have always put out of my mind when
• 52:39
  am I going to get this bow done? And when I now anytime I don't
• 52:43
  do that, I end up paying for it somehow, like when I get that
• 52:47
  little Tig spun on the back of that Jose bow.
• 52:51
  So I don't care how long it takes me to get this done, as
• 52:53
  long as it's done correctly. Now, if I was to use the
• 52:57
  spokeshade, if it's pulling, if it's pulling 50 lbs and 18
• 53:01
  inches, you want to get to 28. That's a lot of difference.
• 53:03
  That's a that's a big difference.
• 53:05
  And if somebody didn't want to use the spokeshade, I would.
• 53:11
  I would also, I would, you know, urge them to.
• 53:15
  One thing you can do is put pencil marks all over the belly
• 53:18
  of the bow if you were using a spokeshave.
• 53:21
  That way, what you smoke shave off, the pencil marks are gone.
• 53:25
  And what you haven't spokeshaved yet, the pencil marks are still
• 53:28
  there. You need some device, something
• 53:32
  to help you make to guarantee that you're working evenly is
• 53:35
  the whole point. So be it with the spokeshave
• 53:39
  method or my method of the scraping, scuffing and scraping,
• 53:43
  we're slowly going to start to reduce that draw rate.
• 53:49
  So let's say for example that we put in this, we work on it off
• 53:54
  and off for a couple days and we get it to the point that it now
• 53:57
  pulls 50 lbs at 25 inches and everything is still OK.
• 54:06
  The taper is OK. The taper is OK.
• 54:08
  We want it to pull 50 and 28 and now we've got it 50 and 25.
• 54:15
  We should rejoice. We're almost there.
• 54:17
  And here's what I here's what I here's what I would do.
• 54:21
  And then next I say this with a couple of requirements.
• 54:27
  The tiller still must be as perfectly as we can get it.
• 54:31
  That's got to be one thing that we're always paying attention to
• 54:34
  every minute of this process. We've got to protect the tiller.
• 54:38
  We can't put it on tiller. The tiller has to be perfect
• 54:42
  through every minute of this. That's the ideal scenario.
• 54:46
  That's the goal that we're shooting for.
• 54:48
  So let's say we have accomplished that now, if we
• 54:51
  have any. OK.
• 54:52
  Can you, can you provide a little kind of insight into what
• 54:57
  that perfect tiller looks like to you?
• 54:59
  Like what would be? I don't like the top three
• 55:02
  things that you're looking for. Let's talk about.
• 55:07
  Because I'm just, I'm just thinking in, in terms of a
• 55:10
  beginning, beginning Bowyer, who's trying to figure out
• 55:12
  what's the perfect killer look like.
• 55:14
  OK, let's let's, OK, let's talk about some people.
• 55:20
  It's actually I should have my hands slapped for saying perfect
• 55:25
  killer. Because the definition of what
• 55:27
  is perfect will vary among individuals.
• 55:34
  It will probably be more accurate to say we want an
• 55:36
  acceptable tiller that will not call it give us any trouble.
• 55:40
  In other words, the bow will be the bow will continue to
• 55:43
  function. It will function for years.
• 55:46
  It's it's going to, it's not going to take on excessive
• 55:49
  string fall. And this is an acceptable
• 55:50
  tiller. The first thing we want is we
• 55:54
  want relatively even bending of the limbs from handle to tip.
• 55:59
  And I described, I described earlier you, you know, with the
• 56:05
  bows on a turning board. I have a straight edge.
• 56:08
  It's a very, it's a piece of wood that has very straight
• 56:10
  edge. It's about, I don't know, 5 or 6
• 56:12
  inches long. I cut it out of the piece a
• 56:14
  Hickory, but you could, we could cut up a ruler or anything to
• 56:18
  get a straight edge. And I put that against the belly
• 56:23
  of the lamb when The thing is been on the charring board and
• 56:27
  you see an arc between the curve of the limb and the straight
• 56:31
  edge. As you slide that straight edge
• 56:34
  up and down the limb, you look at that arc.
• 56:38
  Is there any place where the arc gets really flat?
• 56:41
  If it does, we need to take some more wood off there.
• 56:45
  If we have, if we have one spot where the arc is much deeper
• 56:49
  than the rest of the limb, then we have to work on the rest of
• 56:52
  the limb so that the arc is even from relevantly even from handle
• 56:57
  to limb tip. And then we don't want that and
• 57:03
  we want to avoid a lot of super lot of band at the very, very
• 57:07
  last couple inches of limb tip. It's perfectly acceptable if
• 57:12
  they don't bid too much there. So I next I would say, how's
• 57:19
  that sound? Are you with me still so far?
• 57:20
  Any questions so far? But what comes to mind is the
• 57:24
  variations in bow designs. Of course, there's in the
• 57:27
  English Longbow design, where it's bending pretty much from
• 57:29
  tip to tip all the way through the handle.
• 57:31
  And then you have something like the Malaga bet, which isn't
• 57:34
  going to bend very much at all in that well, not at all at the
• 57:37
  handle and not very much near the tips.
• 57:40
  Well, my advice, you, you're the scenario as you have described
• 57:44
  it as somebody who's just getting started.
• 57:47
  My advice to anybody who's just getting started is let's let's,
• 57:52
  let's, let's not let's not get into any design that's
• 57:56
  particularly exotic. And I say that because I believe
• 58:01
  if somebody has successfully made 20 wooden bows or even 10,
• 58:07
  maybe even only 5 or 6, if they've successfully made that
• 58:11
  many with no issue and they do get into the exact designs, I
• 58:18
  would say at that stage, he's going to make it.
• 58:20
  He's got, he knows in Hawaii, he's, he's seen enough, he
• 58:24
  understands enough about what he's doing to get into it.
• 58:27
  But for, for for somebody's first or second bow, I would
• 58:31
  avoid that. The angle now I used, you
• 58:36
  mentioned that the English Longbow, you know, bends perfect
• 58:42
  bends throughout its length, even through the handle.
• 58:45
  That's true. A lot of them did.
• 58:47
  But in the 20th century and since then, a number of bows
• 58:51
  that have been called English longbows because they're made of
• 58:55
  U and they have rounded bellies and they have horn knocks days
• 59:00
  they can, they can still have rigid handles anyway, because it
• 59:05
  was very much a matter of routine for a long time with
• 59:08
  those like that to splice 2 billets together at the handle.
• 59:12
  That means you're going to have a.
• 59:14
  That means you're going to have a rigid handle if you splice.
• 59:18
  Yes. But following your, the the
• 59:24
  spirit of your example, which is a good spirit, let's say they
• 59:28
  make an aboriginal type bow that has a flat, you know, has a
• 59:33
  rectangular cross section and it bends it all along.
• 59:36
  It's the length. And that would be that would be
• 59:39
  a great idea for for for your first bow.
• 59:43
  With us with a stiff handle, correct?
• 59:48
  I thought let's, I would say that the procedure I'm going to
• 59:54
  describe will work with the stiff handle, it will work with
• 59:57
  the one that bends slightly through the handle.
• 1:00:01
  And and if we have a flat bow that bends like slightly through
• 1:00:05
  the hand, slightly through the handle, it's 64 or so, it's as
• 1:00:11
  long or even 60 inches long. That is an Aboriginal design.
• 1:00:17
  There have been throughout history, throughout the history
• 1:00:20
  of North America, throughout the history of Western Europe that I
• 1:00:24
  know of. There have been all throughout
• 1:00:27
  history, you know, bows that were made essentially like that.
• 1:00:33
  That's, you know, they're the fundamental concept of their
• 1:00:36
  design is what I just described. It's a, the cross section is
• 1:00:40
  rectangular. It's basically a kind of a long
• 1:00:42
  slat it had it bends a little bit off along its length.
• 1:00:48
  That is the standard Aboriginal bow design and and the process
• 1:00:53
  that I'm describing will work with the stick handle or that
• 1:00:57
  latter Aboriginal design. And that is, if you have a stiff
• 1:01:02
  handle, you're using your straight edge to check the curve
• 1:01:05
  where the limbs are bending and where they're not bending.
• 1:01:08
  You don't worry about it because it's not bending in the handle.
• 1:01:11
  If on the other hand, if you have one that bends slightly
• 1:01:14
  through the handle, you can still get a pretty good idea if
• 1:01:18
  the handle, even though you can't slide, slide the handle
• 1:01:21
  across the touring board because the touring board is on the
• 1:01:24
  handle. You can still hold it there and
• 1:01:26
  get a good idea by looking at it if they arc between the straight
• 1:01:31
  edge and the bent bow. Also submit that if the bin is a
• 1:01:37
  little flatter in the grip area, that's perfectly fine.
• 1:01:41
  So what is what? So The upshot of that is is if
• 1:01:45
  you ignore how much it's bending in the grip area, you're
• 1:01:48
  probably going to come out OK because most of the work has
• 1:01:50
  been done outside of that, so. So again, so now.
• 1:01:57
  We're going to go back if you have any more questions, go
• 1:02:01
  ahead interrupt me. OK, No, that's, that's good.
• 1:02:04
  That's good. We're good carrying.
• 1:02:06
  On we're I think you said we're 2025 inches at 50 lbs right now,
• 1:02:10
  right and we have using. The methods that we have so
• 1:02:16
  laboriously double checked, we know that we have a good teller.
• 1:02:20
  So what would Paul can talk to do with the bow like that?
• 1:02:23
  Under the exact scenario we have described, it now pulls 50 lbs
• 1:02:28
  and 25 inches. I wanted to pull 28 inches.
• 1:02:31
  What will I do now? I'll tell you what I'm going to
• 1:02:33
  do now. I'm going to string the bow.
• 1:02:35
  I'm going to drink, grab one of those drawing sticks.
• 1:02:38
  I'm going to pull that baby 28 inches right now.
• 1:02:43
  And I say that because if you've got.
• 1:02:48
  If you're back. If you're.
• 1:02:50
  Let's let's go through this methodically #1 if we do have 50
• 1:02:55
  lbs of 25 inches, we're pretty and the chiller's good, we're
• 1:02:58
  pretty safe. We're in a good spot.
• 1:03:00
  We're in a very safe spot. Next item two number B.
• 1:03:06
  If we pull the three more inches, it's going to lose a
• 1:03:10
  little bit of weight and we'll still be in a very safe spot.
• 1:03:14
  And again, very safe spot means nothing bad's going to happen in
• 1:03:17
  the above. We're not going to damage it.
• 1:03:19
  We're in a very safe spot. So if we are in a very safe spot
• 1:03:24
  and we know because you it can pretty much be guaranteed.
• 1:03:28
  If we have 50 lbs of 25 inches and we've never pulled into 28
• 1:03:33
  before, we're going to lose a little bit of weight.
• 1:03:35
  The question is how much? So I'm going to pull that baby
• 1:03:39
  28 inches and let's say now that it is 52 lbs at 28 inches.
• 1:03:47
  And that is a, that would be a very realistic expectation and
• 1:03:52
  experience if in fact that is what happened.
• 1:03:56
  OK, so it's 1000 balls, 52 lbs at 28 inches.
• 1:04:02
  So the next question, I'm going to interrupt for a, I'm going to
• 1:04:04
  interrupt for a second. Only 2 lbs.
• 1:04:09
  For those final three. Inches This is this you feel
• 1:04:12
  that's realistic? This.
• 1:04:15
  Would not be uncommon. I'll say, I'll put it that way,
• 1:04:19
  I'll put it that way. I would have.
• 1:04:20
  I would have guessed more like 10.
• 1:04:23
  Plus pounds. Let me give you, let me put that
• 1:04:32
  into context by telling you. The next thing I would do if it
• 1:04:35
  pulls, if it does pull, 52 inches at 2852 lbs at 28.
• 1:04:42
  OK, Yeah. I would ask.
• 1:04:45
  And then what? Then we'll.
• 1:04:45
  Come back to your question, we will look.
• 1:04:49
  The next question is how long is the bow?
• 1:04:54
  I like bows. That are 68666 inches.
• 1:04:57
  Like in the ledge on 25. Now that's long.
• 1:05:04
  Let's do let's do this. You pick.
• 1:05:06
  You pick the bow length of our. Hypothetical bow.
• 1:05:08
  We've got that hypothetical bow. It is now 28 inches long.
• 1:05:13
  It's 52 inches at 48. Do you tell me what the bow
• 1:05:18
  length is for the bow? You want me to pick a bow
• 1:05:24
  length? Yes, Sir, based on your.
• 1:05:26
  Experience. Well, it goes pick a bowling.
• 1:05:33
  Why? Yeah, I lost your question
• 1:05:34
  there. You cut out based on my.
• 1:05:36
  Experience because. By you picking the bow length,
• 1:05:43
  you will eliminate any of my inherent prejudices and how well
• 1:05:48
  and how long I want to bow to be so, but so you know how you
• 1:05:52
  know, you know about Benny Wood, you want those.
• 1:05:55
  So if you got one and if you wanted to pull 50 at 28, what do
• 1:06:00
  you think is a good safe draw bowling for that scenario?
• 1:06:06
  We can do 68 inches. 58 inches, OK.
• 1:06:09
  That's safe 68. Inches.
• 1:06:12
  OK, OK. So if I had that 68 inch bow.
• 1:06:14
  Under the situation that we now have as described again, the
• 1:06:19
  tailor is perfect, no damage has taken place.
• 1:06:21
  We want 50 pounds, 28 inches and we've got, we want 50 lbs and 28
• 1:06:29
  inches. Now I have 52 and 28.
• 1:06:32
  OK, So what I will do is I would just say shoot the boat.
• 1:06:40
  Go outside. And shoot it, shoot it.
• 1:06:45
  This is a couple dozen arrows. Love string it.
• 1:06:48
  Take it home. Take it out.
• 1:06:50
  Again, shoot it a couple dozen. Arrows do that, and I would bet
• 1:06:53
  that within a matter of days it's going to be pulling 50th
• 1:06:59
  28. Yeah, and.
• 1:07:03
  And. One of the things that I had
• 1:07:06
  done under this scenario is if I had, it would depend on how,
• 1:07:12
  let's say I had shot it a lot and it was still 52 or 28 and
• 1:07:16
  it's 68 inches long. Personally, and again, look,
• 1:07:21
  that's I base all these decisions on the fact that the
• 1:07:25
  bow is still great, the tiller is still acceptable, there's no
• 1:07:28
  problems and it happened. I pull the thing.
• 1:07:33
  To 29 inches I've done. Proof tests on those before.
• 1:07:38
  Even if they pull. Even if they pull particularly.
• 1:07:42
  If they pull. You know, 66 or 68.
• 1:07:48
  My normal draw weight. Is 25, but I had done proof
• 1:07:54
  tests. Proof being spelled PROOF.
• 1:07:57
  You might folks experience with firearms might recall that at
• 1:08:04
  one time in history they would do proof tests on firearms.
• 1:08:09
  They would put a powder load in a in a in the ammunition that
• 1:08:16
  was much more powerful and potentially dangerous is what
• 1:08:22
  would be used as a matter routine and they would shoot the
• 1:08:25
  things to see if they blow up. That was a proof test back in
• 1:08:29
  the old firearm days. My proof test is.
• 1:08:34
  Somewhat similar I. Don't pull Harlan much past 25
• 1:08:39
  but I have pulled 66 and 68 inch bows.
• 1:08:44
  Up to 30 inches is a proof test. Now.
• 1:08:48
  That sounds kind of crazy on the face of it, but if we only do it
• 1:08:53
  once, not much the chance of any kind of damage happening is like
• 1:08:59
  zilchow, right? And I would also point out the
• 1:09:03
  one of the reasons that I do it because I want to know for
• 1:09:07
  absolute sure that there's that the bow is not going to go out
• 1:09:13
  of till work. And that's why I've done that.
• 1:09:16
  This is an example of what we can get away.
• 1:09:21
  With but only. If we are hysterically, it's
• 1:09:26
  fanatically fastidious about checking and double checking
• 1:09:30
  absolutely everything. And I'm not sure if that is a
• 1:09:35
  message that is consistently just portrayed on social media.
• 1:09:41
  And again, as I have said, I understand why it's not because
• 1:09:45
  I know what social media is and it's not something.
• 1:09:50
  That A. Beginner would do unless he had
• 1:09:54
  a cup unless he busted the first several bows he made which it
• 1:09:58
  was calm and back when I was doing it I broke the 1st and I I
• 1:10:02
  the first several I made were were pretty bad.
• 1:10:05
  Jim Ham would have told you that he broke the 1st 5 or 6 before
• 1:10:10
  he had a good one, so that's why it cannot be overemphasized.
• 1:10:22
  All right, so would you. Go.
• 1:10:29
  Would you say 3 inches is a safe range then or would you
• 1:10:33
  sometimes do more than that if you had a 25?
• 1:10:36
  Using your same scenario, if your final draw weight was
• 1:10:39
  sorry, final draw length was 29 inches, would you go from 25 to
• 1:10:43
  29 if everything looked good or is a three inch?
• 1:10:48
  Jump more of a safe range. If we draw past again, it's
• 1:11:01
  important to remember that the length.
• 1:11:06
  We always want to keep the length of the draw in.
• 1:11:08
  Mind if if it was if we we could have.
• 1:11:15
  If this bow. At the very beginning of this
• 1:11:18
  procedure, pulled 60. Pounds at 24 inches.
• 1:11:23
  There's no harm to drawing at that 24 inches because that's
• 1:11:26
  well below the final draw rate, draw length.
• 1:11:32
  And I would say that my answer here I, I, I say that because it
• 1:11:36
  needs to be emphasized, I think. But back to your question
• 1:11:42
  directly. Directly I.
• 1:11:44
  Would say my answer to your question is as all the other
• 1:11:47
  requisites that I have described and met, I think the answer to
• 1:11:51
  your questions. Yeah, OK.
• 1:11:55
  Because pulling. A bow pulling one of my 66 inch
• 1:12:03
  bows 30 inches even though I never shoot past 25.
• 1:12:10
  It's all. It's it's really if everything
• 1:12:12
  is if everything is in. Order and The thing is 66 inches
• 1:12:16
  long. The bow is the bow is not going
• 1:12:19
  to be hurt. But you have.
• 1:12:20
  Demonstrated but that why that one single pull that it will
• 1:12:24
  never be hurt because it took that pull and nothing bad
• 1:12:28
  happened to the tiller and if it survived that that means it's
• 1:12:33
  probably going to you could shoot it for 150 years at 25
• 1:12:37
  minutes stall length and nothing happened.
• 1:12:39
  This is my personal opinion about the results of that kind
• 1:12:44
  of test and everything and the and the decades that I've been
• 1:12:48
  shooting my stuff so far up, you know, supports that idea.
• 1:12:54
  I hope that doesn't. Sound too confusing, but.
• 1:12:58
  But no. Yeah.
• 1:13:00
  And it's, you know, it's, I know that I.
• 1:13:05
  Should pause here for a moment and I.
• 1:13:06
  And I know that there are kind that there have always been
• 1:13:09
  people when it comes to making a bow, they're just going to say,
• 1:13:13
  tell me how to make a bow, Just tell me how to make a bow.
• 1:13:15
  I understand why they say that, but there's kind of a flaw in
• 1:13:19
  that assumption and that which I'll try, I'll try to explain
• 1:13:26
  here. The more experience we have and
• 1:13:28
  the more attention we pay to detail those, those two habits
• 1:13:35
  will increase our capability. And it's good to have that kind
• 1:13:42
  of capable capability because we're going to be constantly
• 1:13:46
  encountering things that they just make the bow instructions
• 1:13:51
  are not going to cover. We're going to, we might, we
• 1:13:55
  might have to use a piece of really bumpy chemical wood
• 1:13:58
  because it's the only thing we could find.
• 1:14:01
  The list of examples of the unexpected problems we will have
• 1:14:06
  to deal with. It can only be limited by the
• 1:14:09
  imagination. That's why being so fussy about
• 1:14:14
  all this stuff that I'm talking about has, you know, the kind of
• 1:14:18
  value that I'm trying to describe.
• 1:14:21
  I hope that makes sense. It sure does.
• 1:14:24
  It sure does. All right.
• 1:14:29
  I did have a follow up question with the so I guess I'll go back
• 1:14:36
  to again it's. Well, I know where I'll.
• 1:14:42
  Go Quite a few Bowers are very, very specific about.
• 1:14:48
  Never overdrawing the bow beyond.
• 1:14:50
  The desired draw finished draw weight.
• 1:14:54
  So if 50 lbs is the desired finished draw weight, I have
• 1:14:58
  worked with many bowyers who will never draw the bow beyond
• 1:15:01
  that 50 lbs I support. What is your opinion on that?
• 1:15:05
  I I support. What they're doing, that's my
• 1:15:07
  opinion. Because because you know,
• 1:15:12
  they're, they're the ones making it.
• 1:15:13
  They're the ones standing there and I'm not standing there.
• 1:15:17
  I'll I'll tell you this. I'm not going to 2nd.
• 1:15:20
  Guess anybody, Nobody. If they have, if they have that
• 1:15:26
  rule that that, that is a, that is a smart rule.
• 1:15:30
  You know, I'm not going to say that's not a smart rule.
• 1:15:32
  It's a smart rule. These are smart people.
• 1:15:35
  I'm not going to say they're smart.
• 1:15:36
  They're not smart. They're smart people.
• 1:15:38
  I'm not going to say that I'm that I'm going to criticize what
• 1:15:41
  they're doing. I had no intention of
• 1:15:43
  criticizing what they're doing. I would.
• 1:15:45
  You did not know. I'm just saying that you know
• 1:15:52
  that this is what I had done and gotten away with it.
• 1:15:56
  And the reason I've gotten away with it is I am just, I am just
• 1:16:00
  obsessive. I'm a fanatic about, you know,
• 1:16:04
  paying attention all these kind of dimensions and paying, you
• 1:16:08
  know, attention to these, you know, the best practice, you
• 1:16:12
  know, the best sequence of things to to do.
• 1:16:16
  And when I, and again, when I don't, when I, when I, when I
• 1:16:20
  DVD from that I, I, I just shoot myself in the foot.
• 1:16:24
  Something happens, something happens wrong.
• 1:16:26
  So that's why, you know, that's So what I'm that's why I'm
• 1:16:30
  adamant about it. And if other people have their
• 1:16:34
  own adamant rules, did they follow the guy know what the
• 1:16:38
  goal is? The goal is success.
• 1:16:40
  And I support this. I support their success.
• 1:16:44
  And I, and I'm not going to quibble, you know, with with
• 1:16:47
  what they do, you know, and when I do, because when I do a proof
• 1:16:51
  test on a bow and I have to say that really I haven't.
• 1:16:55
  Done much I haven't. Done that much of this lately,
• 1:16:58
  but for a time some years back I did do it and the real reason is
• 1:17:02
  I kind of like quit doing it is because you know the Bose that
• 1:17:07
  the idea of the proof test was I want you here.
• 1:17:10
  Here's the idea of the proof test.
• 1:17:12
  I'm talking to the bomb saying, listen, Mr. if you're going to
• 1:17:15
  bust, you're going to do it right now.
• 1:17:17
  And if you're going to go out and shell around me, you're
• 1:17:18
  going to do it right now. You're not going to surprise me
• 1:17:21
  in six months. Get we're going to we're going
• 1:17:24
  to settle this right now. So I'm pretty much daring the
• 1:17:28
  thing to go out of tiller and and they and you know, they
• 1:17:31
  never at once and and I have to confess.
• 1:17:34
  And this confession is, you know, sort of a double edged
• 1:17:38
  confession because it sort of suggests that what I was doing
• 1:17:42
  was kind of pointless. But I'll tell you anyway.
• 1:17:45
  I never had one go out of children or breaking in and
• 1:17:48
  didn't any of those proof tests. But like I said, once I did it
• 1:17:53
  then I knew there was just absolutely no question this bow
• 1:17:56
  was going to shoot forever at my normal draw length and nothing
• 1:18:02
  short of running over over the truck or dropping it into a leaf
• 1:18:06
  chipper was going to hurt the thing.
• 1:18:08
  Yeah. And is there a specific?
• 1:18:12
  So you said you'll pull it the final 3 or 4 inches if
• 1:18:14
  everything looks good in the tiller you indicated in your
• 1:18:18
  example would be a 2 LB increase.
• 1:18:21
  What if it is significantly more than a 2 LB increase to draw
• 1:18:24
  that extra 3 inches? Would you still do it?
• 1:18:28
  Like what if it did take in my scenario and I'm way more
• 1:18:32
  inexperienced than you so I'm. Not.
• 1:18:35
  Second guessing you at all, But what if it what?
• 1:18:37
  If it requires 60. Pounds to go from 50 to 25 to 28
• 1:18:42
  inches yeah, I think that's a fair statement I.
• 1:18:46
  Would say. I know from the because this
• 1:18:50
  it's. Pretty vivid in my.
• 1:18:52
  Mind, because I used to check this kind of thing when I had
• 1:18:55
  fiberglass laminated bows. If yeah, 3 inches with the
• 1:19:01
  fiberglass laminated bows I had, a three inch difference would be
• 1:19:05
  about at least 6. Pounds, maybe 7.
• 1:19:13
  So, yeah, so that's, that's kind of a fair statement because my,
• 1:19:17
  my 2 LB difference you're, you're saying you're inferring
• 1:19:22
  with good reason that my, that my scenario isn't realistic.
• 1:19:30
  So let's say that it is. Let's say it's still 60 lbs at
• 1:19:36
  28 at 28 inches. I think that's the number you
• 1:19:41
  mentioned, right? Sure.
• 1:19:44
  Yeah. OK, OK.
• 1:19:45
  Then I would go back. To my scuffing and scraping
• 1:19:48
  method with the scraper and the Nicholson rasp and to get it
• 1:19:53
  down to the desired weight. Yeah, and I should also.
• 1:19:56
  Point out, but would you would? You pull it.
• 1:20:00
  Sorry, we're kind of overlapping.
• 1:20:03
  I'll ask you the question, then I'll shut up.
• 1:20:04
  Would you pull it to 28 inches if it was requiring 10 lbs over
• 1:20:09
  your desired weight? So if it was requiring 60 lbs or
• 1:20:12
  would you pull it less until you scrape some more material off?
• 1:20:17
  Well under the scenario. That we want 50 lbs to 20. 8
• 1:20:25
  inches. The first question it would.
• 1:20:29
  I would need to determine. Is what draw length is giving me
• 1:20:33
  60 lbs and I'll let you fill in the blank.
• 1:20:36
  Under this scenario we're talking about.
• 1:20:38
  At what draw lengths does this pull though?
• 1:20:41
  Pull 60 lbs? Well, let's say it's 20. 8
• 1:20:45
  inches, OK. Well then, obviously.
• 1:20:50
  First off I would say hat the first question is, is have we
• 1:20:54
  damaged the bow? Have we created excessive string
• 1:20:58
  follow by pulling this bow 60 lbs to 28 inches when we want
• 1:21:04
  50? That's the question.
• 1:21:07
  The answer is going to depend on a couple of factors.
• 1:21:10
  How many times did we pull it to 60 lbs to 28 inches?
• 1:21:15
  If we only did it once, I would say the potential for damage is
• 1:21:22
  low. Also.
• 1:21:24
  The next question is how long? Is the bow I think we've.
• 1:21:27
  Earlier identified it as 68 inch, a 68 inch bow.
• 1:21:31
  If it's a 68 inch bow under these circumstances, I would say
• 1:21:36
  that the that pulling it to 60 lbs to 28 inches.
• 1:21:41
  If we only do it once and it's a 68 inch bow, in my experience,
• 1:21:45
  the damage, the risk damage is low, but I would have to add
• 1:21:50
  very quickly. We don't want to put do that
• 1:21:53
  another 10 times because by doing it once we've already
• 1:21:56
  found out what we needed to know and that is what the heck
• 1:21:59
  doesn't pull at 28. So under that scenario, I would
• 1:22:03
  go back to, you know, using the scraper hand Nicholson rasp to
• 1:22:07
  reduce the role, the draw rate. And another thing I do that I
• 1:22:10
  think is very, very valuable that I haven't mentioned yet and
• 1:22:13
  shame on me, is every time I make one of those passes, be it
• 1:22:18
  with a spokeshave or the rasp and scraper, I have a sanding
• 1:22:25
  block with 60 grit sandpaper on it.
• 1:22:29
  And I sand the belly smooth after every one of those passes.
• 1:22:34
  So if the procedure I described before sounds laborious, is
• 1:22:39
  extra laborious because I am sanding the belly smooth after
• 1:22:44
  every time I take wood off that way.
• 1:22:46
  And the reason I do that is so that nothing gets ahead of me.
• 1:22:53
  I'm always on top of the situation.
• 1:22:56
  Another good reason for doing it is that a lot of.
• 1:23:02
  It's it's. Possible to?
• 1:23:07
  Do this entire process that we're.
• 1:23:09
  Describing and having toolbarks. All over the belly and still
• 1:23:15
  getting. It to 50 to 28 like we want, but
• 1:23:19
  most people are going to say that's not very pretty.
• 1:23:21
  I want it to look. Pretty I'm going to stand it
• 1:23:23
  smooth. It's the potential is there for
• 1:23:28
  no matter depending on how many tool marks they are and how
• 1:23:31
  rough they are. The potential is there to lose 3
• 1:23:34
  lbs just by sending the thing smooth.
• 1:23:36
  If we send the smooth following each time we remove wood from
• 1:23:41
  the belly, that bad scenario won't happen to us.
• 1:23:52
  Well, that yeah, it's a good thing it's a.
• 1:23:55
  Good thing we haven't started. Very educational.
• 1:23:58
  It's a good thing we haven't started.
• 1:23:59
  Talking about. Shooting technique, because if
• 1:24:03
  we did, we would never get done talking about that.
• 1:24:08
  Well, we're going to have to save that for another episode.
• 1:24:14
  Oh boy. So you thank you for all that,
• 1:24:18
  Paul. You've held my feet to the.
• 1:24:19
  Fire here. I hope, but again.
• 1:24:21
  It's important for me to say that a lot of you know, a lot of
• 1:24:31
  a lot of. Folks when they get.
• 1:24:34
  Started. They're not.
• 1:24:37
  I don't think they're. Going to need to be aware.
• 1:24:40
  Of the advantages of being paying so much attention to all
• 1:24:44
  this minor stuff and but I have a feeling that the facts that
• 1:24:48
  the folks you have worked with and you have visited with
• 1:24:51
  Project Quiver are somewhat of this line of thinking.
• 1:24:55
  If some of them are going to. Tell you they'll never pull it
• 1:24:57
  past that final draw rate that that that means that they are
• 1:25:02
  paying attention and that's what and that's what counts and, and,
• 1:25:07
  and it's it's it's it's it's a lot of a lot of little details
• 1:25:12
  will make us or break us in in the and if we learn the hard way
• 1:25:18
  and keep going we will at least learn and.
• 1:25:23
  Our success rate. Will improve as time goes on, I
• 1:25:27
  would say yeah. Well, we didn't cover much
• 1:25:33
  ground, but we. Sure went deep.
• 1:25:34
  So thank you for that. It was a very good education in
• 1:25:38
  tailoring and it helped me. So that is that is great.
• 1:25:42
  So thank you and I'm sure it's going to help everyone else.
• 1:25:47
  Always a pleasure talking to you, Sir.
• 1:25:49
  I would just say in. Conclusion, you know.
• 1:25:53
  The technique. That's like the string I used to
• 1:25:56
  check. The the the the string follow
• 1:25:59
  this the straight edge, you know a ruler to chip positive tiller
• 1:26:04
  the drawing steps were the itches you know worked on it.
• 1:26:07
  All those kinds of things for should be cracked.
• 1:26:10
  This kind of stuff or all, they all play a big role in whatever
• 1:26:15
  success you know, I have had making these things, Yeah.
• 1:26:21
  And you sure have had. Success.
• 1:26:22
  So thank. You for sharing your.
• 1:26:24
  Successes and your your learnings with us.
• 1:26:27
  Well, that's I, you know, I, I. Never get tired about.
• 1:26:32
  About archery. So it's, it's, it's no, it's no
• 1:26:34
  inconvenience. I can tell you that I appreciate
• 1:26:39
  it. I appreciate talking to you.
• 1:26:49
  Thanks for listening to Project Quiver on Salish Wolf.
• 1:26:52
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• 1:26:55
  the world's most extraordinary traditional boat years and join
• 1:26:59
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• 1:27:02
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• 1:27:05
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• 1:27:09
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