Renaissance Italian "Longbow"

[longbow steve]

It has a very nice shape Grahame Thanks.
It would have been toasty up there yesterday, it felt like 17 deg down here in the mountains . Steve

[GrahameA]

Afternoon All

For those who are interested. Check some of the bows in use here and perhaps explore some of the other albums:

http://picasaweb.google.com/www.fortebr ... ntini2008#

[Nephew]

Moreton,
not too sure if it is a wise idea comparing your child bride to a bow....I would be careful that she did not read that post......no matter how high an accolade it might be it might just cause a bit of friction.

Kevin

Kev, you may be right there, but, and I offer you my thanks for this, you remedied the matter with "Child Bride". Sharon is 7 years older than me matey, if she ever reads this (she never comes here, she has little interest in archery) that will please her to no end and I'll be off the hook! I'd reckon though, that coming from me, she'd see the favourable comparison and know it was meant as a compliment. I was very careful to write "NEARLY as beautiful" I'm not so silly as to declare the bows curves favourable to Sharons! Well... not out loud, anyway.

Grahame, I very much look forward to your next visit, mate. May even do an arrow workshop, hey?

[Chase N. Nocks]

Graeme, I am going to post an agreement here as this lovely bow deserves a bump...very nice indeed. I also love this simple type recurve, reminds me of the first time I read Saxon Pope's "Hunting with the Bow and Arrow" and dearly wanted to shoot one of their bows.

I don't quite know what the cutoff point is where you can and can't call yourself a Bowyer, but I really think you can do that Graeme when you produce something so lovely.

Greybeard IMHO, is a little on his way to becoming what the Japanese refer to as a "National Treasure", I say that with considerable sincerety.

[greybeard]

Graeme, I am going to post an agreement here as this lovely bow deserves a bump...very nice indeed. I also love this simple type recurve, reminds me of the first time I read Saxon Pope's "Hunting with the Bow and Arrow" and dearly wanted to shoot one of their bows.

I don't quite know what the cutoff point is where you can and can't call yourself a Bowyer, but I really think you can do that Graeme when you produce something so lovely.

Greybeard IMHO, is a little on his way to becoming what the Japanese refer to as a "National Treasure", I say that with considerable sincerety.

Troy,

I appreciate the sentiment but it won't happen.

As I have stated in previous posts a 'bowyers' aprenticeship has no end, the more you learn about the art the more you realise how little you know of the art.

Churning out bows using fibreglass and ground tapered laminations is not a challenge, it is simply making a bow to a recipe that works. Once the core laminations are ground to yield the desired poundage it is a simple matter of gluing the pieces together.

The above works well in the bow workshops that I run [Tom Sawyer style]. The client pays the money and does all the work.

The real challenge is in mastering the art of selfbows, bamboo bows and Asiatic static tip bows without using modern materials.

When I am pushing up dasies I will not have found all the answers but at least I will be happy knowing that I tried.

Daryl.

[GrahameA]

Morning Troy.

I don't quite know what the cutoff point is where you can and can't call yourself a Bowyer, but I really think you can do that Graeme when you produce something so lovely.

Neither do I but I know I am a long way from being a Bowyer. Being serious for a minute. Just working woth modern laminated bows before you call yourself a Bowyer my opinion is need to master the following:

Be able to build well constructed and finished bows. Plus you need to be able to laminate up handles with curves in them. I struggle with every set of nocks I cut as a starter. You should be able to make two piece and three piece takedowns. Be able to make longbows, recurves and asiatics.

And now for the killers - be able to specify bow components for a given weight bow and have it come out correctly, be able to design bows from scratch - get given a sketch or a photo of an original and then duplicate it, plus know why bows do the things that they do - e.g. stack - and how you accommodate them.

In my opinion I have at least another decade of work ahead of me before I will start to feel confident..

Greybeard IMHO, is a little on his way to becoming what the Japanese refer to as a "National Treasure", I say that with considerable sincerety.

Don't say that - he will get a swelled head. However, in many ways you are correct not because he makes such nice bows but rather because he is so willing to share his knowledge and offer encouragement to "Klutzs" to challenge themselves building bows that really stretch the knowledge and skills. And go back for a second and a third attempt when things do not work out as well as planned.