Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Skill: Bowmaking Disaster

Disaster struck tonight! All my hard work down the drain! It's over. Finished. My bow is broken.

I was tillering my bow getting it pretty close to the point where I would write my next post about it. I put it on the tillering stick and glanced over at my tv because it was a good part of the movie Tron. Blamo! It blew up and scared the shit out of me.



I know what the problem was. This limb was twisted about 45 degrees. Based on the way it fractured, I can tell that the twist was the cause. So I guess my bowmaking series will have to wait till I start my next bow. It isn't a total loss. I can use the other limb to make an atlatl or a firebow. An atlatl is basically an extension of the human arm to get extra leverage for throwing big darts. A firebow is used for making bow drill fires.

5 comments:

fooiemcgoo said...

that sucks. that must be disapointing. it is interesting that your interest in a futuristic movie was the cause for a primative tool being ruined. think about the irony.

it also looks like it started at a knot.

what is a tillering stick? is it that widget you use to measure the force of the draw?

fooiemcgoo said...

oh, maybe that wasn't a knot.

Sassmouth said...

Well it wasn't the cause, but it was kind of symbolic and ironic. A tillering stick is basically something to hold the bow in a drawn position so you can step back and get a look at it. Usually you they have different notches so you can pull it to different lengths.

Sassmouth said...

I do feel a real sense of loss. I've been working on it for awhile. At this point I really know the wood. It's weird that I can feel the sadness in my body over this piece of wood. When it happened I wasn't angry at all that my toy broke. I was sad for a lost friend. For so long it was the constant thing I could always work on. Now I have to find something else to work on. It sounds cheesy but it's true.

Anonymous said...

That is a tough break Pinger (pun intended).

When I saw the broken bow, I felt pain as well. I've lost 3.5 bows, 1 was repaired, and it sucks for sure.

Keep that good limb and make it an atl atl. I think that sounds like a rockin' idea.