Bows

I have been building bows since 1998. Like most archers, I started out using compound bows, but I found traditional archery much more of a challenge. Since I am left-handed, I had difficulty finding bows that suited me, so I began to build bows. I started with fiberglass kits, and I made two or three very nice bows, but I felt that almost anything that I sandwiched between two pieces of fiberglass would shoot well. I wanted to experience the thrill of using actual trees and bamboo and animal sinew and horn to make bows the old fashioned way. I do use modern glues, strings and machines to make these bows, and many of them are perhaps too fancy for mere survival. Nonetheless, they are effective weapons that shoot fast. They are also quiet and easy to shoot. I hope you enjoy looking at them, and if you would like to know more about them, send me an email.

BUY DAN'S BOWS

Dan's bows can now be purchased through the site Primitive Pathways.

Click here to be taken to the Dan Spier collection.

My first BBO

October 10, 2011

Bamboo-backed osage orange. This is the fastest combination of materials that I have ever come up with. Following Dean Torges and others, I glued a thin lamination of bamboo to the back of a core of osage orange (bowdark or mock orange or hedgeapple wood). The shape is called "reflex-deflex," indicating the double curve shape of the bow. This particular bow is very fast. I would tell you how fast, but that information is classified!