Topic: Florida bowyer completing Korean-inspired bow
Hello,
My name is Jeff Burris and I am almost finished with a Korean-inspired horsebow, hopefully the first of many of this design. I have loved instinctive archery all my loife and recently began weening off of my income as a webmaster and onto selling Western-type bows made of thin, unidirectional glass over ample carbon, heat treated/carbonized multi-lam bamboo tapers and/or tip wedges, and thin hardwood parallel center/core.
Only after perfecting this type of recurve (for which there is far more help available from elder U.S. bowyers) have I embarked on the more pioneering venture of a drastic c-curve requiring string grooves.
When I bought a Kaya Khan I could not believe what was happening. I said, "You mean to tell me a million American hunters and archers are out there with bows that shoot arrows just like this small, light bow, but they do not know their bow does not have to weigh 4 pounds and be 62-68 (or even 72) inches?! This Khan is like the little bows you see in fantasy movies. A real one cannot possibly be this easy to strap to your body and crawl or climb! The Khan was a miracle to me. I began to study Mr. Kwak Yun-sik as compared to modern Asiatic recurve works of recent Chinese and Hungarian origin, made from moderna laminate materials with wood or cane. Carbon and special glass are allowing us to do things impossible with the glass and wood of the 1970's etc. and Authors from The Traditional Bowyers' Bibles are going to have to amend chapters claiming they did all testing necessary and they conclude horsebow is supposedly never superior to Western recurve and is often inferior. They were too hasty in their findings! No one showed up with a Khan before vol. 4 was published! Haha!
Pictures next week!
Thank you, and it is very fine to meet you. I have been meaning to register here, as it was a source of info. to me for a couple of years.
Jeff Burris
My existing, non-Korean hybrid recurve (a reflex deflex design sort of half longbow but only 62") My "Raptor"
http://www.BowsOfTheWorld.com
P.S. -- I do not mean to imply I make biocomposite or horn bows yet. Currently I am merely concentrating on making the design store and use energy efficiently, similarly to historic horse bows, but with less effort in making because of using modern choice materials and process, like Kaya but truly one at a time with lots or individual care in a bow shop, not a factory. Again, don't get me wrong, maybe one day I, too, will operate a factory, but right now it is one bow at a time about half the time it is pre-sold.