IS THIS AN AESTHETICALLY PLEASING BOW?

[Dennis La Varenne]

In browsing eBay, I have noticed this particular maker and his bows which I have trouble getting to aesthetic grips with. I have difficulty with the very large handles. What to others think? These bows have Hickory limbs, look to be almost parallel in width and range from 64" to 72" in length. Here are some pics.

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[cmoore]

Ugly

[Dennis La Varenne]

An interesting opinion, cmoore.

[Jim]

It doesn't please me Dennis. I can't really figure out why, beyond the handle looking big and bulbous. I think the handle colours/pattern look out of place against the natural colour of the bow. I can't help but think a bit of square wood wrapped with leather would be a lot nicer.

Jim

[yeoman]

I think a handle of that shape and volume would be better suited to a bow made of laminates of glass and wood rather than a selfbow. That, and/or a rather radical shape in the limb profile.

Considering the riser independently, I'm not all that inspired by the Hawthorn Football Club-inspired flat layup. I think it would have been more impressive if the riser laminations had been made with a little more geometric character.

But I'm sure some people will really enjoy these bows, and that many would not enjoy mine.

[Mick Smith]

The biggest factor that makes that bow look unattractive IMO, is the bulbous appendage extending out from the sight window. This unusual and ungainly looking addition does nothing towards making the bow look aesthetically pleasing at all. If this was rasped off, the bow wouldn't suddenly be attractive, but it would certainly look a whole lot better.

[Stickbow Hunter]

It is ugly no matter which way I look at it - handle size, shape and colours. About the only thing I like is the colour of the Hickory. But as they say, each to their own.

Jeff

[CraigH]

Not my cup of tea.

[Dennis La Varenne]

This handle design is a hallmark of this bowyer's output. Like most, I have difficulty with its sheer bulk compared to the relatively small dimensions of the limbs which make the handle look to me like an afterthought . . . or an infectious swelling. As a generality, Americans seem to be impressed with large handles for some reason.

I have often read the opinion of shooter's having big hands and needing something to hold onto and needing the 'locator' in the belly of the grip for consistent holding, but I am not persuaded by this line of thinking at all. I think that ostentation plays a bigger part in the US preference for big handles just like their big cars in the 1960s. A big handle certainly gives you a 'canvas' onto which you can include much material for appearance sake, but functionality is another issue.

I do not have large hands and prefer small grips, but also, I do not 'grip' my bows and never have, although I have tried it from time to time. I close my fingers around the handle without closing them tight and let the pull of the bow cradle on the ball of my thumb.

Again, in my reading from my collection of archery books from the wooden bow era and the early archery magazines, there is a noticeable and consistent preference for small grips which changed dramatically with the invention of the modern glassed recurve bow and its increasingly large riser section with overdraw. These increasingly large risers whose development you can trace through contemporary magazines through the 1950s into the 1960s seemed to become the main selling feature of bows from rival companies. The bows sold on appearance mainly. Performance differences between bows was really negligible and each manufacturer claimed their bow was always faster than any other bow hitherto built with each production model leapfrogging the claims of a rival bow.

The handles of the older wood bows, judging from the pictures in my collection of publications tended to be quite short, especially on the target bows. I have one ex-target bow in my collection (which now numbers well over 200 bows - !) which has a handle length of only 3 inches - just enough to cradle on the ball of the thumb of the shooter. This bow came with an original picture of its owner shooting it back in the early 1940s and you can clearly see that the handle was quite shorter than his hand. Most of the target archers in pics shoot with their little finger extended. I know why now.

That little finger exerts quite a lot of force against the bow in line with the lower handle and upsets the balancing act of drawing the bow against the ball of the thumb, which, in turn, upsets the fine tillering jobs of these bows. This is not how the majority of archers shot of course, but these bows were usually custom jobs carefully tillered precisely for their owner's shooting style. This equipment was archery's Formula 1 in those days and the equipment was very finely tuned for the job. Every effort was made by the archer not to impart any kind of torquing of the bow in the forward/rearward direction of limb tilt so that the limbs could behave according to their tiller with perfect synchrony.

So, I don't buy functionality as the reason for big handles like that in the pictures above. Grip locators are over-rated. They did not exist back in the wood bow era and weren't considered necessary. Good handles were bulbed, being widest at mid handle and narrowing at the arrow pass and the same position below the grip to give a 'waisted' appearance to the handle. This design of handle is remarkably good for maintaining a consistent hand position because the mid handle bulbs fit into the hollow of the palm very well indeed.

Modern 'locator' grips seem to me NOT to be deep enough for the high-wrist grip to benefit from that grip's style of a small pivot point and minimal torquing of the bow and they are so small that they do not offer any benefit over bulbed grips in any way that I can see other than being easier to make.

Anyway, pyjama stripes on a bow doesn't suggest a serious bow to me.

[greybeard]

Perhaps he may have bought cheese boards in bulk?

Definitely fits the ugly description.

The bow shown below was selected as 'bow of the month' by one of the suppliers.

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Daryl.

[Dennis La Varenne]

Oh, dear! Give me your Holmegaard any day.

[yeoman]

Daryl, that bow looks like it was made out of 'danger - do not enter' tape.

[bigbob]

'Danger tapes', my thoughts exactly. Agree with all previous sentiments, ugly!

[Dennis La Varenne]

Here is another from the same maker. It makes me wonder what bowmaking is all about if the main feature of a bow is not its performance due to its limb design which is clearly not evident in this maker's work if you look up his bows on eBay. They seems to rely entirely on how curious you can make your risers appear to attract attention to them. There is clearly nothing to show careful thought going into limb design with these bows. They are remarkable only for their ordinariness. No thought seems to have gone into limb mass distribution to take account of the high tension/low compression properties of Hickory. All this knowledge was well and truly known back before WWII and seems to be completely disregarded in so many modern wood bows. Modern 'supermarket' appeal seems to be the principle criterion today. Few seem to be able to judge a well made bow.

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PS: I have revised the picture size downwards so they fit the average screen size better.

[Dennis La Varenne]

Here is another one from a different maker. Rather like the stump in the last pic though. This bowyer has talent.

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[cmoore]

... it's just a chunk ...
Look at the face that is carved on the stump the bow is sitting on....surely IF he carved that he can do a better job on his handles

[Dennis La Varenne]

I had similar thoughts too, cmoore. It seems to me that Americans often seem to have great difficulty with subtlety. Such a lot of their bowmaking seems to be based on the concept that if it doesn't smack you in the face at first glance, it is lacking worth.