I think it was Robert Frost who said that "good fences make good neighbors," but I think good neighbors make good neighbors. In our neck of the woods, the neighbors are good and, for the most part, neighborliness prevails amongst us. We live on a gravel road, but it is almost like a little industrial park out here with two cabinet shops and a powder-coat paint/metal-working/welding shop in fairly close proximity to one another. Then there is my little shop that is neither a business or all that interesting, but I like it.
My shop is located directly across the street from PenderCraft Cabinets, which is owned by my neighbor, Travis Pendergrass. A quarter of a mile west of us, Cam Klassen has his powder-coat paint business, SAEF. And, to the north of my shop, my youngest son, Eric, has Flint Creek Woodworks. Flint Creek is in the process of expanding its business by adding on to the existing structure. My son hopes to add a CNC router to the business which should help streamline the assembly process -- not to mention adding the ability to do all kinds of non-cabinet-type woodworking.
Cam and his son Luke built my shop from components taken from an old barn in Michigan. It is 30 by 40 feet and pretty tall; I don't have to worry about hitting the ceiling when carrying long boards around the shop. I have several little projects going at the shop, but have mostly been concentrating on building bows. I find that if I skip around from one project to another too often, I tend to forget what little shortcuts I may have learned in my building process; so I need to do a thing several times before it sticks in my mind. In building bows, there are several steps which are necessary in order to get a working bow that will bend without breaking and that will shoot an arrow where you point the bow.
That last part is very important and doesn't just happen. A bow can shoot high or low or off to one side or the other. This has to do with what is known as tiller; and tillering a bow is an art, not a science. But there is science involved. When a bow has reached the stage where it is ready to be strung up and measured to determine which limb should be the upper limb and which the lower, I have not yet done any shaping of the handle. This allows me complete latitude over which limb will become the upper limb. All that I have done at this point is to file some grooves in the limb tips so that I can string the bow. Once it is strung, I measure the distance from the string to the bow limb on both limbs at the same place on both limbs. The limb with the biggest gap will become the upper limb. Now that I know which limb will be my upper limb, I can shape the handle area and finish the bow.
If I would happen to choose the wrong limb for the upper limb, I might not be able to hit anything with that particular bow; and if the difference between the two limbs is too great, it will only be worse. The distance from the upper limb to the string needs to be about an 1/8" wider than the lower limb in order to account for having two fingers below the arrow and only one finger above the arrow when shooting. This allows both limbs to return to a resting position at the same time after shooting. If the gap on the lower limb happens to be wider, this places the bow limbs and the string in a great deal of negative tension which can lead to a broken bow or broken string -- which can also be very dangerous. And the bow will shoot high. By this I mean you won't be able to hit what you aim at.
With this in mind, I must say that, the other day, I built an absolutely beautiful bow but somehow forgot to measure the limbs before shaping the handle. So, when I went to shoot it for the first time, I got a real surprise. I took a couple of arrows and the new bow outside my shop. The first two shots I shot straight up in the air. The arrows went nearly out of sight, so I knew I had some good poundage on the bow. I walked over to retrieve my arrows which were sticking up in the pasture across the driveway from my shop to the east. I would say they were a couple of hundred feet away from where I had shot the bow.
So then, I fitted an arrow to the bow and actually shot directly at the wall of my shop which is covered in cypress lumber. I aimed high to compensate for the distance. The arrow took off like a light but, unfortunately, I failed to follow its progress through the air. It was kind of windy that day, but I thought I heard it hit the side of my shop. I walked back towards the shop to retrieve my arrow but, for some reason, I could not see it anywhere. I looked all over but there was no arrow to be found. I thought maybe it had passed by in front of the shop, so I searched in front of the shop and to the west but still no arrow. I was flummoxed. I stood there and thought about it for a bit.
A thought presented itself to my mind, "Could that arrow have landed on the roof?"
I didn't see how such a thing could have happened, but I thought I would step back and look at my roof. Well, you can imagine my surprise, and chagrin, when I saw my arrow, not only on the roof, but actually sticking into it. How embarrassing!
And the really bad thing is my roof is super steep and pretty high. I had no idea how I would ever get that arrow down from there. My first thought was, "I hope the neighbors don't see that thing sticking out of my roof." Well, as you may imagine, my worst fears were realized a couple of days later when Cam Klassen called me.
"Hey neighbor!" he said, "I really like your roof bling!" I didn't catch his meaning at first; then it dawned on me that he was talking about that stupid arrow sticking in my roof.
"Yeah, well what can I say? I guess I got carried away."
"Looks like it!" he said, laughing his head off. Linda was in the truck with me and had to laugh as well. I sat there and bore it patiently.
I then explained to Cam what had happened and we had a good laugh at my expense over the whole deal. Later, when I measured the limbs on that bow, the gap on the bottom limb was an inch wider than the upper limb. This is what is known as a recipe for disaster, so I quickly retired that bow after shooting it only three times. I figure I have another wall hanger for anyone interested in such atrocities. But it is a good looker at any rate.
Sam Byrnes is a Gentry-area resident and weekly contributor to the Eagle Observer. He may be contacted by email at [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 08/10/2016