Cool videos.

;) doesn't take Bear 2 weeks ;)

enjoyed the videos, thanks for posting Kevin

I've got a few friends who re bowyers. One of them who recently had t retire told me that he finished 5 bows per week. He said when you work 5 at a time and when glues drying or finish is drying your working on 5 others and that for him it worked out to 5 per week but then he works alone. When oyu have guys who do 1 step of the bow and then move it along to the next guy you end up with guys who are very good and fast at what they do so assembly lines in archery are like assembly lines in cars or anything else. Its a more efficient way to build bows. I've got the old Bear video showing them build a Kodiak mag. Boy did it open my eyes.

Henry Ford started it all. Bear and Pearson were turning out around 4000 bows per week. The Razorhead machine was an amazing thing as well, turning out a finished head every five seconds.

I wish that Razorhead machine still was George.

Interesting video's, but, not exactly what you'd call cutting edge manufacturing technology.

At Howatts we did about the same except that the risers were shaped freehand on a 2X120 inch belt that ran vertically With one round bar and a flat bar for backup. We built every sander we used for a specific purpose with the exception of one wide belt sander. We were still using sanders made in 1948 when we quit true Howatt production in 2012.

Kevin, Bear had 200 employees working at the Grayling plant in 1956. In 1976, they had near 400 and made a record 360,000 bows in that year alone. That would include compound and traditional bows.

So I will use my Roseoak Ace as an example...I paid roughly the same amount for that bow as one would pay for a new Kodiak...I was able to communicate by email with the bowyer and tell him how I wanted the bow to be built in terms of materials...I know that bow was built by Brandon and I know he also made the string and put the leather grip on...the string and the leather grip are both top grade...with a Bear I would get a second rate deer hide grip and a string that would need to be replaced...and for that privilege I would have no idea who built my bow...and maybe I would end up having to send that bow back for warranty because someone screwed up in that handmade part of the process...I will stick with custom bows for new bows and just keep on collecting my Grayling Bears...sure I do not know who built them but then I have never had to send one back for warranty...and I bought my first one in 2009

DDave

Modern? IMO mediocre workmanship, as fast as possible by dudes checkin their phones every few minutes. Gonna guess little training and no chops. That pretty much covers craftsmanship nowdays. :/

Bob...that's not really the case. The problem is that many of the things that we here find to be of value, any don't. And, many that are here don.

I still know guys and gals that are masters at what they do. Professional fly tyers, rod bulders, boot makers, gunsmiths, and many others.

The trouble is, that people don't value what they do. Tha leads to consumers accepting products of lower quality. I've seen the argumant here at least 100 times, is this worhth the price, is that worth the price.

Ok, I'm done ranting now.

KPC, I don't have to guess. Still have production records for around 35 years. Dreamcatcher had 4.28 hours total labor. That's from sawing lam strips to final inspection. But, remember that we did 280-300 bows a week and did all models together every day. We had a total crew of 15 including the shipping person and front end girl.

Very interesting video but I don't believe they turn out 4000 a week that way.

Thanks for posting this. I enjoyed it!

I thoroughly enjoyed the videos, thank you.

I'm a fan of "How It's Made" and always marvel at the creativity of the toolmakers.

I work at a pharmaceutical company. It truly takes everyone working there to produce good medicine. From the floor sweepers, the lab glass washers, the facility services mechanics/operators, lab technicians, doctors of science, office clerks, managers and grounds keepers, all have to do a good job to make the product consumers need and want.

I see there is some naïve thinking here. A custom bow is made basically the same as a Bear production bow.

I build and sell a few bows every year, have for around 10 years now , have no interest whatsoever in making a living doing so.

I make a living building houses, bridges , whatever. Masonry, carpentry and concrete.

Any time you do something over and over day in day out you get better at what you do. regardless of what it is.

Guys that build bows every day get good,and get efficient, far better than hobby bowyers like myself.

If you would build your own home, you would not be nearly as efficient, or as good as a guy that does it day in and day out.

This thinking that production bows are not as good as customs is silly.

A custom bow has the advantage of being made specifically for you, wood choice ect...

But that's about it.

Whether you turn out 5 bows per week or 500 bows per week they are built basically the same, and with the same basic process.

My thoughts exactly Shade. A person who does the same step all day, day after day, and year after year is going to be much better and much more efficient at it than someone who does it once ever so often. One reason companys like black widow can build so many is each person does their job so much they are much more efficient at it, thus much faster with the same results as a slower person who does it once a day or once a week. I'm not dogging custom bows, heck I just bought one, but I'm going to give larger bow companys their due also and I also just bought one of those,lol. Wow, just bought 2 new bows and hadn't bought one for 7 years before that and over 20 years before that,lol. Don't ask how many customs per year before that tho,lol.

K Cummings...I'm sure I have far more time in a bow than someone that does it every day for a living, And most certainly more time than a company like bear, martin ect...

That being said the whole process is much easier now, and goes much more smoothly than when I first started.

Many full time bowyers and company's like bear have expensive specialized equip to perform certain task, we sometimes look down on production bows when in reality much of the process is done with precision equipment.

While I do have good equipment and tools such as table saws, bandsaws, drill press, belt sander, disc sander, planer, routers ect...ect....I do not have such things as specialized equipment to cut risers, glue, clamp and other task with the speed company's like bear do.

The bow form and hose is basically a standard, but my bows then must be put in a laminating oven form and all, whereas Bear preforms the whole process without moving anything. Any contractor will tell you your only as good as your tools and your ability to use them. I'm sure that the people working at Bear have built so many bows that they could do it in their sleep.

I am actually building a R/D longbow for someone now, the lams are ground, and as I sit here typing, there are lams clamped gluing the butt joints together which I do by hand other than grinding the butts on an angle where they butt together.

One of the things I like about building bows as a hobby is I can take my time. If at anytime I feel like I'm getting in a hurry I simply stop, do something else for a while, then come back to it. If I were making a living at it, I'd keep at it trying to get as much done, and turn out as many bows as possible.

We never had any machine to build the riser shape pre- glue up either . we built jigs to hold the rough sawn riser and hand pulled them through a sander. That let us have complete control over the process and gave us a finished shape with 40#grit scratches for adhesive advantage. Here's what we shaped the risers on. Sort of high speed wood sculpture. One wrong move and a ruined bow. I built both of those machines as well as the one in the background that we did the sight window and shelf on. All hand work. That's why we never charged for custom grips etc.. We built each bow by hand so it was no problem to do a special thing along the way.

Had a lot of "custom" bowyers tour the shop over the years. First they were surprised to be able to see what and how we did things, second, they were almost universally blown away by how we did things without the aid of machinery. Most would comment that they would have no idea how to do what we did by hand. This is a sander I built that had a plate that let us shape the sight window and shelf at the same time by hand. You had to position the bow correctly and do the hand/arm movements that got the job done right.

2bears, you don't have to believe anything about how many bows Bear made a week. It is a fact that is given by the guys that were there...read Dick Lattimer's book and learn the facts.

Ben Pearson also put out over 3000 bows per week. Again, it's on record if you do some research. I don't know how many bows that American Archery, or Shakespeare/Root, or Black Hawk put out in the 60's and 70's, but that information is somewhere and it is impressive too. Ernie Root's son is still alive and may be able to speak to the volume...maybe not. He retired as a judge.

Companies like Cravotta Brothers, Black Hawk Archery, made bows for other entities as well, and they turned them out hand over fist. The reason there is so many still around today speaks of the volume that was made. I'm glad.

Can anybody explain what the worker was spraying on the bow towards the end. I noticed he was holding the bow in his bare hand. I always envisioned the bows hanging in a spray booth then working its way through a dryer of some sort.

Larry I was aware that you guys built bows in the same manner as many custom shops with pretty much handwork and craftsmanship.

I also utilize jigs, feather boards ect.. I have made.

While I like and support custom bowyers, and their craftsmanship and artistic ability, I sometimes feel we far to often look down on production bows.

The general process of building a bow is pretty much the same whether custom or production.

The folks that make production bows day in and day out know their job, and are good at what they do, and are efficient craftsman.

Yep, that's bookin it 8^). Dick Lattimer's book was my reference. That's where I got the 1976. Nevertheless, they put out an astounding amount of bows through the 60's and 70's.

Always great to read what Mr Hatfield posts.

I wonder how the modern bowmakers overseas stack up to the glory days of U.S. bowmakers. Do they put out thousands of bows a week?

When Bear, Victor Comptometer, put out all those bows, there were warehouses full of them all over the U.S.. At the end of the year they practically gave bows away and actually destroyed a lot of them. I know a entire warehouse full in Portland Oregon were trashed. They tried to force other companies out by shear volume and it didn't work. We had orders for every bow we made every year.

I am very opinionated about craftsmanship. The line of work I am in is ALL about craftsmanship. I'm not talking assembling CNC made parts on a line into products. I',m talking handwork, where the work comes out of the hands of the maker, not a machine.

Hand work. I see very little of it today that is truly great. People are in WAY too much of a hurry. The schedule is all about speed. Quality isn't a given. Get it done and move on to the next one.

Old school craftsmanship predates WWII. I see that as the demarcation point actually, we are gang bang since WWII.

St Peters and cathedrals, MAGNIFICENT, mind blowing pieces of work, all done by men with mind blowing detail, with no power tools. Now, tools up the wazoo and few have the slightest interest in doing truly great work. I see it everywhere. jmo

Thanks for the videos, KPC. I enjoyed them. Jawge

Mr. Stout perhaps I worded that a little bluntly. I am well aware of the production facts and have read the book. The video shows a 3 bow riser shaping machine and one employee doing each individual step. I didn't think the video was an attempt to show how they reached their production numbers but the individual steps more like the custom bowyers. The old methods if you will. I believe they had a lot more equipment and employees. No offence intended,I do believe the facts and figures. Ken

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