Portland, Oregon Bowmaking Basics for Wilderness Survival
There was a time you forgot who you were, how it feels to release an arrow, the music of the bowstring resonating, the route of your blood, the path of those who came before. You felt you were asleep for a long while. The world engined on. And then, one day, you woke up.
The Tool
This basics course teaches you how to craft your own hunting tool out of locally harvested materials. We cover how to hew wood with simple blades and knives.
The Basics
Our Bowmaking Basics course helps you develop the art of tillering. Tillering is taking the wood stave down to an ideal D shaped bend of a bow. Tillering is where you decide how fast and how far your weapon shoots.
Local Origins
This is not a class where we use power or complex tools to fashion the perfect bow out of exotic woods. This is a practical class with practical tools. We begin with locally harvested staves and focus on creating bows that can be functional and useful in a true wilderness survival setting.
Register for Bowmaking Basics for Wilderness Survival
Other schools' bowmaking classes Their Class We recognize the inherent flaws in many bowmaking courses. Instead of first learning to work with locally found materials they use exotic wood purchased from a dealer. Then the instructor initially shapes the stave on a band saw. All that's left for the student to do is a little tillering. Unfortunately the staves are frequently removed from the hands of the participants for the instructor to fix mistakes. We believe this quest for unrealistic perfection does not necessarily create an environment conducive to learning a living art such as bowmaking. |
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Trackers bowmaking basics Our Class Learning means failing, succeeding, then failing and succeeding again. We keep it real with locally harvested staves of hazel and vine maple. We know practice makes perfect. If you finish one bow your first day, we put you on another stave to explore the unique flex, bend and features of another wood. Let us be clear, we are not here to simply give you the perfect bow made mostly by our instructors. We teach you how to truly craft a bow from local materials, deepening your own bowmaking skills and personal connection to the land. |
Ages Adult Bowmaking Basics for Wilderness Survival
• Make one or more bows from local materials
• Learn how to make a bow in a survival situation
• The art of tillering with confidence
• Functional woodworking skills
• Bow types and qualities of different woods
• Recognize natural defects in wood and learn how to work them, ex. knots, twists
• Learn the importance of proper design and profile
• Walk away with a clear understanding of bows and the ability to take the skills much farther
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