Not staked through the heart or anything

[andygates]

Finally got around  to stringing and test-drawing the recurve bow I got on ebay a while back.  It's mid-1970s (a Marksman TS4, apparently designed for the UK Olympic squad and everything) and a wood-and-fibreglass laminate so there's plenty of layers to fail and stuff to crack, go brittle with age or delaminate.  It's only a couple of years younger than I am.

The man in Quick's would only sell me a string and stringer.  Said it wasn't fair, selling me arrows when it was going to explode. I ought to wear a t-shirt that says "safety warnings only encourage me" really...

Stringing was exciting, in a "mild peril" sort of way: goggles, gloves, heavy clothing, ninja face scarf, and silence.  Will it creak?  Crack?  Kerblooey?  Amazingly not, so on to stage two: leave it for an hour and see if it just erupts.   After a couple of rounds of this it had failed to kill the cat or break the TV, so it was time to see if it will draw.   First to a couple of inches... yay.  Quarter-draw?  Yay.  Half?  More yay.  Time to inspect the limbs and check for delamination or cracking again.  All sleek and smooth... so three-quarter and full-draw.

By crikey, it works.  In fact it felt good, solid and not overpowered (about 40lbs at 25"). 

Time to buy some arrows, I suppose.  Any recommendations?

Comments

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Been there, done that... for LRP I was the arrowmeister. In about '93 there was a flurry of parallel arrow evolution as many groups all tried to do archery safely. We all ended up with the same design, a POC shaft (as used by re-enactors), a head with a 2" flat soft foam face and tapering firm-foam cone body in which the blunt shaft-end was stopped by a disc of leather or denim, lightly latexed over, and fletchings to suit your character. Many hours have I spent cutting feathers to length and getting stoned around a fletching jig.

While great fun, they're slow, expensive and unreliable. This time around I'm gonna buy some!