[Archers] archery loaner gear and equipment program - a thought

[Garth Groff]

Lord Christophe,

Our only reason for rejecting them should be safety, since they 
otherwise meet our rather relaxed requirements for form and function. As 
these aren't factory-made bows with (hopefully) consistent quality 
control, I think we must have senior marshals carefully evaluate every 
one on a case-by-case basis, each time they are presented. The skill of 
the bowyer is going to have a lot to do with how safe they are.  What 
you say about PVC pipe is a red flag, and an unpainted, or unwrapped bow 
will need even greater scrutiny. A bow that passes inspection when new 
might not be safe in a few months.

We probably will only be able to make a blanket rule about them when we 
have some experience with their reliability, or lack there of. We could 
learn a lot if we built a couple and put them to use.

Yours Aye,


Mungo


On 4/24/2012 1:00 PM, John Atkins wrote:
>
> Folks if you go to his site, backyardbowyer.com, and click on Other, 
> then select Youtube you see his videos on how he makes his bows, 
> breakage tests, etc.  I've been told by others that the poundage is a 
> product of the piping used.  Thinner diameter, less poundage, also 
> schedule 40 versus schedule 80.
>
> My first concern was the effect of sun light on PVC piping.  My first 
> job out of college was running the marine aquaculture lab for San 
> Diego State University.  I learned how to plumb PVC piping from ¼ inch 
> to 10 inch diameter.  I KNOW PVC pipe.  One major issue with it is 
> that after a year or so in sun light it becomes so brittle that if you 
> step on it, it breaks.  He covers this in his videos saying that 
> painting the bow protects it from the damaging UV rays.  I bought a 
> piece of pipe to try to make one to test it out.  If/when I get it 
> finished and tested I'll report back.
>
> My main reason from bringing this up is that I am beginning to hear 
> more about these bows from several folks in my area.  I expect that we 
> will begin to see these bows showing up on our ranges.  We need to 
> decide how we are going to handle them BEFORE that date.  i.e. Will we 
> accept them, we will reject them?  If we reject them, we need to have 
> a good solid reason for rejection.  I recall several years ago an 
> archer took their newly purchased bow to the range at Pennsic where it 
> was rejected.  This was one of those $40 black all fiberglass bows and 
> the archer bought it from Elk Ridge Archery which is a very reputable 
> and SCA friendly bowyer.  The archer took it back to Elk Ridge and 
> told them what the marshals had said.  When Deb, Joe's wife and 
> co-owner, took the bow back to the range to ask why it was rejected, 
> all they said was "That's a bad bow".  No justification or reason as 
> to why or what.  There was nothing wrong with the bow.  I would rather 
> not be in that position with these PVC bows.
>
> Just saying,
>
> cog
>

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