Great Plains Traditional Bow Co. is live!

We're here. It's Kansas. It's was a beautiful day today. Not too, not too cold, not too hot. Beautiful winter day. And we've got some exciting things we want to talk about tonight. First of all, like to start off by just thanking everybody for all of our awesome customers. You guys are so awesome. We wouldn't be here without you. So appreciate you tuning in, watching us live. And we just started doing these live streams this year. Thought we would start doing those this year and interacting more with our customers than we have in the past where people can ask questions. But one thing I wanted to talk about first of all is something I'm really excited about, and that is this huge here. KT Magnum. I don't know how many of you know about these, but this thing is awesome. So this was made by. I don't know his full name. I know this one is actually signed by the bowyer. It says one of my personal hunting bows. Kiko.

It is.

What is his. What is his full name?

Let me see if I can find it. Dan sent it to me earlier.

Yeah. But he code to board. Yeah. So from what I understand, the fellow that sent this to me said that he died in 1993. I may be wrong on that, but this bow's been around a while. But we're gonna do a full video on this bow. We're definitely gonna leave this writing here because this is just super cool that he signed this bow, personalized it. But the short little bow, some people don't care for how they look, but I would grip on it. Nick loves the grip. I hate the grip, but I'm just so excited to get my hands on one. I've wanted to have one in my shop for years and years. I want to own one of these someday. But it's just so cool how compact it is and the design of it. Amazing shooter. But that's something we're going to be doing. So be looking for that. We're going to do a full YouTube video on this, what we think about it, and then we're going to go ahead and reduce it, restore it to its original beauty. So that's something I'm very excited about. So be looking for that.

The other thing on that, I was looking at that. That's about a 90.

Yeah, that's in. That's. That's intense. Yeah, we'll hold it like this. See? So a 90 would be, you know. But that's. Yeah, that's. That's. That's pretty cool.

That's a really nifty little bow.

You want me to show them the writing?

Yeah, show them the, show them the personal autograph there on that KT Magnum 44 inches. So.

And for a 44 inch bow, you would think it would be a real heavy stack and bow if it focuses. For being that short.

For being that short. It's amazing.

It's amazing.

It does stack. Yeah, it starts stacking at 23 inches. So it, it does stack quite a bit. But for being that short, you would think it would stack a lot more. One thing I found really interesting on that bow. So those limbs there are £55 at.

It won't focus, but.

Yeah, probably won't focus, but they're 55 at 30, which makes that bow approximately 45 pounds at 28 inches. But the, the, the limbs on it are super thin.

Oh yeah.

For, for a 45 pound limb. And that's probably just because of the design of it and how it's built. But anyway, super cool though probably other thing, it's.

It's zippy.

Yeah. Hey, John. John Wake, I believe from the Lone Star State, Texas. And John Jones, good buddy John Jones. And Patrick Kelly. Hey, Patrick. He's the fellow with the Paul Bunion bows that we're really getting excited about. We're gonna two piece those. That's going to be a lot of fun. Oh, that's something you can look forward to too. We're going to take it. Do we have a Paul Bunyan in.

Here we could grab?

Yeah, yeah. Nick, grab that, grab that real quick. Those Paul Bunion bows are, they're quite, they're quite interesting. Oh, that's the one I was working on. But they were made by Minnesota Lure and Bait Company. Fishing lures. Bait company in Minnesota. And they branched out and for. It wasn't a very long. I think it was about 20 years. They built these Paul Bunyan bows and they were, they claimed to be the first manufacturer of an all fiberglass or fiberglass bows in general. They're really unique. This one here is not a true representation the Paul Bunyan because somebody reworked the handle, but they have a real contour. I wish I had one of those in front of me. But they got a real neat, amazing contoured grip that is very comfortable. But also the leather wrap on it is superb because it's got a hidden stitching and it's just incredible. For the, for that time frame, I think they started building in the late 50s and into the 60s and maybe into the early 70s. But for them to get that, that grip that Perfect was just pretty incredible for that time frame. But for an all, for an all glass bow, they're quite amazing. But what we're going to do is on video we're going to take Pat's bow and we're going to cut it and we're going to make a socket and tenon. We're going to two piece it. So we're going to do the first one on video. Never done one before, so hopefully it turns out. I don't think there should be a problem. This is literally.

Yeah, that's 10 and shaped. Yeah, that's.

It's already 10 in shape. So it's going to be a lot of fun.

The only difference is, you know that's going to be fiberglass wrap instead of it being.

Yeah, I just don't know how I'm going to get that grip on there like the original one with that hidden stitching. We'll see, we'll see what happens. But so that's something that's coming up. It's going to be real exciting. That's, that's going to be another full length YouTube video. So let's see. So. Hey Casey. And then. Hey guys.

Would you ever think of making a short boat?

Yes, yes, most definitely. Yeah, we have.

Well, that's one reason we're so excited to have that KT Magnum in is because we're trying different ideas on the short boat.

We are going to do it and we do have a, we have a template that we've been working on for a short hybrid longbow that we are also going to make. And I talked about that on a previous live stream. But we are, we are gonna make one of these for sure. Probably in a one piece and a three piece. Like we were saying. I, I really hate the grip on here. Nick likes it, but for me it's super uncomfortable. So on mine I'm going to change this. I'm going to drop this down. This has just a real sharp edge here. So that's not going to be like that on mine.

But if the block.

If we come.

In here and we do the block as an L and we do that out of FR4 because it about has to be FR4.

Yeah, pretty much. It's got to be G10. That's a, that's an all linen phenolicizer. We could build it out of all linen phenolic and it would be strong.

Enough or you know, put a three quarter inch spar through the center of it.

And I think if you sparred it with three quarter Inch. You probably could use wood. I don't know.

Yeah.

And I don't see a problem with that.

But if we do that, it's going to have to be that wide, all the way up and all the way in. Which means we could about come up with different grip angles for whatever we're feeling anywhere from.

Well, whatever I design, whatever we design, we most definitely will incorporate a different grip because I will not have it. I will not have that grip on mine because I. I just can't. I can't do that. But.

I'm. I'm still amazed at that little KT44.

Oh, it's insane. It's. I wish all you guys could shoot this boat. It's.

Let's see, 93 was 30 years ago.

31 years ago.

And so that's what I think.

That's when he died. Maybe somebody knows. But. So it could be a 40 year old bow for the. Yeah.

And it performs like a modern bow.

He was way ahead of his time. Yeah, way ahead of his time. So. Hi, Dylan. Timber. How are you doing?

Let's see.

Casey Smith. As I was told in 1950, Shakespeare made the first. That very well could be that Shakespeare may have made the first fiberglass bows. I don't know that for sure. I. Where I got that from on the Paul Bunyan was when I was researching it to start the video, which we've already started the video on, on their site with the Minnesota Bait and Lure Company. It says on there that they said they were the first one to build a fiberglass bow. So I don't know that. And I think that might have been their claim also. So Shakespeare very possibly could have been the first one to make a glass bow. Jacob says short bows are hard to shoot accurately. Yes, they can be. You're absolutely right, Jacob. That is right. Chattahoochee outdoorsman. Such a cool bow. Amen, brother. It really is. I just wish all you guys could shoot it. Pat says Paul blame is made late 50s to early 60s. Yeah. So they may have been even made in a shorter amount of time than what I thought. I think what I read online it was saying up into the 70s. But I don't know. I don't. I'm very, very new to the Paul buggy boats. I just, I just been doing some research. Casey says depends on design. I have youth. Longbow, 52 inch, 45 pounds and Hickory. Also a number of Asian bows are under 50 inches. I think he's referring to short bows are hard to shoot accurately. Yeah, I mean I think a lot of it has to do with just, you know, what you get used to also, you know, and a lot of.

The inaccuracy from a short boat comes from your stacking and yeah, the difference.

In stacking, you know, if a bow is well made. Yeah, if a short bow is well made with the proper tapers, the proper core, the proper working limb ratio from fade to limb tip and all of that works together to create a bow that doesn't stack run until we're out to, you know, 26, 27 inches. You know, that would definitely affect how accurate you could shoot it because that real stiff pole clear at the end.

Really affects accuracy and really bad accuracy comes from repeatability. And stacking is not helping you with repeatable.

No, stacking is extremely detrimental to anchor repeatability for sure. Anyone looking for some osage staves? We might be. We're. We're. Nick and I are talking about attending ojam, but we're kind of at this point we're talking about not taking our booth. I, Nick's made a cell phone. I, I am, I'll just be very transparent here. I've never made a cell phone. This is Nick's cell phone right here. But I really think that this is Nick's cell phone. This thing shoots really good. Honestly. It really does. You made this an og, right? Yeah. That was. For those of you that don't know, 2006, 16O Jam is an event held in Lake Blackwell by Stillwater, Oklahoma. And you can go there and you can learn how to make a self bow. It's a three day deal, just like most traditional archery rendezvous. And you buy your stave and then they've got what they call yellow hats there. And these yellow hats are accomplished self bow bowyers. They're basically master self bow bowyers. And they teach you how to build a cell phone and you do it through the three days and if you don't quite finish it, you have learned enough to finish it at home. It's actually one of the coolest events out there. It's really super awesome.

You get a fence post and you leave with an almost complete bow or.

Sometimes totally complete bow or sometimes totally screwed up.

Yeah, sometimes you end up with some real nifty looking firewood.

Yeah. But it, what Nick and I are talking about doing is just going there without our booth. We probably will throw in 15 or 20 bows if anybody's interested. But we want to build south bows and that starts. Starts March 21st, I believe.

I think so it's either the 20th or 21st.

You can look it up. But at this point, we're thinking very seriously that we'll be there and we'll. We're going to build self bows. So I think to be a complete bowier, you should be able to build laminated boats and self bows. And right now I'm just half a boater. So I guess Nick must be a full bow here then. Maybe. So of course, Jacob says, how come you guys don't offer a lifetime warranty? Because lifetime warranties are a very bad idea for a custom bow company. That's a loaded question right there. That's a very loaded question. But no, I will never consider offering a lifetime warranty. Now what I will do is I'll work with you. So, you know, depending on the damage, we'll take care of you. We'll take care of you even if you've had your bow for a long time. But to offer a lifetime warranty from a business perspective and for a small business, could potentially completely destroy you for sure. In a business where you sell handmade bows that if people have a lifetime warranty on, what's to prevent them from driving over it with a tractor and.

Then when it gets worn out, just.

Yeah, sending it back. Because the other get it worn out. It's worn out. You want a new one. So you go out and you put some protective gear, maybe a full set of hockey gear, and you just dry fire it till it breaks. I mean, good. Here's the problem. Good people will lie about warranties. It's unfortunate, but that's just the way it is. Should we let the dog in?

So that actually brings us to. To the next question. What's up with the poor puffer? So they were being a little rambunctious. We've got equipment plugged in all over here. And so, yeah, that's why he was outside. He just missed us so much that he had to come here.

Loki. Yeah, we have two dogs, but they. I hope we covered the. The warranty enough. If you have any questions and you want to talk to me about why I don't offer a lifetime warranty, I do feel very strongly about that.

At the end of the day, it's a spring made out of wood and fiberglass flinging something I can understand.

When a big company offers a lifetime warranty, it's a lot different than when two guys in southwest Kansas offer a lifetime warranty. Yeah, you could lose your business really quick. So anyway, if you have any more questions on that, you can Message me or call me.

I just about fell out of my chair.

Bailey just about fell off her chair. Thorsten says I pulled my car to ILF riser would be nice. That would be. I've made a couple ILS at this time just with the direction my business is going. The ILS really aren't on the table for me there. Again, if you want to talk about that, call me or message me, but that's just not.

If we had a handful more guys.

Yeah, yeah. Timber says, oh, Jim is awesome. I've been going there for around 15 years, I think. Yeah, I've been there. Let's see, I was there 2016, 2017, I believe. It is awesome. It's. It's really one of the. And they're so numb kid oriented. So they. They really push teaching kids to build these cell bows, which is just totally awesome. If we can get these young archers in, it's just really cool.

Speaking of the young archers, I'm getting guys into archery. I've got my side project going right here. So these are Amazon bows and we've got some reviews coming up on cheap Amazon bows.

Yeah, we got some more. We got one filmed already. We haven't got this one filmed.

Yeah, not this one yet. Come on here, Loki. Pretty much what I'm going to be doing is taking a bunch of these rounded out the slate window, making it a little nicer, fixing the tiller and making sure that people can get a.

And the specs aren't on these bows at all.

There's these. Yeah, this is amazing. There's no specs on them, but yeah, just fix this and make it the perfect starter bow and then offer it at, you know, a reasonable price for the work put into it.

Yeah, a bow that you can get into archery for, you know, a good price, an economical price, but a bow that you can trust that the specs are on it. You know, that what it's marked at, that's the poundage. It is, you know, the tiller is correct, the shelf and side plate are radius. So that's what. Yeah, that's what.

We're just a perfect beginner bow. That's not. Not real expensive, but yeah. Get you in the ballpark of a good bow.

That's what we're trying to. We're just trying to make archery more accessible. More accessible. And for those people that want to get into it, that just don't know, you know, if they can trust their equipment, we want to offer something.

We want it to be where you can work on your skills and not have to worry if your engagement is.

Yeah. That you know that your bow is doing everything it should and more so. So Casey says, I love when you were talking about the new target model of bow, was that. Would that have been the Paragon? That's actually. We've had that boat for many, many years. It's just we don't build a lot of them. Yeah.

We build what, maybe five a year.

Yeah.

At most.

Yeah. They. They're expensive and they are an awesome boat. They are so much fun every time we build them.

We had one that was solid FR4.

Yeah.

And that it took a very special kind of person to love it. But it was about £37.

Like special. Like.

No, like it was. I like a lot mass in the riser. But it felt like a modern compound.

Bow as far as that thing was five pounds plus and on just bow weight.

Guy in Wellington there at the shoot bought it and he's a. He shoots compound and he picked it up and goes and shoots it and he's like, ah, I love it. I have to have it.

I tell you. That's a 23 inch riser. Maybe we let him in. If he can behave himself, if the.

Dogs will behave, we're gonna give him a shot.

The thing is there Nick takes some hunting every evening right after he quits work at 6 o'. Clock. He takes him and I walk the yard. He takes him hunting and they didn't get to go tonight. And so it's not. There's some. Leo, there's some offended feelings here. Some offended feelings going on here.

What are we talking about?

Oh yeah. So the Paragon. Yeah. So you got to imagine you got a 23 inch riser and if you build that thing at a solid FR4 or GTN, that's a massive chunk of that's.

And you lightened it up quite a bit by taking deeper swoops.

I did on everything I did. I ground I fairly aggressive on that particular model. But. But you talk about stable now depending.

On your arm got tired.

Yep. You're rock solid. Yeah. When you're out there.

It was. It was hard to not shoot it.

Well. Yeah. You. You pick it up and it was light. What? What? What? No, it was.

Yeah, it was £37.

That's not too light for a target bow. But. But it was light enough.

It was a perfect 3D bow.

I mean if you. If you had been shooting for a little bit, you picked that bow up and you're stacking them. I mean just piece of Cake.

Like this one here. This is FR4 and it's.

What does that one weigh? About. That's probably three quarter too. No, no, no, no, no. That's three. Probably three and a half pounds. Three to three and a half pounds. That's a B model. Yeah, but that's.

Yeah, that's a pretty heavy riser.

That's got an FR4 cap and that's it. I think that's a pretty heavy. Isn't that the 85 pounder?

Yeah, that's the 85 pounder.

Yeah. That's not a really a target bow there.

Yeah, well, depends how tough you are.

Yeah, yeah. So let's see what else we got here. Chad says, hey, from Coffeeville, I have a 48 pound bear Grizzly coming in the mail. I'm afraid I'll need a few pounds taken off. Do you basically just take the glass off the belly and then replace the glass? We don't replace the glass. We do. Yeah, you're right. We do take. When we're reducing it. I. It just depends. Every bow is different. So it depends on the particular bow. It depends on the limb profile. I don't want to make it sound too complicated here, but it, it can be. You take it. I do have a couple videos on how to adjust that, but I am going to be doing some videos where I show weight reductions in. One video that I'm going to be showing in the near future is also how to correct a twisted limb. We're going to go through a number of different methods that you can do it at home, but as far as reducing it. Chaz, I usually. I usually on most bows, depending on the limb profile, but I usually end up taking material off of all four sides. So it would be, you know, the two sides and then the back and the belly. And sometimes I don't even touch one or sometimes I won't touch the sides if the limb is real narrow. Every bow is different and there's no set hard, fast rule on that. So. And then Big D says, Donnie. That's Donnie. He's. If you don't know who Donnie is, he's the bowyer at Big D's Traditional bows. Great guy. Built some really cool bows. He's in Texas there. And yeah, he be worth checking out if you check him out, see if you're interested in his bows. He built some awesome stuff and he says dog is like, I'm on wrong side of this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They're not usually like this. They're.

They're awful rim.

They're Just they didn't get to go hunting and there's some offense building in their hearts. Offense. What do you think of the offense.

Version of the Great Plains ambidextrous boat? We've done a couple.

Oh, yeah, we do that.

It's just a two piece.

It's. It's a two piece. It's not a. It's not a three piece. But yeah, we've got. We do the socket and tenon on the ambidextrous boat works fantastic. That's. We've actually got one out in the shop right now.

Armin Hermer. His was a two piece, right?

Yeah.

Both of them.

Yes. Both of his work. Yeah. If you look up Armin Hermer, his reviews, he did a review on our. On our ASL or heel style, which. That's a bit controversial. Some people don't say it's not a heel style because it does have a contour style.

It is a bow that is styled like Howard Hills.

Yeah, it's a straight leg bow. But that one is a two piece. And also the ambidextrous he got from us is a two piece. So check out that review if you want to see it.

They're both El Dorados match set.

Yeah, they're cool. Ken says, what do you think of. Oh, that's the one. I just. Oh, Daniel. Monroe. Hi, guys. How's the weather over there? Nice and sunny here in Victoria, Australia. Oh, cool. And Aussie. I don't have a good Australian accent, so that's not. Probably not gonna happen. I just want to say I've really enjoyed watching the channel and I've learned quite a bit. Keep up the great work. Hey, thanks, Daniel. We appreciate you so much. Everybody that watches our videos, it absolutely means the world to us.

And if you watch our videos and share our videos.

Yeah.

With your friends and get, you know, your friends to subscribe.

And as. As anybody that is a YouTuber knows, doing a YouTube channel, making the videos, editing the videos is a ton of work. So for you guys that watch us and watch our live streams, you're. You're just. You're just so awesome. We'd be giving free hugs away if you were here.

It's not that bad.

Oh, Bailey says. It's not that. Bailey. Bailey edits all of our videos. You haven't seen her yet, but you will.

I ain't getting any videos.

Oh, yeah, you will. She's our video editor and she does good for us. So Big D bow says thank you. Yes, you're welcome, Donnie, you deserve It Chad says thank you. I might holler at you. Yeah, do. Please do. Even if you just want to chat. We'd love to chat. William Swanson. I was wondering if you started the.

On the.

The browning things in there. What? If you started browning on the rework. What is that?

The Browning, rework on the brow.

Rework on the brownie. I've got several brownies in the shop. I know, I know. I recognize your name. I know you're one of my rework customers, but I would have to pull up my paperwork to see which. Which bow do you have, William? I've got a Browning that I have. I'm gonna make limbs for.

Is that the Browning Backpacker? Yeah, that is going to help us with the short bow idea too.

Yeah, that's. That's going to be a real fun.

The rear mounted limbs.

Yeah, that's going to be a real fun video. So. Yeah, that's. That's gonna be a good one too. Let me just go grab that. You can chat with him.

No, cobra.

Oh, the brown cobra. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. We've done. This is the. I am working on it in the shop right now. I've got. I just finished two of those. And then. I haven't finished yours, but. Yeah, it's on my cart I'm working on. I gotta wish we could grab the camera and show you, but I got a whole table full of reworks in the spray booth right now. That. Don't worry about that Are. I'll show those. We'll post those on Facebook and stuff. Bunch of big horns. And the big horns just look super cool in there.

The big horns. I'm amazed at those big horns, too. They're. Yeah, they're fast.

Those big orange. Man, they're. They are snappy little bows. Some of them stack pretty bad, but the grips are wonderful on them and they're just basketballs. I'm gonna go grab that. That cobra and that run back.

All right. Do y' all do 3D shoots? Yeah, sometimes we'll go to them, but we don't host them.

Unless I skipped a bunch of questions.

Yeah, so whenever we go to shows, we'll shoot, but normally we're just so busy, we don't go to many shows or shoots because we're two guys in a shop in the middle of a cornfield in Kansas trying to make as many bows as possible possible. The dog looks dead, and Loki has decided to be calm. He's laid over here by my feet. I guess he just wore himself out or Something Loki. You can't sleep there.

Yeah, I'll take it if he's going to be calm and not tearing through everything.

Oh, nope, never mind.

Gone.

Let's see. Yeah, John, Joe, his cobras. We did two of them. Absolutely. I. I think the cobras are some of the cooler bows out there. They're just short. Nope, I'm happy with how those turned out.

Let's see. All right, I got some goodies here. I gotta, I gotta show you guys. So I wanted to show you this Paul bunion too. This is super cool. My seat has been taken by somebody. So let's see here, guys. Seriously, he's just, he's just settling right in. He's okay. Yeah. All right, we can do this. I don't know if you can see this very well on camera. First, I wanted to show you this Paul Bunyan grip. But this is actually leather. This is actually leather here wrapped around and it's injection molded plastic underneath here. It's actually two pieces and they just glue it together. And then right here, this is actually hidden stitching. So they've carved a groove right into this injection molded plastic. And then the stitching is actually hidden down in there. It's really quite cool. And then this grip, this is, this is Pat Kelly's bow that we're going to two piece. But this thing is amazing. This grip, it's. It is so comfortable. And it's dual shelf, so you know, you can shoot left or right. And it's just, it's really, it's really quite cool if you're into bows. So I wanted to show you that. And then this is Bill Swanson's bow here. Dude. Leo. Yeah. I'll just kneel here. But this, this is. Is a painted Browning Cobra here. So it's always fun to do the painted ones. They're more work. But it's just so cool to see, see them materialize from behind the paint and that's just really cool. So it looks like we're going to. It does have a twist in it. We're going to reduce it to £40. We're going to make it center shot and of course refinish it. You can see it's quite thick here where the side plate is. So we're going to radius this and cut this down just a little bit and then make sure we have the high point of the shelf. Ideally, the high point of the shelf needs to be directly above the webbing. So when you hold the bow, that webbing there where the throat is, the high Point needs to be right there for best performance on a bow. So we'll drop this down just a little bit and make the high point here. So this. This will be a full rework on this brownie cobra. Thank you. I'm gonna take it while I got it. Something.

I wonder. So there's our youth bow. I wonder what the.

Yeah, that's our Great Plains youth recurve.

I wonder where'd that brown cobra go? There it is.

Yeah. What are you doing? Wait.

I was gonna unstring that. I was wondering how similar they are in limb profile.

Oh, the hook on these cobras are.

Oh, it's way more aggressive.

Yeah, it's way more aggressive than our youth recurve. But they're kind of similar.

They're kind of. Yeah.

This. This bow, the Great Plains U3 curve, was modeled after the Kodiak Magnum.

Okay.

The bare Kodiak Magnum. It was somewhat modeled after that. It's not. It's. It's quite a bit different if you look at it, but it was kind of. That was sort of the model going for there. And then. This is a project. I've showed this on a short A while. Oops, sorry. I don't know if I showed this. I don't think I showed this on a live stream.

I don't know if we have yet or not.

We're real excited about this. And at first I was like, well, this is going to be a big project, but we're gonna. We're gonna make new limbs for this Browning backpacker. And it's rear mounted. So we don't. At Great Plains, we don't make a rear mounted takedown recurve at this time. But that's the length on that one. This one is a right hand 54 inch. Okay.

Yeah.

So. But we're gonna go ahead and make limbs for this. And of course, we're gonna video it, do it all on video, and this is gonna be a really fun project. So Bailey's telling me we're bad out of battery, so we're probably gonna switch to the. To the cell phone mic. If it doesn't work, we'll have to cut the live stream short. But we're running out of battery here on our.

I don't even think the mic was plugged in this whole time, really, because it just, like fell out.

Let me see if we still have.

Yeah, so this. This is. This is going to be a real exciting project. And. And then what we're going to do, guys, is if this works, which it will if this works, we are going to be able to offer the limbs for the Browning backpacker. So you'll be able to order Browning backpacker limbs from us when we get this year project off the ground, which will be really exciting because we may.

Even use those limbs for our rear mounted short bows.

Yeah, so. So that's. That's something cool coming up. Okay.

I don't want to be in the video.

Donnie from Big D says, do you all do 3D shoots? We do when we can. We, Nick and I are just completely swamped. You know, we're just two guys out here, so we do as many as we can. But honestly, to be completely transparent again, we probably only do one or two a year, which we would love to do more so we could get out and meet y'. All. John says my Cobras turned out awesome. They did. They were cool.

They were.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm very happy and, you know, I'm really impressed with the Cobra. It's the. It really is a great shooting little bow. I mean, they do, you know, they do stack because they are so short.

And maple core, if I remember right.

Yeah. That maple court makes them just a little stiffer. But you'll notice if you have a Browning Cobra, take a look at the limb laminations. And one thing that they did right, very right. Is they use quite a few laminations for this bow. So just looking here, they've got three or four on this one, there's three thin laminations. It's not a very thick limb. So that makes this bow as smooth as it possibly could be for the length of. But then you've got that nice profile, that really nice recurve profile, which makes these little bows real zippy. So for a short bow, it's a great little bow. It really is. So Donnie says understand that. Yeah. Donnie would understand that because he's a small business just like us, and he knows the struggle. So shire's Arrow Senior 50 inch Cobra reworks. That came out great. Do they stack up a lot for being 50 inches?

For being 50, we're not terrible.

Yeah. I mean, we. We kind of covered that just a little here just, just now. But you know, they're. They're really not bad. I mean, you. You would expect more. John. John has those two, and he could tell you more. But they do stack and you can't get away from that. But. But it's not bad. Okay. Big D says, are you all going to do more in deep teaching on how do you all build? Y', all, like, technically, aspects we will, to a certain extent, probably won't. Won't ever really show our formula book. Yeah.

But.

But we'll talk about. At some point, we're going to talk.

About tapers and how to build a form.

Yeah. And how. How we go about getting high performance out of it, figuring out how to.

Use which papers to use, all of that.

Oh, your mom says. What is the plan for the basic pod that you showed in your video shorts? That one that Nick did?

We're gonna build a grip out of.

We are going to build a grip.

I think it has to be a longbow grip. It might be long enough for a swift grip, but I'm pretty sure it's just a longbow grip.

It might work for a swift, long curve. So it'll either be a swift, long curve or a longbow grip out of that particular piece. Yeah. Chaz says, just out of curiosity, which model of Great Plains bow do both of you shoot when you hunt?

I shoot take down longbow with wood arrows because I think they're cool.

He's got the. What do you call these? The tuxedo flesh. Tuxedo Fletch.

And I like longbow for hunting because it's quiet and quiet is best.

And I shoot this baby right here. This is my favorite of all the Great Plains bows. This is my favorite for hunting. This is a swift three piece. And this one has eastern red cedar. And these things are just wicked fast and smooth and deadly. I smoked a big old fat dough with it last year, and it's went right through her.

Is that the first cedar swift that we did? Well, yeah, that's the first one we did while I've been here.

I don't think so.

Is it the first cedar limb swift since I. Well, while I've been here.

Yeah. I told Nick I wanted to build myself a bow. This is the first bow that I've owned from Great Plains. Well, it's the first bow that I. My. My father in law bought me a Great Plains bow, which got me into Great Plains bows when I was 24, which I still have. And I'll never sell that one.

I mean, that one's right there.

Yeah. Yeah. But this is the first bow that I built myself that I actually own and I won't sell. And Nick. I told Nick kind of what I was thinking, and he said he'd glue me up something special. So he really did. He did a good job. He put mosaic. I don't know if you can see it on camera, but it's got mosaic laminations in it. It's got turquoise accents, eastern red cedar, cocobola riser. And she's just a honey. She's super smooth, super fast. This bow is 58 inch AMO. It's 48 pounds at 29 inches, which my draw is 29 inches. And it's the Texas hunter collar scheme and it's the SR Swift three piece takedown. So.

Well, that's the boat that started it all.

Yeah, this is the bow that started it all right here. My father in law bought this bow for me when I was 24 years old. I fell in love with this thing the first year I had it. I got two. Well, I got a 3D deer target. I. I was terrible. You know, I was, I was, I was very bad at archery at that point and I shot that. But I had a path worn down to that deer and I, I cut that deer in half. I shot so many times. What also tells you how bad a shot I was. But I cut that thing in half and I ordered another one and I cut that one in half. And I was just completely addicted and I took it hunting many, many times. It is. I don't know, I thought, you know, I keep thinking, well, I want to refinish it, but it is so scarred and scratched up and I don't know. I don't know if I will. I just. It has a lot of memories. Has a lot of memories in this bow and I. It's almost hard for me to refinish it. So that's the one that started all. That's a B model three piece recurve.

I got to keep that dog from stuff and pulled out of the crash.

Donnie says don't show your buck. But just like tips and stuff. We're always learning. Yeah, yeah, we'll. We don't, we don't hide, hide our methods here.

We're.

We believe in full transparency. If you want to know how to build a boat, if we have time, we'll help you. You know, we'll. We'll do what we can. So Leo John Waite says, what hunts do you do in the fall? Last fall, none. We were too busy last fall. We didn't hunt one bit. We have been. Nick and I have been hunting in Oklahoma about an hour and a half from here. Yeah, we've had a lot of fun there. We, we don't go on a lot of hunts. You know, I'm raising four kids and Nick is raising a cat. So I don't know at this point in my life, you know, raising the Family. I really. I just don't have a lot of time.

So apparently the audio is cutting in and out.

The audio is not doing good.

No.

Let's see.

Beautiful red cedar. Yeah, that is. Hello from Germany. Hey, Germany. We sell a lot of boats to Germany. Some of our favorite customers. I personally, I love dealing with the German people. Every business transaction Bo I've sold to Germany has been extremely pleasant experience. So we really love you guys over there in Germany. David Hargit says, what's the quality, quantity of different models you offer? We have 14 different series right now, so we're gonna add a couple more here. John says your bow is a beauty. Well, thank you. Nick glued it up for me. Jacob says, sorry if you have told the story before, but how did you guys learn to make bows and start working together? Well, we still really don't know how to work together very well.

Yeah, I just show up.

We don't play well with others. Yeah, no, we work. We're. We do very well.

We're.

We're good friends. It is. I don't. We. We run this live stream for an hour. So we got 15 minutes left, and I don't. Don't have enough time to get into it, but you can hear my story. There's two different podcasts that they've interviewed me on, and one is the Stiffo podcast, and the other one, oh, man, I'm drawing a blank. What was the other one?

Chronicles or Bow Hunting Chronic?

Bow Hunting Soul. Yeah, Bow Hunting Soul Hunting Soul. And so you can go to those two. The Bow Hunting Soul or Stick Bow Chronicles or Stick Bow Something. Yeah. And you can hear my story on there because I don't have time to tell it tonight. Bill Swanson says, I really like the Blackhawk I got from you guys. Nice, Bill. Well, thank you. It makes me really happy that you like it. It always, always makes me happy. My total goal is for you guys to have a good experience and to get a bow from us that is comfortable, something that. It's Sunday afternoon and you think about shooting your bow and you're excited to shoot your bow. And if you don't have that, if you get a Great Plains bow and it's not that kind of experience, let us know. Call us. And we may need to trade you out with a different model that. That suits you better. But we want everybody to. To have their archery experience to be amazing. That's our whole goal. Donny says, what's your best all around bow hunting? What's your best all around bow hunting? 3D and target indoor. That's a good question.

B model one piece. The longbow, not the one piece recurve. And not to be confused with B model three piece.

I think that would depend on whether you were a longbow guy or a recurve guy. And so I'm gonna break it up into two categories. If you are a longbow guy, that's going to be our reflex deflex longbow or our B model longbow. If you are a recurve guy, I'm gonna have to say probably the Swift three piece. What do you think.

If you didn't have the target in there?

I'd say yeah, the target in there.

The B model just in like a 62. Because that gets you into the target.

The B model three piece. Yeah, because then. Sorry about all the B models here.

Or maybe the B model one piece. Because the B model.

Well, if you didn't have to hunt.

Because the B model one piece is a little louder. But the B model three piece, if. If it was one bow and you could just have one bow and you had to shoot all kinds of stuff with.

Yeah. If you could only have one, One great plains bow for you, what would it be?

It would be a B model three piece.

For me, that would be the. The Swift three piece. So I think. I think there you have it. That. That's a pretty good example of. There's a certain element of personal opinion there.

A trad bow is supposed to be an extension of yourself.

Yeah.

And so if it doesn't fit you, then we build another model that you gotta try.

That's exactly right. So I think if I was going to choose for me, it would be the Swift three piece wreaker.

But here I picked the B model just because of how tough that thing is.

Yeah, that thing's.

Yeah.

Bomb proof.

I've seen one strung. Fall off a table, unstring its.

And not even have a twist in it. Yeah. But then you. You know, but sometimes it does that and there's a twist. Yeah. So you got to be. You got to be full transparency. Yeah. You know, so. David Moore says hello from Mississippi. Again, enjoyed your last live stream. Hey, thanks for joining us again. Johnny says the Swift is definitely good backs and quiet. Thank you. John Jones. Esther Swift one piece. Yeah, that's. That's right. Nick doesn't care for that one, but to me, that. That's right up there. That would probably be my second choice. The Swift, the. The full size forward handle. We don't have one because we don't Keep. It's really hard to keep when we.

Say when we're doing in stocks. That's like the last one I glue up. Just because.

Because he doesn't like building them.

Takes the riser on them is what, 23 inch?

Let me go get the first template.

Yeah, yeah.

So the temp.

The block on it is about that.

Big.

And it's about that wide one. It's all glued up and it gets carved down into a riser. It's a. It takes forever to glue the thing up. And the forms, the form is really nice, but the amount of wood that it takes to put together.

Yeah, it is a chunk of wood. This is the cap for it right here. Check this out.

Like I was saying, it's about that big.

Yeah. This is the cap for it. And then the grip. So this is, this is the piece. This would be like this right here. Of course, this is a couple steps down the road. No.

Other way.

We don't even know how to build.

Our own boat because there's the cap.

Yeah, that's right. That runs. Yeah, that's right. So it's. So this is after one of the grinds, but it is a chunk of wood and it eats up so.

So much material.

It eats up a lot of material. So you know, when you're building out of exotic woods, you're always cutting around imperfections. So. And you're cutting around checks and cracks and knots and unstable parts of the wood. And when you have to glue up a riser this size and most of.

The stuff that we're doing on those caps isn't a synthetic cap of some sort. It's not FR4. It's normally a rosewood. And rosewoods always split out if they sit for very long.

Well, rosewood is pretty stable, but yeah, yeah, they're.

Yeah, it's. You're cutting around splits. And the worst part is on a block that size, you start cutting into it, there's a likelihood that you find a crack that's on the inside of that block that you didn't even know was there.

And then after you put your clamps.

On it to glue that, that riser together, about halfway through, that internal crack ends up splitting and then you're back to square one.

Then I hear mutterings and murmurings from the glue up side of the shop. Yeah. So Daniel said, when you turned out that 110 pound boat into a crossbow, that was pretty cool. Cool but terrifying. More videos like that would be awesome. One day I'll get a B model. One piece. I just Gotta save money. Yeah, I. We want to do more videos like that. Grab your compound that you bought. 20 bucks. We're gonna do a. We have so many video ideas. Oh, wow. But anybody that's a youtuber knows the amount of time it takes. It takes to. To film and edit. So we just. We don't have the time. But we're gonna get to them. It'll just be one at a time. But what we got. Nick and I were on a business trip here the other day, and two months ago. Wow. Two months? No, it's about.

Yeah, about a month.

And we went into this sort of pawn shop like place, and they had this old compound bow. It was not a bow shop. This was like. Was actually a used sports gear. And what did they say? They had this thing for five years?

Yeah, something like that.

Yeah. Nobody had any interest in it whatsoever. I mean, this is an old psc. Is it psc? What is this thing? Yeah, psc. Psc. Compound boat. And so Nick was like, well, I.

Saw it there and I thought, okay, that is before compounds weren't bows anymore. This is that. Right, that's that in between where. Yeah, it's still a bow. And I was like, okay, they can't be asking very much for it. So I just asked.

What.

What are you guys asking for this? And guys, like, 20 bucks. Cool.

Yeah. So what we're gonna do, we're gonna do a pretty cool video with this.

Convert it to a recurve bow.

But the first thing we're gonna do, which is gonna be pretty fascinating, we're gonna hang this thing up on our.

Target and to de string it, I don't want to be anywhere near it when it unstrings. And so my first thought was, I just want to dry fire it until it blows up. And then I thought, you know, that's a bad idea. So we're gonna de string it by setting it in our target, and I'm gonna shoot broadheads at it to cut one of those strings.

Yeah. Because we don't need these limbs. Yeah. We have no use for them. We do need this riser, but this riser is bomb proof. But we're gonna. We're gonna. We're gonna shoot a broadhead at this thing and see what happens. Will the limbs explode? Maybe. We don't know. But then what we're gonna do is. You could see it's almost like an ilf. And so of you guys, there's been talk about this in some of the pages, but if you look there, it's almost like an ilf. So what we're going to do is we're going to fit recurve limbs into that pocket and we're going to do. We're going to make a video and we're going to make a recurve out of this bow. And the first thing we're going to do is we're going to shoot this thing with a broadhead and we're just going to see what happens. It'll be pretty interesting. Yeah.

And at the end of the day, if it doesn't work out. Oh no, it's 20 bucks and.

Oh no, we lost 20 bucks.

Yeah. Made a cool video.

Yeah. So. So, David Williams, Love your videos. Do you have a set price for reworks or is it based on the amount of work needed? We do kind of have a set price, David, for a weight reduction and refinish is 200. That's kind of the base price. If you're just getting a refinish and it's pretty straightforward. And it's not like a three piece. I'll refinish like a longbow for a hundred dollars. But then if there's repairs then I have a price per repair and it goes up. So it's. But, but our set price for weight reduction and refinish is 200 plus shipping. So you're looking at. For a one piece you're looking about at 240. For a three piece you're looking at about 235.

And the more because it's cheaper to get to it.

Yeah.

We have to charge for the hours it takes.

You occasionally mention FR4, I think, Rogers. What is that, I may ask.

So FR4 is a fiberglass micarta and it's. It's like linen phenolic, except tighter linen. It's like G10 but a tighter weave.

Yes. So just imagine it's technically, it's a newer version of G10. It's basically G10.

We have a video on our YouTube channel where we shot it with all.

Kinds of different calibers of rifles and handguns. And two inches of it will stop.

300 win mag.

Yeah. It's incredible stuff. Yeah, it really is.

It's amazing stuff.

Yeah. John Jones says you could just run the limb bolts out on the compound. Probably. Yeah.

But that's not as much fun.

We could. Yeah, no, we could do that and.

Then I'd still have compound limbs for it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But no, I've got another compound that's about like it.

Just want to see what happens. Too, though. Yeah.

About three minutes left.

Three minutes. Okay. Terry says, I just want to say I totally respect how you just show everything you do and tell how like it is. I appreciate that. We. And then. And also, Terry, what we're. We're going to be. You're going to be seeing a lot of Amazon reviews of cheap bows. Now, we are buying all these boats, so they're not sending us these boats. And we're gonna. We are going to be a hundred percent transparent on these reviews. So if there's something we do not like, we're going to say it. If we. If we like it, if we love it, if it shoots as good as one of mine, I'm going to say it. We're going to say it.

We've got one in right now that we're about to review that we unboxed.

And shot a little bit.

Yeah, it's. And it's a. It's one of the better selling ones out there.

And we. It is.

We are very far from impressed with it.

It is terrible.

Because the big worry is on these reviews, we want to make sure that people know from a bowyer's perspective if it's a good bow or not. Because if it's a terrible bow and this is somebody's first experience in the traditional archery, the likelihood that they get it and their equipment's just bad enough that whether or not they can shoot even halfway decent isn't even part of the equation.

Yeah, they're going to just drop it. They're going to be like, well, I tried that and it was no fun. Terrible experience. So we want to eliminate those terrible experiences for people so that they get a good bow the first time they buy one. So we got a few more questions. We got like a minute left.

Oh, we can go longer.

Yeah, maybe a little bit. Chaz says back to the old pse. Old compounds make great recurves I island plates or mill color Wharf A warp that. Did you know that term?

I did not know that term.

Interesting.

But we do have a mill. We have a mill.

Oh, yeah.

But I wonder how close to a B model limb pad that is, because I was looking at that.

I wonder what wharf stands for. Maybe. Great. Called a wharf, huh? That's interesting. David said those are fair prices. Thanks for the information. You are welcome. Jim says turnaround time on a black hunter rework. Guys, at this time, I'm not taking reworks because we are just booked up completely full on them right now. I do apologize for that. I hate to say that part of it's my pride because I really wanted to be the guy that fixes everybody's bow. But at some point you have to, you have to realize your own limitations and you have to take a step back. And I'm, I've got piles of them right now to rework and to reduce and to repair. So I, I just simply can't take anymore right now looking at what, another.

Month of hammering through all of them.

Well, at least or more just for our rework. So, so that's where we are right now. If you need help, if you want to try it on your own and you need help, give me a call, text me, I'll walk you through it. If you want to attempt it on your own, I will be taking them again at some point, but right now I'm not taking any.

So I may do some of the black hunters and batch depending on how, how this little side project goes. But I won't be doing them custom. I'll be doing, I'll order 10 or so in, you hammer through them and they'll be first come, first serve on probably Shane's Facebook or the Great Plains face.

But guys, seriously, you, there is some things you can do to your black hunters or to your cheap bows and, and that are not complicated.

And we've got a full video series.

On step by and you can do it yourself. And, and if you need help, call us.

And on Amazon right Now they're like 70 something if you can find them on sale 70 to 80 somewhere there. If, if you destroy a $70 bow. But you learned a lot in it. I've learned a lot of lessons that cost a lot more than 70 bucks that were a lot less useful. Yeah.

I mean if nothing else, you're going to get your hands dirty and you're going to learn a lot more about bow building, about bow reworks and you're going to have fun doing it and you're not going to lose a lot of money. So. Yeah. So we're going to wrap this up, guys. We'll be doing another one in a month. So tell your friends and your buddies, appreciate everybody that watch and you have questions for the next one, remember and write them down. And we'll keep plugging away here and appreciate every one of you guys.

And if every time we post a video, if you send it to 10 of your friends and they send it to 10 of their friends and everybody subscribes, our channel will grow massively in a month.

Yeah. Which would be awesome. Yeah. Which would be awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Goal is what?

20,000 by the end of the year.

That's a good goal.

Yeah.

All right, guys, we will catch you next live stream. Or you can call the shop and we'll talk to you and chat on the phone. Catch you next time.