Traditional bows, new format – welcome to a reboot!

I have been making traditional and historical bows for many years now. And during that time I've had a blog. As I went from just an enthusiast to someone trying to earn a living making bows, what started modestly as a way for me to share my craft and passion online eventually grew into ... something else. And it started to feel inadequate.

So I made this website and rebooted my blog here. For anyone acquainted with my old blog, one change is quite obvious. The language. I feel at home with English and since I'd like to reach more people, why not start afresh.

Another change is that I separate between my blog and my website. This wasn't possible before when I only had the blog, and everything got jumbled together in a way I didn't like. Here, on the blog, I can write freely about my discoveries and experiences, and on the rest of the site I can go all business-like. No conflict.

So what am I up to? Well, I've just got out of a strenuous period when I had to focus on other things than my bow making, and I feel a little rusty, to tell you the truth. This is the first day in over two months when I've been able to focus solely on my work, and instead of running out to the workshop with the first stave I can get my hands on, I find myself in front of the computer, hiding away a little bit from tools and wood. I need to get this thing started slowly, I feel like.

But I have a bunch of ideas! I have some boards of plum, blackthorn, lilac, ash, juniper, and bamboo that I plan to turn into some really nice laminated bows. I haven't done a whole lot of laminated bows before and look forward to getting into it more. I'm also eager to get more into warbow making. It's bad for business since they're so stiff hardly anyone can actually shot them, but they're great fun to make. Hard, hard work, but great fun. And – not least – I was given a great stack of old yew wood a while back which I haven't touched since then. And I'm thinking of getting into this thing called youtube later on. We'll see how it goes, but that's an idea floating around anyway.

So, welcome to my site and my blog! Stay tuned!

/Markus Nyström