This may have been covered before. Just havn't seen it.
When did the takedown bows start to show up.
The first one I remeber seeing was a Ben Pearson recurve if I remeber right, that had a metal finger joint at the shelf.
As for three piece the first one I saw was the Bear that had solid fiberglass limbs that slid into a clip on the ends of the riser. It was a basic low end bow, but for me it made perfect since.
Troy
Troy try posting on the trad history forum, maybe it will get a hit :)
Kind of curious myself
I think Bob Lee developed one of the first modern 3 piece take-down bows...
I think the carriage bow, which was a take down longbow, was sometime in the 1800's.
Guy
The first production (modern) take down was a Bob Lee.
Are we sure it was not a Root?
Bill
Kind of a trick question Troy. Fred Anderson made a bow out of pick handles and a piece of pipe when he was a kid, but Ernie Root's were the first commercial ones I remember.
I believe Frank Eicholtz made a center shot, takedown longbow in the '30s, again, I don't know if he sold them commercially
Bob Lee is the credite with the first take down recurve - story goes he needed it to make travel easy. there's some videos on the Bob Lee site - i think he talks about this in one of them. He's a pioneer for sure - doesn't quite get the credit he deserves in my opinion.
mg
Looks like the debate goes on. :bigsmyl:
Just wondered when they came in to use. For the first 5-6 years of my hunting life I ever seen one. I always thought it would be nice to have a bow that would require less room in travel.
The next thing I knew it seemed like they were popping up everywhere.
Later, when I started building my own TD bows I thought it would be great to have a TD longbow.
Again, the next thing I knew they too were everywhere.
It was like, once one was out everybody (bowyer wise) had one.
Troy
Nels Grumley applied for a patent on a take down bow in 1945.
http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=14;t=005142#000000
Not sure how old Bob is but that would have him pushing 90+ pretty hard to have one before that..
However as Grey stated, they had carriage bows in the 1800's
They've been with us a long time.. Got popular in the 70's or a tad before.
Bob Lee
Well, I can only speak of when they came into play for ME.
The first time I shipped a 66" one piece to Alberta. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$!
Take down time!