This is a "good news - bad news" story.   I have been experimenting with having Craig build me Hill bows that aren't in the catalog.  I wanted to duplicate the early wood longbows of the fifties... the kind with no shelf that you shot off of your hand, and right or left handed made no difference.    I've had him do two.    The first one was kind of an English longbow approach to the riser.   This one is more early York or Pearson.    It just arriveds so here it is:



66" and 43#@46"  Construction is 4 lams of yew, all in front of the riser, which is a walnut/maple lam up.




Here's the riser...  no shelf, just a thong leather spiral wrap with a shim stuck in the top.   Obviously, shim can be put in either side.



The grip is very comfortable.   There is no shelf, just the thin shim of leather tucked into the top of the spiral thong wrap.   It provides an arrow height reference point and the slight swell tells your hand it's gone to the same place every time.




Heres a closeup of the riser lams and the leather shim...




and here is a20 yd. target.   I shot those three in the middle, which are great, but I sure do wish I hadn't let a passing stranger take those other two.   (That's my story and I'm sticking to it).

OK... that's the good news.    The bad news is that between the time I ordered this bow and the time it arrived, I discovered a real problem with arthritis in my shoulder and I've had to drop way down in bow weight.   I can only shoot this one a a limited number of times and it's pills and Liquid Heat time.   The first one of these two was even heavier and I've let it move on to a left handed friend. I'm going to wait till later in the year and maybe try the "no shelf" approach again, but at 30 pounds.  

Dick in Seattle

Nice bow Dick. Sorry to hear about the shoulder. I think that it was very nice of you to let a "stranger" shoot your bow, though.
Tim

nice shooting & bow...

I missed the bad news... can't you just sent it back & have him lower the weight?

Mysticquido... unfortunately no...   it was originally laid up for a higher weigt, and this is what he could get it down to after I called him mid-stream.   Just one of those things.

Dick

That looks good. So there is no glass glued up on the outside of the fadeouts? Bue--.

46" draw?