It's been a while in the making, but I'm due to get my latest back quiver finished this evening. It's the Alberta Traditional Bowhunter Association annual Heritage Classic shoot this weekend, and I wanted to take a new quiver with me.
Last year I had my John Schulz quiver, so it was only fitting that this year, I should take Howard Hill along.
I had completely reprogrammed my original pattern ( big mistake!) as I wasn't happy with the hole alignment along the sides. This time the holes line up perfectly, but I made a school boy error. I set the dimensions based on the original source material, and forgot the fact that I had reduced the height of the Schulz quiver, to better suit my draw length. The result of this oversight was the fact that this new quiver is actually 2.5" too tall :-(.
I don't like having my fletchings actually in the quiver, so quick little programme on the CNC router table, and I was able to machine a "false bottom" out of heigh density foam, which in effect, raised the bottom of the quiver the required amount.
The second blunder I made was doing leatherwork at 3.00am, when I'd already worked a 12 hour day. Made a stupid mistake of cutting leather with the wrong tools, and totally messed up the cut. I literally stopped work on this project for a few months then. Didn't want anything to do with it. Came up with a solution of putting a band across the top, but this wasn't in my original plan.
It's not my best work, but it will last the weekend, then it gets retired.
Artwork is based on the famous photograph of Hill. Permission to used the image was sought, and obtained from copywrite holder in December of last year. I have Hill's signature on my copy of Hunting The Hard Way, so I just digitized it.
It's 9-10 oz premium Oak Leaf leather and Kodiak lacing. The arrows are the new Gold Tip Traditional Classic, with old school grey, green and yellow barred feathers, burnt to a 5.5" high back shield profile
