Old Bow Rehabilitation Service- Recurves, Longbows For Sale

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Renewed interest by compound bow shooters and others is contributing to a resurgence in traditional "stick and string" archery. While the demand for traditional bows has produced a cottage industry of excellent custom bow makers (bowyers), from the 1950’s to the mid 70’s, production bow companies made many hundreds of thousands of bows, the majority of which were quality built. Many of these bows still exist in useful styles, but suffer from years of neglect. With knowledgeable work most can be returned to prized possession or even collectible status as well as provide a low cost way to take up on the renewed interest in traditional archery.

For $80.00 plus actual mailing costs, I will re-furbish your vintage bow. After receipt and inspection of the bow, if additional work is called for, Iprovide a specific quote for your approval before work commences.

The photos are some random before and after projects, not all in correct order plus a few that I forgot the "before" shots. See if you can detect all the matches.

TESTIMONIALS:

I love it Rick...once again very nice looking work- BowDoc

Awsome Job!- Buzz

Very good looking Super-K Yorktown- Oldbow

That Bear "76er" is on the way to yorktown to work his magic on. If it turns out half as good as that Bear Mag Riser she will be a looker.- Shep

Rick, You should put these on another site where I started a thread. Nice work by the way. Grouseshooter002

I wish I were that skilled. Nice job!- Blackstick

I like it, nice job. –bowbuck

You did an amazing restoration job. Beautiful bow.- Raven

Beautiful work Rick- Frank "Aspirinbuster" Addington

I'd use Rick again in a New York minute. Very pleased.- Stickshooter

Click "Buy It Now". You MAY optionally choose to "Pay Now" via PayPal, but pre-payment is not required. HOWEVER, IF YOU USE THE BUY-IT-NOW FEATURE YOU MUST COMPLETE THE TRANSACTION. OTHERWISE I AM CHARGED FOR THE SALE REGARDLESS OF WHETHER YOU FOLLOW THROUGH, THANKS. Use "Ask Seller a Question" for any queries AND to provide your e-mail address and/or phone number. I will respond with mailing instructions and hold the invoice as "open". (See Shipping) On receipt of the bow, I will advise if the basic re-hab is sufficient, OR if additional work is needed and will quote for your approval before beginning. If the additional work quotation is unacceptable and you have included return postage with the bow, I re-package and mail back. If not, I will ask for mailing $$ via PayPal and on receipt will return the bow.

On successful completion of the work, I will advise, including photos if requested, and ask that the open invoice then be paid along with return postage. On receipt, the bow will be mailed home.

I strongly encourage mailing the bow using US Postal Service Priority Mail. Fast and cost effective, the less time the bow is in the hands of a shipper, the less chance of problems. Package the bow securely as I will use the same container to return the finished bow. Consider that on return, your bow will be more valuable and so adding postage for insurance is advised.

Unless services are pre-paid, your only initial out-of-pocket is the cost of mailing. You are notified when the bow arrives and if any extra costs are needed. Progress reports and photos are available for the asking and the PayPal invoice is held open. When the bow is nearing completion you are notified to pay the open PayPal invoice and provide return mailing funds. The bow is returned via Priority Mail, usually in the same shipping box as received.

My name is Michael (Rick) Rappe', and am known across the Net and various chat rooms by the handle Yorktown5. For over 40 years I have had both the hobby and part time business of gun restoration, bamboo rod building and repair.

After buying and rehabilitating a number of bows for personal use and resale by using techniques used with gunstocks and bamboo rods; I realized that there were solutions I learned in the past that were readily transferred to old bows, some not currently in use by anyone else to my knowledge. Use of these techniques along with some economies of scale by working on multiple specimens simultaneously, and I am able to offer a "fix-up" service for far less than a stand alone full strip and restore project.

In the bamboo collector world especially, a debate continues about the difference between a refinish and a true restoration. It should be obvious that a bow that cannot be distinguished from factory new is worth more than one that was re-done without consideration of correct details. However "As New" is not always possible, for example when there are missing factory labels and no reproductions are available.

To avoid controversy, I try and bypass use of either term refinish or restore. Instead, I refer to my service as rehabilitation and the completed bow as "originalish" or if the owner asks for modifications from original, as "custom". Given the condition of the bow before I begin, it may end up looking "like new", but in general, I describe my service as taking a neglected and abused bow and returning a well cared for shooter/collector.

Yes, I occasionally buy beat up specimens for re-hab then re-sale. As a lefty, I'm particularly interested in left hand models, and usually have a few tuned up just waiting to be adopted. Inquire.

I encourage queries via the "Ask Seller a Question" method, but I also ask that you refrain from "I want to do this myself...how do I? questions." Frankly, if you are handy, steel wool, furniture stripper, sandpaper and varnish will usually improve the looks of an old bow. And while there are no true secrets, I and others who do such work have our own proprietary methods that were arrived at after a lot of trial and error that we would prefer to keep private. It is that experience and expertise as much as the actual labor that you are purchasing.

That said, here are answers to a few FAQs

-Depending on work load, turnaround is typically about two weeks.

-My service is seldom a full strip of all finish resulting in a complete do-over. Often, I am refinishing the finish, which is one factor in keeping the labor hours down.

-No, there can be no repair guarantees. I can certainly guarantee your bow will be better looking after a re-hab, but fixing split fiberglass or limb delaminations for example, there is no guarantee that whatever caused the failure might not be ready to happen at another place on the bow. We are after all referring to 30-60 year old bows with no control over the conditions under which they've spent the last decades. That said, the majority of these bows were quality constructed, and if a bow has survived this long, the odds are strongly in favor of more generations of good service.

-No, making money by purchasing beat up bows and paying someone else to fix up is not probable. Many very useful bows in good condition have a market value under $100.00. While there are exceptions, the math just doesn't often work out. Do this to give yourself a great shooting bow at a great price, or to preserve a family heirloom. If you turn a profit, good for you, just don't expect it.

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