How many horn bowyers are there in the world?

So, how many horn bowyers are there in the world? Or how many have done a horn bow or some kind of composite bow? Or, how many professionals are there in the world? How many in Korea, for example? Or Europe?

For example, in Finland I know three people, who has made a real (with animal glue) horn bow.

Worldwide? I’d guess a couple thousand composite bowyers, including those who have made only one. Maybe another 500-100 who have tried and failed to successfully make a composite.

I would guess less than 100
and just one or two dozen who made many good hornbows

How about Korea, which has long horn bow tradition? Is making horn bows dying skill or are there still professional bowyers? Or other countries?

Wood-horn-sinew bowmaking is a dying art, for the most part. Certainly in the cultures and countries we most associate with those weapons – China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Hungary, Turkey.

In retrospect, I think my initial estimates are far too high. There are probably more than Uli estimates; and most of those are, I think, American and Central European makers, not Asian.

My estimate would be similar as Uli’s. If there was more, i would guess they would find their way into here or facebook. But since its pretty quiet, it seems there is very few. Making hornbows is harder than it seems… And it seems very complicated!! :smiley:

Many times we hear Chinese bowyers are very limited with their access to websites, especially to facebook. And there are rumours China has a lot of bowyers.

I would guess 100 or so. I broke 5 before making that first sucessful one :slight_smile: It is still shooting perfectly. When you finally get it right - its a great feeling to know that it will still be shooting long after i’m gone. A hornbow may take a lot of work but they can be shot for a very long time if looked after properly. My desire to make wooden bows took a distinct backseat once I got the hang of the hornbows :slight_smile:

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Welcome Mike to the new forum!

I 100% agree with you. I still make some wood bows, but don’t end up with shooting any of those that much… Only if we are shooting traditional english target shooting 40y-100y, then i’ll use a hide glue perry reflex wood laminate. It still has some force, but shortbows… no no.

By the way, since you spend some time in primitivearcher, is it possible to set an announcement there about this new atarn forum? Or are even forum links banned?