Jaap Koppedrayer

Yes, I have a bow from Jaap. His bows are technically very good. His 'classic' form is the Japanese yumi, and all his other bows are somewhat influenced by yumi bow construction. He does not try to imitate 'classic' cultural bows, but does a form of 'fusion cuisine', combining interesting features from different cultures.

The bow he made for me was based on the Ming bows of China, but heavily lacquered with Urushi to withstand the damp climate in Hong Kong.

S

I have shot with Jaap and watched his bows in action. It is exactly as Stephen says. He makes bows using a Japanese technique. His composite bows perform well and seem very tough. He made a light Turkish style bow that shot very well in Utah at the flight shoot. He really experiments with combining different ideas. He is very passionate, dedicated bow maker.

Jaap is a world class bowyer. He is an specialist yumi maker, one of the few top makers outside Japan and probably the only one that can make an urushi yumi, shiget? yumi/shisoku-ky?' or s?i-ky?'/shichi-go-san-t?-yumi exactly to your specifications. I have two of them and they are excellent and not as expensive as buying them from Japan. They aren't cheap either but if you want the best you have to pay. He's qualified working with urushi, something not common to find outside Japan.
He also makes horn bows. Though I don't have experience with them, I heard good things about them.
Like Stephen and Bede said, he makes bows based on the yumi style but shorter and suited to the modern archer. He calls them South Indian style bows, I believe.
One last thing, besides his main field (bamboo bows and composite horn bows) he also offer glass backed bows if needed (probably for flight shooting)
Maybe it's not a good idea to contact him now because he was hired again for making bows for a movie. He must be quite busy.
Well, It looks like I work at marketing on his company! Just I consider him as a friend.

well, the thing is, is that he told me that I should come visit him to see the bows he is making for the movie, because I want to buy his asiastic chinese/mongolian bow. It looks like a chinese bow but with shorter ears, and is shorter like a mongol bow. He also said he is making arrows for the movie, so he can show me how to make bamboo arrows as well, without me having to buy some for him to show me. So I am going to go in May or June.

Do you have pictures of these bows?

Ni hao Mongolianarcher

I also have a nice South Indian bow from Jaap, beautiful decorated, also with Urushi.

Since I live I China and here it is impossible to get good maple (and after some failures with hard rock maple from the Black Forest) I asked Jaap for his advice. He builds all the cores for horn bows like the ones for Yumi's. For horn bows there is a handle (maple), two Yumi-like limbs and spliced in Siyahs.

Three weeks ago I finished my Yumi horn bow. Now it is drying. Have a look of attached picture about the limbs. Two pieces of hard wood and three, four pieces of bamboo.

He also stated that the bow he used for flight shooting last year in the US was a "composite Yumi horn bow" at 40 pounds only but with an amazing cast and power.


Though he is very busy, it is certainly worth to contact him.

Reto

Hen hao Reto,
Thank you for your reply, and your bow looks very nice. Were in china do you live? I am learning chinese here in america and I have visited Beijing once, but it is too bad I wasnt able to see ju yuan hao with his bows. But, even though, China is a beautiful country, and it is very cheap for an american to stay there. I plan on visiting on my own time instead of my visit with my school class mates. But I have a question on arrows. This question goes to all people,

Where can I get good goose or swan feathers. Remember I am an american and live in Florida so I will have to deal with shipping. Also, how can I make sure my arrows dont cut my hand when I shoot off my hand?

When shooting with the thumb draw you should have no problem with arrows catching your hand on release if your nocking point is sufficiently high enough - i.e. slightly above the 90 deg, say some 1/4" or maybe a bit higher.

Okay thanks Ashbow, but what are some things I can do with my arrows to prevent cutting my hand as well, and how can I get swan and/or goose feathers to my home in Florida?

At ebay sometimes, anyone offers feathers, I bougth 18 feather from a scotsman who claimed to have picked them selves - on the beach.

well! the best solution is to fletch without stem.... you know, just strip the feather rather then cut it...
that won't cut your hand at all...

Okay yokhua but what do you do with the other feather that is on the quill/stem after you take one of them off? Also was that a qing style feather, because that looked very long, and why was it so close to the nock?

Lucas;
I do made another arrow by using the feather on the other side. much narrower of course.
See if I can find a picture. The styly is not Qing, it is a copy from a 15 century Persian painting. So close to the nock indeed.


p.S. mine is a bit longer then original..


Jang,Yuua

The best way to prevent the feathers from cutting your bow hand thumb is to relax the thumb. Then you can nock as low as 90 degrees to the string. I was doing this on the weekend with arrows that had high fletched turkey feathers in the cross-section of a "Y". The feather parallel to the string was facing down. The only marks on my thumb were from the dirt the arrows had picked up in the previous shots.

The other suggestions about feathers will make superior arrows and reduce the deflection caused by the base of the quill. As mentioned before, nocking low is always a problem. There are some old references to doing this, but I don't know anyone who likes the results.

So we have Portal fan's in this forum? :shock:
Can yumi be made of normal wood? I think it can be made.
Not very strong and probably not very fast but that bloody
curve... that female curve of yumi are simple to hard to
replicate... :cry: