{"id":1765,"date":"2013-12-31T18:24:08","date_gmt":"2013-12-31T18:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/?p=1765"},"modified":"2017-05-23T21:37:16","modified_gmt":"2017-05-23T21:37:16","slug":"targeting-success-cameron-christian-weir-13-grey-goose-bows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/2013\/12\/31\/targeting-success-cameron-christian-weir-13-grey-goose-bows\/","title":{"rendered":"Targeting Success: Cameron Christian-Weir \u201913, Grey Goose Bows"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fascinated by the Middle Ages since he was four years old, Cameron Christian-Weir \u201913 seemed destined to attend plenty of renaissance fairs, explore details of the 100 Years Wars, and take a keen interest in archery\u2014and he did, even at a very young age. When his interest in archery was sparked again at age 15, he discovered\u2014much to his dismay\u2014that all his hand-me-down bows \u201cbounced\u201d (failed inspection). That was when he decided to start making his own.<\/p>\n

However, he found no resources on bow-making in the local library, and this was in a \u201cpre-Google\u201d day. After some time, he obtained some books, with his mother\u2019s help, from the Society for Creative Anachronism. He then sought out master bowyers to help him learn the art\u2014masters like Joe Dupree and Jaap Koppedrayer. Seeing them only once a year, Christian-Weir\u2019s proficiency increased, and he grew in his skills\u2014but refining was needed. More help came from Jay St. Charles (Seattle), whose specialty is bows made of yew, a soft evergreen tree with high resin content that makes for light wood and fast shooting.<\/p>\n

\"Cameron<\/a>
Cameron Christian-Weir ’13<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Eventually, he traveled to Wales, where he found Master Rodney Lyons (Liverpool), who provided an \u201cunofficial\u201d apprenticeship. With eight years of bow-making already under his belt, as well as certification as a cabinetmaker, Christian-Weir was able to complete a condensed and advanced version of the apprenticeship in six months, rather than the two years normally required by the Guild\u2014and he recorded every moment of the sessions digitally.<\/p>\n

Now Christian-Weir runs his own bowyer shop, Grey Goose Bows (find him on Etsy, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook: www.facebook.com\/GreyGooseBows). Most of his bows are made from hickory and exotic hard woods, though he also uses yew, wenge, purple heart, lemonwood, and osage to make self-bows (made from one piece of wood) or laminate bows (made from several woods or materials). The most challenging aspects of his work are tillering (making the bow bend correctly) and selecting\/reading the wood to avoid knots, flaws, etc. It gives him great pleasure to watch the customer\u2019s face upon first seeing the new bow and then enjoying the feel of the bow when it is drawn, then loosed (fired).<\/p>\n

While building his bowyer business, Christian-Weir also works with a security firm and is seeking a job that relates to one or both of his Augsburg majors\u2014Sociology and Medieval Studies. Attending one of Prof. Phil Adamo\u2019s Medieval Minnesota summer camps as a teenager was what led Christian-Weir to attend Augsburg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fascinated by the Middle Ages since he was four years old, Cameron Christian-Weir \u201913 seemed destined to attend plenty of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1765"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48182,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1765\/revisions\/48182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}