A Visit to Howard Hill Archery

 

I suppose most of us who are really interested in Howard Hill bows have dreamed of one day visiting the Howard Hill Archery shop. This spring, circumstances came together to make it possible for me to do just that.

One of my favorite traditional 3D shoots is the Sun Basin Shoot, which is held in the dry sagebrush and mesa country of Eastern Washington, just north of Moses Lake, about 175 miles from Seattle. . Going to this shoot put me about 1/3 of the way to Hamilton, MT, home of Hill Archery. This is always a great shoot, and it was the official start of this adventure, so we'll start with that.

The Sun Basin Shoot is terribly hard on arrows, being in lava rock country. Here's a look at some scenes from that shoot; you'll see what I mean:

 

 

Typical upthrust rock mesa... note the regular shapes of the columns. Also note the rocks around that Cheetah... any miss at this shoot, even into what looks like dirt, can end up with a broken tip when the arrow hits either a visible or a buried rock.

 

At some time in the geologic past, some of the volcanic eruptions threw pieces of those stone columns very long distances. You find sections of hexagonal rock columns lying all by themselves far from the mesa upthrusts they came from. It's hard to imagine them being thrown through the air, and you can just be glad you weren't around when they came down!

 

Here's a particularly large, nicely formed piece.

 

In the interest of supporting arrowmaking in general, the shoot sponsors (Traditional Bowhunters of Washington - TBW) are very considerate in the placement of their targets.... This guy is an uphill shot at a steep angle (even standing on the spot is difficult!) and about 35 yards.

 

Wild men in the rocks!!!

 

 

Oh, yeah... remember that Cheetah standing in front of the rock upthrust? Heh, heh, heh...

 

 

I broke 11arrows this trip (though one of those was a Robin Hood!). I did get that mountain goat 3 times out of four shots. Overall, I did much better than last year, when this was the first archery event i attended after starting to shoot. This year, after the first day, I shot all targets from the full distance, and made myself shoot with groups I knew were darn good shots. These two things probably helped with my broken arrow count, but pushing yourself is a good thing, I'm told.

Anyway, as I said, Moses Lake is about 1/3 of the distance from Seattle to Hamilton, MT and I figured if I was that close, why not go the rest of the way. Of course, having a new bow to pick up helped to make that decision easy.

I left the shoot site at noon on Sunday, April 22 and drove through to Missoula, MT. I was a real mess after four days of camping out in the mesas, eating dust and smoking cigars. (Yeah, I do have fun when I get out to shoots!). I took a motel, cleaned up and slept and the next morning, took my time about getting a good breakfast and getting the van thoroughly washed and vacuumed, then I drove the forty miles down to Hamilton, pulling in at the shop at noon.

Craig Ekin, the owner and bowyer for Hill Archery, is obviously a very busy man but was extremely gracious about taking the time to show me around and explain things, as well as letting me take lots of pictures. I'm sure I'll never look at a Hill bow quite the same again. Every one I see I'll picture going through its own creative process in the Hill shop. I hope that by sharing these pictures with you, I can share some of that experience.

Craig's father and uncle were partners with Howard Hill in the original Hill archery business. Eventually, Craig's father moved the bow building to Hamilton and continued until his passing. Craig's mother continued the business by subcontracting the bowyer work to such folks as John Schulz, Ted and Lee Kramer and Tim Meigs. Eventually, Craig took over and has been building the bows for a long time now. If you are interested in the history of Hill Archery, I do recommend that you get Craig's book, "Howard Hill, the Man and the Legend".

Let's get on to the part you've been waiting for... the birthplace of your Howard Hill bow....

 

 

Here's the van, pulled up at the shop.

 

The first thing I noticed was all those crates piled up...

 

Yep, you guessed it. These are the crates that the bamboo comes to Craig in.

 

The shop is a separate building just down a hill from this one, which is both home and office. Home is upstairs and the downstairs is devoted to arrow making and the office and business side of things. You can see the landing and steps that lead down to the shop.

 

 

Steps going down, again. The actual entrance to the shop is in the middle of the building here, rather than at the end where I parked.

 

Just an "establishing shot", as they say in the movie trade... Yes, we are in Montana, and this is the view from the hill the shop is on, across the valley to the mountains.

And the "official" entrance, complete with sign...

 

 

Here's the view that greets you when you come into the shop. It's a large space, extremely well organized and very clean for a working shop ("Ask me what my basis for comparison is", he said, blushing...) The tools are well spread out, with plenty of working space around each one.

 

 

 

Montana winters being what they are, this is an important part of the operation... the stove. Note the workbench and vise. Take down sleeve work was being done here while I was there.

 

Looking to the other end of the shop... The crates contain "working wood", laminations of bamboo ready to be used. The bamboo comes in the form of long sections of the bamboo trunk. The nodes and the corners of the curved edges are sanded or planed off to produce a flat piece and then the flat pieces are tapered to their ends.

 

As I said, the organization is impressive... here is a wall rack with all of the glass flats waiting to be used.

 

This is a group of the bows currently in process. They've been glued up but shaping has not started yet. Note that one is a take down and one is a reflex/deflex Badger.

 

Strings hand on their own rack, sorted by length.

 

I meant to ask more about this rack... these bows have obviously been partially shaped, but still need some work.

 

Here are four bows that look like they're ready for final polishing and finishing.

 

I almost didn't include this photo, so it's out of order, but if your eyes are good, there is a piece of the raw bamboo sitting on this bench. The dark stripe is its shadow from the overhead light. Obviously, yellow bamboo on a yellow plywood surface didn't show up well, but if you work at it you can see the raw curved bamboo piece here, with the nodes still on it. Judging by the curve and width of this piece, the bamboo stalk would have had to be about 8 to 10 inches in diameter.

 

 

Under the bench is a pile of antlers. If you wondered where your reinforced tips came from....

 

 

Behind the main workroom, visible through the door on the left, is the wood room. Here are billets of all kinds of wood, for risers and for some of the laminations.

 

Various riser woods...

 

 

 

This is all yew wood blanks. Not shown, but behind that rack of partially finished bows aways back, there is a separate closet full of similar blanks of cedar for Cheetahs.

 

 

Not shown is the spraying room, which was empty at this time. Here you see the dipping and drying room for the arrow making. I hadn't shown him yet, but that's Craig.

 

This room fascinated me. That's the metal shaping machine on which they make the Howard Hill broadheads. I'd love to watch that operation!

 

After touring the shop, we went up to the other building to visit the office. Here's the office. Bear in mind that this first floor of the building is essentially one large room, with areas devoted to different purposes.

 

 

This is Craig's son Jason's area. Jason loves to make arrows and deal with people from the office, while Craig prefers to be in the shop making bows, so that is their division of labor. You're looking at a wheel of 36 Bitzenbergers here. Behind this wheel, on the far wall, are stock bins of various items the company offers, like gloves, broadheads, books, videos, photos, etc, plus the bins of shafts for Jason's work.

I never got a picture of Jason... he was on the move the whole time I was there. As I said, this is a busy operation.

 

 

From this point, pictures are of Hill memorabilia that Craig shared with me.

 

 

Top bow is one of Howards. It is rather English in shape... traditional "D" rather than flat belly'ed. The lower two bows are two very slim flat blows, "Yellowjacket" and "Wasp", that Howard made for Craig's mother and father.

 

 

Craig holding up the buckskin pants Howard wore in the filming of his movie "the Last Wilderness". Note: Craig is not a short man! Look where the waist on these pants comes. Also note that when a young man, Howard must have been pretty slim as well as tall.

 

 

The shirt that went with the pants. Note that the arm guard is built in as part of the sewn buckskin sleeve.

 

This is a fascinating item... a fletching jig that Howard built in the 1940's when he was working as a machinist. It has 8 stations or clamps and is made of a hard wood, looks like teak, and brass.

 

Here's a closer view of the jig. As you can see, it was for straight fletch feathers. If you look closely, you can see the notch for the shaft just to the left of the clamp, and the indexing rotators below for the nocks.

 

The famous python that Howard shot, and a set of buffalo horns. The room here is a den behind the office.

 

Here is Craig holding one of Howard's elephant tusks.

 

 

And an elephant foot basket... Not politically correct today, of course, but a standard part of processing the trophy in those days. Surprisingly, it's very hairy, but the stiff hairs are fine enough and spaced far enough apart that you have to get very close and look carefully to see them. You can feel them if you brush your hand over the surface, though.

 

 

Needless to say, I could have spent the full day, maybe two, and asked many more detailed questions than I did. However, as I said, Craig is a busy guy. We were interupted by numerous phone calls. At a couple of points, Jason or another employee checked on something, etc. Incidentally, Craig doesn't like the phone... doesn't have one in the shop. He'd rather be working on the bows. When the phone rings, it's usually answered up in the house and if the call is deemed important enough, they call him out of the shop and have him come up.

I wish I'd taken more pictures in the lower level of the house... stock bins with all the Howard Hill Archery items... gloves, pictures, broadheads, etc. There were huge supplies of shafts, sorted by weight, for Jason to use in arrow making. The thing that really kind of overwhelmed me though, and for some reason i never took a picture, was a large standing horizontal rack of finished bows. I was throughly awed... here were samples of each of the Howard Hill special editions, plus Craig's own bow (a Halfbreed), numerous other bows that were just "there"... some were ordered and never claimed, others were made because Craig wanted to try them, and a goodly number were finished bows waiting to be shipped. Ooops... what's this little 60" take down Redman, ebony riser and tips, 48# @ 25"? Say, didn't I order something like that?

Yeah... you know I did...

 

 

Here it is on Black Velvet... I'll drink to that! For those who are not Hill aficionados, the Redman is four laminations of yew.

 

 

These next few are of the bow sitting on top of Ann's cherry wood harpsichord... Gosh... it may have to live there!

 

 

 

 

 

 

So there you have the lastest of my little adventures. I left Craig's Monday afternoon and drove straight through to Seattle, 600 and some miles... a very long drive for me. I really enjoyed the whole trip... a great shoot, a great chance to get away for a few days and a real thrill to see where the bows I enjoy so much are made.

 

Dick Wigtman