Stuart Johnstone is a furniture maker by trade, but a passionate collector-user-restorer of recurve bows. Johnstone’s first bow was a Lemon Wood Flat Bow, made by his father when he was in first grade. He shot that bow until he was in fifth grade when he obtained a store bought how of heavier draw weight. A few years later he purchased his first recurve, a Tri State “Jaguar”, 54 inch, 45 pounds, which he used for small game hunting. As with most teenagers, his interests changed to cars and girls; there was no more Archery for almost four decades.
Many years later, while in a secondhand shop, he found and bought another old Lemon Wood Flat Bow. A subsequent purchase of some arrows rekindled his interests in Archery and soon he was competing in target Archery, buying bows, and reading everything he could find about the sport of Archery; how to shoot, the history of Archery, and the manufacturing of Archery equipment.
Since 2000, Stuart has competed at both regional and national levels events, winning over 100 traditional events. Along the way, he has won Gold at the national level in Olympic Recurve, and has set state and east coast records. He still shoots in Archery club leagues, coaches Archery enthusiast and of course practices regularly.
Buying, selling and restoring bows are a natural extension of his primary work as a master furniture restorer at Wicopi Studios. It is his hope that anyone who owns a vintage ear bow will preserve and shoot it. Bows of this type will never be made again and should be preserved for posterity.
In 2017, he published “The Golden Age of Recurves – Target Bows of the 1960’s & 1970’s.” While many books have been done about Archery, its history, the mechanics of shooting, the competitive and mental game, hunting, equipment and making of it, Johnstone’s book focuses on recurve target bows of the early 1960’s and the mid 1970’s, a time period that could be called the Golden Age of Recurves.
It was during that time that recurve bows came into their own, the precursor of today’s modern recurve bows. The book is a pictorial showcase of bows of the time period and gives a brief overview of how the recurve came to be and its particular attributes.
Johnstone will be on hand for both days of the show, discussing the refurbishing of recurve bows. He will also have copies of both publications available for sale.
