Poor man's cordovan?
If you look back to a blog post last year, you'll find one in where I mention making your own Hill style shooting glove. I exhibit a set of instructions that were originally published in the old Longbow Digest. Following those instructions and adjusting where needed to fit your fingers and hand will provide you with a Hill style glove that will last for years.
However, some people don't feel they're all that crafty. I think that personalizing your archery gear, whether it's making bowstrings, arrows, quivers, armor gloves can really help immerse yourself into the sport in a different way.
A good way to get a high quality glove without spending as much money as buying the top dollar gloves, is to buy a EW Bateman single layer glove for around $26.00 from E.W. or 3 Rivers Archery. Shoot with it for a few hundred shots or more and get a feel for how it may need to be modified in the fingerstalls to work better for you. Then go shopping... And make new fingerstalls by using the original glove stalls as a pattern.
Horween leather company offers a tanning called Chromexel. To my mind, it is a close second to shell cordovan without the price. It is a slick, slightly waxy leather with great durability and feels and shoots very much like a cordovan glove. You can purchase smaller leather panels from various sources... I buy from The Buckleguy. A piece that will make two sets of finger stalls, when added to the initial price of the cheaper glove, will give you shooting glove options for years at less than the price of a cordovan glove.
The lining leather, waxed thread, sewing needles, and plastic/nylon inserts can be sourced wherever you can find those items for as little as you want to spend.
But this post is to give a shout out to the Horween Chromexel leather for making shooting gloves, or just glove stalls.... It's just a grand leather for this use.
Shoot Straight
I was looking for Cordovan a while back and learned a lot about it in the process. One of it's flaws is that when making the shoes, it often cracked. The Cordovan that is generally available for tabs and such come from the shoe offcuts, which would tend to be more marginal as one got to the edge. Made me wonder, how on earth could most of that stuff in tabs be actual Cordovan? Plus I have handled Cordovan at archery shops and it did not look very different from a lot of other leathers. Must be, just surprised at the limitations in flexibility.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hpDO1W5-vY
How do I figure what size glove to order from Bateman?
ReplyDeleteIf you're using it for a pattern to eventually make your own fingerstalls, I'd err on the larger size. Some of the fit is trial and error
ReplyDeleteSo the size is based off of the finger stalls? On the tabs I use they are always mediums and I still cut them down. On the gloves I’ve tried mediums and even smalls fit my fingers well, they are just short from fingers to wrist strap.
DeleteThe size is based on overall hand size like buying a work glove. If you have large hands and thin fingers, you should buy the large or extra large for the length needed and then sew the fingerstalls tighter along the top seam to fit each finger. Once you've got that figured out, you can make new stalls the correct size if needed. The Bateman glove is more forgiving of hand length due to its design than other glove styles
ReplyDeleteGreat tip Nate. I was always put off by the price of shell cordovan I have to admit to being quite intrigued by the closed end glove. I may even give making one a shot.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there is a certain pride in making your own equipment and then having it work for you in the field. Conversely though, it’s hard to not get discouraged when it doesn’t work for you.
ReplyDeleteMy leatherworking skills are mediocre at best, though they are improving the more I try. I’ve made a couple of gloves out of sub-par leather, mostly for practice. For now though, I'm sticking with my American Leathers Buffalo CrossOver (thanks for that recommendation Nate).
I have, however, been having a lot of fun putting together my own wooden arrows from bare shafts. They don't need to be perfect since I tend to break and lose a lot in the field, but I think I'm getting pretty decent at it now and it has saved me a lot of money since they come in at less than half the cost of the carbon arrows I used to shoot. Props to Robert Carter on YouTube for some top notch instruction on that subject and getting me started. My next step is to try to turn some dogwood I have curing into usable arrows.
I've tried to make a few bows over the years too, both from boards and raw lumber, but haven't yet been able to make anything that has withstood the test of time. For now, I will leave that to the experts like you Nate! To be fair to myself though, that was before I could shoot properly and was likely overdrew them without even knowing.
Thank you for the time you put into educating us Nate and for saving us all a little time and money with your experience and recommendations. They are always appreciated!
I was fortunate to buy a bag of cordovan leather scraps from a leather vendor at a traditional archery shoot. The pieces are big enough for tabs and finger stalls. I make most of my archery equipment including arrow shafts, some four finger footed. I also make board bows for my grandsons. I make my own Hill style gloves with cordovan finger stalls. I purposely make the stalls slightly smaller than my fingers and then take the time to work them onto my fingers making the leather stretch to form fit each finger. I end up with a perfectly fitting glove that stays secure on my fingers while shooting. Well worth the extra time and effort.
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