A brief look inside the Excalibur Plant ...

[R.J.]

5 years ago , Excalibur hosted a 20th Aniversary open house for the general public and forum members ... it was a great show and we appriciated the opportunity to see the new plant and the mfg. process of the crossbows we all enjoy shooting ...

Fast forward to today , they opened the doors for a few hours in the afternoon ... An Industrial open house geared towards misc support vendors , suppliers , bankers etc. ... Even the Mayor stopped by !

I got an invite to attend , snap a few pictures and grab an afternoon snack , from local bow shop owner George Wagner ...

I bought my 1st Excalibur Relayer from George in the early 80's and George has done business with Bill and Kathy for that many years as well ...

Over the years .. I have owned pretty well every hunting model Excalibur has made .. and am currently the proud owner of # 100 , Y25 Relayer ..

It still amazes me to see how far they have come ... from building individual crossbows in a cleaned out pig barn near Breslau in the early 80's .. to the state of the art plant they are in today ! ...

From local sales , to Industry leader and world wide sales !

Here are a few pictures from this afternoon ...

Peter takes a quick pause from meeting suppliers etc. .. and poses for a quick picture at the Y25 Relayer display ...



I wander thru the plant and snap shots from misc raw material ..





To the misc process stations , that make up the production process ..



Recognize this guy ? ... That is forum member " Doemaster " , Excalibur trigger man and warranty dude !



Although I didn't take pictures of every step in the process , in order of operations ( didn't think that was good idea ! ) , I did get one here and there that shows a basic plant over view .. not in any particualr order ..

Building bolts ...



Putting together right stuff packages ..



Into the machine shop ...



From older equipment ...



To the misc modern CNC machining centers ...



Misc nearly finished components ...





The history table ... showing the development of the bows over the years ..



And of course ... the many trophies Bill and Kathy have amassed over the years ... here are only a few ..

Bill's beauty Piebald buck taken near Fergus Ontario ..



Another Fergus buck displayed in Kathy's office ... I wish more pictures turned out .. the Zebra mount was impressive ! ... I was shooting indoors without a flash and some frames didn't trun out ..



And misc exotic critters , spread out around the plant ... here are only a few ..





And last but not least ... the mid afternoon feeding frenzy !



Lot's of tastey treats ... including cubed venison roast and venison meatballs !









Bill and Kathy were pretty well tied up with misc suppliers etc. , here is a shot of Kathy with Kitchener Mayor Carl Zehr and Plant Mgr. Brian Hackbart...



I talked with Bill for awhile , but never snapped a picture , cause he was usually surrounded !

Congrat's to you Bill and Kathy on a successfull 25 years !! And thanks to all the other Excalibur staff that take the time to ensure a quality product !

One last shot of the beauty Y25 Relayer !

[Pydpiper]

Thanks for the tour R.J.!

[TPM]

Great pics! I wish I would have known you'd be there, would have "bought" you a beer. It is quite an impressive facility, Friday was the first time I was through it.

[wabi]

Thanks for the tour R.J.
Quite an impressive operation to supply us with the best hunting crossbow produced.

[saxman]

I enjoyed that tour,Thanks

[Boo]

Got invited by Bill and Geroge and unfortunately didn't get to meet you RJ. I got to meet TPM and Doemaster. That was cool. Spent way too much time talking to Danny Miller, but that was good too! It was nice to see Peter again, you have a really good sense of humor!
All the employees were pretty good guys and quite knowledgeable. It was cool that each machine and station had someone there to explain what happens.
LOL!!! Kevin is a trigger man!! That's funny considering his present passion!
All in all a pretty cool day.
The two most interesting areas was where they make the limbs and the fletching machine!!! Guys, this stuff is really neat!
It is quite impressive that Bill and Kath built this business from pretty much nothing and worked hard enough to now enjoy their fruits from their labours. Congratulations and I hope you have many more years of continued success in the future.

[Normous]

Nice to see the plant again!
Congrats Excalibur on a well deserved 25th.
A big thank-you to the whole team! Again, well deserved!
Any word on the Forum Member 25th Open House. That would be great!

[Big John]

Thank's for the Pictorial Tour RJ.
Sounds like you guy's had fun.
Nice place they got there. I would have dove into that Cubed Venison!!

[Doe Master]

It looks like it's a fun place to work.

Yes it is .I have been there 15 years .When I first applied there I couldn`t believe they would actually pay me to work at something that I enjoy and is also my hobby.
As for the other comment that Boo made about being a trigger man here is what he was refering to.It is one of my newest hobbies .

[TPM]

As for the other comment that Boo made about being a trigger man here is what he was refering to.It is one of my newest hobbies .

Benchrest shooting is not a hobby... it's an obsession, bordering on mental illness... I guess that's what makes it fun! Seriously though, I've had opportunities to shoot shoot other member's benchrest rifles at our club and man, they're scary accurate. Shoot the a$$ off a mosquito at 200 yards... quite literally.

[Doe Master]

And you wonder why I have next to no hair left Tim

[TYE]

Shoot the a$$ off a mosquito at 200 yards... quite literally.

[TPM]

And you wonder why I have next to no hair left Tim

I thought you just got too tall for your haircut!

[tracer]

Thankyou for the tour R.J.

[diesel]

Great pics. RJ as always. Thanks for sharing.