If you are a bowhunter, you have probably used both of these products before. Both of these companies were started by people who love archery and worked hard to put their companies on the map.
Norway IndustriesNorway Industries started in 1958 when Tom Coffman began making cedar arrow shafts in rural Oregon. Janis Melton, Coffman’s daughter and President of Norway Industries, says his driving force was efficiency. “My dad liked to tinker with things. After he discovered how to build something, he had to figure out how to build it more efficiently,” Melton said. Coffman took raw timber, cut it into slabs, and let it dry in a drying room. When the wood was dry, he cut the wood into square strips. A machine that contained high-speed spinning knives cut raw wood blanks into the arrow shafts.
 At one point, Norway Industries was selling thousands of cedar shafts - more than any other company. “We sold pallet loads of shafts daily. It became a family affair. My sister, Jill, and I worked in the shop at a very young age,” Melton added. In 1983, the shop burned down and Norway Industries had to start over. “Within 22 days of the fire, my dad had poured a concrete slab and had a steel frame up and was working again. He was building product before the roof or walls were up. He has always been a hard worker,” Melton noted.
Shortly after the plant burned down, Coffman decided to take Norway Industries in a different direction. “We did some CNC work before the fire. After the fire, we began focusing on CNC work for other archery companies and phased out the arrow building. We do a lot of CNC work and build wheels, cams, and risers for several bow manufacturers,” Melton stated.
Shortly after Norway began doing CNC work, they became involved in plastics. In the late 1980’s, they began producing vanes for arrows. The Duravane name is well recognized throughout the archery industry. “In the beginning, our vanes were called Norway Vanes and were only sold by the carton which contained 15,000 vanes. We were doing a lot of OEM work for arrow companies. We still do OEM work and print names and logos onto our Duravanes, which came out in the mid 1990’s. The Duravane is a soft plastic that is sold to arrow companies and consumers,” Melton added.
The Duravane is very popular because the proprietary process in which they are built makes an extremely tough vane that rarely comes off ... which is why the vanes are so popular with professional archers and bowhunters.
Norway Industries is run by Janis Melton and her sister, Jill. Tom Coffman, the Founder, still visits the shop daily.
In 2007, Norway Industries introduced a product called the String Tamer. The String Tamer screws into the rear stabilizer hole and has a rubber bumper on the end of it that the bow string encounters after the shot. The String Tamer stops the forward motion of the string, allowing the string to stop at its natural point, reducing hand shock and vibration, as well as stopping string slap. In 2008, a front mount version that screws into the front stabilizer bucket was introduced.
In the last few years, the demand for super-short low-profile arrow vanes has increased. Norway met that demand with the Predator vane that is a super short 2” long. Each vane weighs 6.8 grains and is available in white, yellow, green, orange, black and red. For 2009, they have the new Fusion vane that will steer any arrow regardless of how fast the arrow is traveling and the broadhead being used. They also look cool!
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Leven IndustriesMost hunters recognize Bill Leven from Leven Industries. He put his stabilizer company, Doinker, on the map by using his face, many costumes and facial expressions to brand his company. Slogans like the “Mad Scientist” and “King of the Stabilizers,” coupled with brilliant marketing and great products, have made the Leven Company successful. Bill Leven is quick to point out that he earned his success by working hard and not giving up, even when the cards were stacked against him. “I used to work at Entrepreneur Magazine. At that time, I was middle-aged and not making much money. I saw many people making it in business and realized if they could do it, I could, too. I decided to start my own business. I decided that I wanted to make something in the archery industry. I experimented with release aids and stabilizers. I decided to make stabilizers, so I purchased some carbon rod, made stabilizers, and began selling them out of my garage,” Leven said.
Before introducing his stabilizers to the market, a few of his friends went to a big archery tournament. They told Leven that he needed to redesign his stabilizer. He needed a unit that reduced bow shock and vibration. Leven went back to the drawing board. “I started watching people shoot regularly and came up with an idea of having a stabilizer that was like two units in one that worked independently - the stabilizer and the weight. I made my first model with the rubber and weight on the end and attached it to my bow. I sat on my bed and shot into the living room. After shooting the first arrow, I couldn’t believe the difference. The bow had much less noise and vibration. The next day I purchased a Clapper (the unit that makes lights turn on and off). I plugged it in and did a test. When I shot the bow with the stabilizer on the bow, the clapper didn’t turn the light on. With any other brand of stabilizer, the lights came on. At that point, I knew I was onto something big,” Leven recalled.
Leven built a few and gave one to Justin Huish, the American archer who won a gold medal in the Olympics. He thought it was amazing. “My patent attorney said I needed a good name. Huish said he was going to call it the Doinker because when he shot his bow, it went ‘doink’,” Leven explained. Leven wasn’t on easy street yet. He rounded up $950 which was a ton of money for him at the time and hired someone to make him a mold so he could mass produce the stabilizers. The guy went out of business before building the mold. “I was devastated. I had to get my money back and the guy wasn’t calling people back that he owed parts or money to. I thought I was out of luck and knew that if I didn’t get the money, I would be out of business. I wrote the guy a letter about my situation and he sent me a check. I went to the bank to cash the check, and the teller said there was just enough money in the account to cover it. I took the money and had the mold made elsewhere,” Leven added.
Leven built and sold stabilizers alone for a few years, but in a 1997 article in a major archery publication, a writer described how awesome the Doinker stabilizer was and explained how it was leaps and bounds above the rest. Leven’s phone started ringing off the hook and hasn’t stopped. Doinker is a stabilizer leader in the hunting market and the target archery market.
One of their most popular hunting stabilizers is the Chubby Series. The Chubby Series comes with Doinker's famous A-bomb technology, which quickly destroys noise oscillation and torque. A Doinker stabilizer doesn’t just eliminate bow noise and vibration; it also helps balance the bow, creating a more accurate shooter. “Many bowhunters believe they don’t need a stabilizer because their bow is so quiet, but a stabilizer does more than quiet a bow. Target archers have stabilizers on their bows because it helps them shrink their groups. They can do the same thing for bowhunters,” Erik Hall, Doinker General Manager, said.
Bowhunters who want a longer and heavier stabilizer should check out the Multi-Rod Series. They come with multiple carbon rods built into the stabilizer, which adds weight and further reduces shock and vibration.
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