Main Discussion Area > English Warbow
Wood for warbow?
Yeomanbowman:
Nick,
I feel you are thinking of some of the Mary Rose bows and generalising some what. Warbows were also made of holly, ash, wych elm, ash, hazel and Balkan/Irish/English yew and perhaps other materials too. The is no reason why lower ring yew counts cannot be used and no way of saying that that it was not, likewise with the draw weight. You can make a faithful replica without spending the earth and making/buying an unshootable bow. The 'elitist' argument doesn't really stand up.
However, I agree with you that a boo backed board bows makes a fast, cheap and effective bows, so why not? The fact it's a grass is, I think, neither here nor there. The boo is made from the same stuff as wood, being cellulose and lignin etc. Wood can also come from shrubs not just trees yet not all trees make wood. Palm trees do not make normal wood, for instance. Hickory or bamboo was, historically speaking, never was used for English warbows so what's the real difference? This is just my opinion and I understand others will take a different view.
nickf:
glad you corrected me there Yeomanbowman,
indeed, I was talkign about the TUDOR warbows, the mary rose types. Wich actually were made from high-quality yew, with horn nocks, just as I described.
hazel, ash and holly were actually used, I agree. Holly is pretty much a pain to work with, it doesn't split, takes scrapers or drawknifes well, so I guess it hasn't been used that much. However, these woods won't yield bows in the 150-200pound range. I've heard many great stories about these woods, I've been a hazel-fan for a while, but I regularry hear that these woods start to crysal all over the belly once you try to exceed the 120#. According to the info I have, these were usually used for hunting bows, 'kidbows', and trainingsbows.
Yew is one of the very few woods that can stand these extreme drawweights, and thus one of the very few that has been used for these monsterbows. You can ofcourse imagine that you''ll need top-quality yew for a 170#er, right? well, most people don't intend to shoot this. So you get many more alternatives.
"Warbows were also made of holly, ash, wych elm, ash, hazel and Balkan/Irish/English yew english warbows, the mary rose types" let's go a bit to the east and we can add bamboo, haha ;) Excuse me for my behaviour, but Í'm really impressed by bamboo.
Nick
bow-toxo:
As an individual more into authenticity than most, I make mediaeval or Tudor style longbows from self staves, no handgrip wrapping. I don't use any additional backing as I consider backed or laminated bows out of period. I consider Pacific yew acceptable as the later warbows were made of whatever yew could be found, in Germany, Switzerland or anywhere else. Hakluyt in early explorations of west coast North America, checked out Pacific yew for bows, but the Crown had all but discontinued their military use by then. With yew difficult to obtain, I have also made do with Osage or hickory made as above. Cowhorn, antler or self sidenocks, of course. I also go for silk as well as linen bowstrings, the preferred kind in those days. As my strength is not up to the usual warbow draw, double sidenocks are not necessary. The above is what I consider for myself as a minimum try at Tudor or mediaeval gear.
Erik
Yeomanbowman:
Hello Nick,
I take your point about you referring to Tudor warbows found on the Mary Rose and they are indeed as you describe. However, on other English ships during the very same navel engagement in the Solent were white wood bows. It's documented also that the breakage rate was very high and I think Hardy suggest that archers were deliberately making them fail to get issued with a yew one. The fact that white wood warbows were being used tells me that not all Tudor warbows could have been at the draw weights you describe, even with belly tempering (assuming it was done). Leading warbow authority, Richard Wadge, tells me that white wood warbows were likely to have been present at Crecy so that's a good enough pedigree for me!
I agree with your comments about bamboo, it really is impressive stuff and you never seem to get a bad bit. For me, it's good enough for a tropical hardwood laminate but some people prefer hickory wich I can understand.
alanesq:
What is the heaviest whitewood bow that anyone has successfully made ?
I have a 108lb one (ash) which has lasted ages and showing no sign of chrysals etc. (and this was my 2nd try at a bow so very badly made even by my standards)
I had a 120lb one which did chrysal but still lasted a good while (thousands of arrows) before finally the chrysals got so deep I no longer dared use it
I have tried wych elm and had high hopes for this but if anything it chrysals more than ash
Ash makes a fantastic back, just fails on the compression of the belly
I wonder if we need to forget about the D section for whitewood bows and figure out a completely different design ?
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