Main Discussion Area > English Warbow

Meaning of 'Piked'

(1/6) > >>

SimonUK:
I remember a discussion on the old forum about the meaning of the word 'piked' in Toxophilus by Roger Ascham. Some people thought it meant to shorten the bow.

The often quoted sentence is: 'which shall cut him shorter, and pike him'.

I found another sentence which to me makes it clear to me that 'to pike' is 'to narrow':

Frets be first little pinches, the which when you perceive, pike the places about the pinches, to make them somewhat weaker, and as well coming as where it pinched, and so the pinches shall die, and never increase further into great frets.

duffontap:

Simon,
Good eye.  I'm more convinced than ever.  I was actually thinking today about this discussion we had on the other forum.  Thanks for bringing it back around.  I hope more people will weigh in.  I've never heard Jaro's thoughts on this one either. 

         J. D. Duff

Yeomanbowman:
What Ascham mean by pyking and shortening seems to be quite straightforward.  But then he talks of 'whipping' as well.  This is not a reference to either of the above as it's mentioned as a separate action and right after the other two in the text.  Is this a reference to recurving the tips?  As Jaro states in another thread, it seemed a common practice to have a bow 'dressed' after it was shot-in.  If the bow tips were recurved when purchased any later shortening would reduce the effect.  It could also be done to a straight limbed bow to counter string-follow.
There is plenty of evidence of this practice.
J

bow-toxo:
Whipping in this case means thinning the tips To increase the fiexiabiility and to reduce stress on the handgrip area. Mary Rose bows were thinned in the last foot or so. This thinning was thought to increase cast

stevesjem:
Here is my interpretation of Piking, Dressing and Whipping.

Piking: To shorten a bow to the desired length. When i make a self yew bow i always make it over long and tiller it with the extra length, it is then shot in which afterwards draw weight is reduced naturally as the wood settles, i then reduce the length (Pike) to bring the bow weight back up to what i wanted in the 1st place.

Dressing: Like us when we get dressed we are adding clothing or garments, i see this as adding the horn nocks, also dressing could mean tidying up the bow, sanding and polishing to make it look nice.

Whipping: I always add the raw horn to the bow and carve the nocks while on the bow, what happens is the when i feather the bow tips to get an even and smooth transition between the bow and the horn i have to remove wood from about 6" up the limb to the horn, thus slimming the ends, i always keep the bow tips quite stiff initially and after this process is done the tips bend ever so slightly more than in the 1st place without losing draw weight.

Steve

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page