Main Discussion Area > English Warbow
Evidence OTHER than MR Bows of 120+ bows?
Del the cat:
Thanks for the vote of confidence.
Yup I agree on the meane wood, I made an Elm one a while back and I aim to do a Hazel 'stick' Warbow soon. I might even go for a quick seasoned one... really push some poor Hazel stick to the limits ;D
I feel the need for a walk over to the woods with my pocket saw O:)
Del
PatM:
I don't think it's far fetched to assume that clear Yew was once available to a greater extent in England. Slow growing trees that likely aren't a very numerous species can be impacted very quickly with indiscriminate cutting.
In North America Rock elm was once extremely valued as a timber for shipbuilding and Hockey sticks. Even allowing for the elm blight it is now exceptionally rare.
If you think that the first thing people do when inhabiting a land is cut EVERY tree down in most areas, the fragmented populations go even faster.
WillS:
Finding clear, straight yew probably wasn't an issue as much as finding yew dense enough to make huge numbers of high poundage artillery bows. There are still ancient yew trees in England which are perfect for bow staves, so that suggests they didn't even try after a while otherwise wouldnt all the good yew have been used?
I reckon they knew denser, harder yew was easily obtainable from the continent, so why waste time scouring england in the hope of finding the odd perfect tree when it can be brought in en mass from overseas?
Atlatlista:
--- Quote from: WillS on November 25, 2013, 08:41:49 pm ---Finding clear, straight yew probably wasn't an issue as much as finding yew dense enough to make huge numbers of high poundage artillery bows. There are still ancient yew trees in England which are perfect for bow staves, so that suggests they didn't even try after a while otherwise wouldnt all the good yew have been used?
I reckon they knew denser, harder yew was easily obtainable from the continent, so why waste time scouring england in the hope of finding the odd perfect tree when it can be brought in en mass from overseas?
--- End quote ---
Why do you keep calling them "artillery" bows? Is that the Tudor terminology?
PatM:
The ancient yew trees that look suitable now have had 500 years to either grow or grow over knots etc. You would have to go back in time to see what actually happened.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version