Main Discussion Area > English Warbow
Jaro's new article
mikekeswick:
The useful thing about doing it upside down is that the bow is freer to move/tip showing imbalances in the tiller compared to it sitting on a shelf where it can only rock and needs a lot of imbalance to do this.
You don't have to have ash of 0.85 sg. If the wood is lower density then make it a little wider. The limiting factor in my eyes is the size of your hands....lower density woods will work but once you start going over 1 1/2 wide at the handle they just aren't nice to shoot.
I bet you that the hazel was nowhere near 0.85sg >:D
I understand why people think dense wood is the be all and end all but it really isn't. Design, design, design.
WillS:
--- Quote from: mikekeswick on February 27, 2014, 03:30:50 am ---I understand why people think dense wood is the be all and end all but it really isn't. Design, design, design.
--- End quote ---
Good point! But as you said, it gets to a point where the bow gets super wide. Remember that Jaro was trying to replicate a Mary Rose bow - same cross section, same dimensions. That wouldn't have worked with lower density wood. You can make a heavy bow in almost any design if you're careful - there's a vid on Facebook just recently of Joe shooting a 177# flat bow and a 170# Turkish style bow that he made - but it's keeping the faithful design of the MR bows that is so impressive here, and is what takes so much skill I think.
Dense wood certainly isn't the only factor, but it's required if your dimensions are set, for example when building a replica. As far as I'm aware the hazel, holly and plum bows these guys are making are all fairly close to the MR bow dimensions. Otherwise they wouldn't be allowed in the shoots.
adb:
When it comes to making warbows, I'd rather have a more elastic wood, like yew, than a wood with a high specific gravity.
WillS:
Oh for sure, but what if you can't get yew? We know via documentation that bowyers were required to make a certain number of warbows from meane woods for every yew bow, as yew was scarce and expensive, despite being outsourced. If you can't get yew but you need to make bows of the same draw weight using the same techniques and dimensions (more or less) you need to use the next best bow wood, and the best quality of that wood.
adb:
--- Quote from: Del the cat on February 26, 2014, 11:06:38 am ---
--- Quote from: WillS on February 26, 2014, 10:27:13 am ---
--- Quote from: Del the cat on February 26, 2014, 10:08:03 am ---WillS suggests that Pip and Steve say, it is because that was how it was done in the past (Or that's how I'm interpeting the "That's how they started").
--- End quote ---
Nope. Wasn't me. It was Adam. I also think Adam meant that it was how Pip and Steve started. It's also how I got started because it makes far more sense to me to have the bow facing downward, I find it really hard to see a good tiller when the bow is the other way round.
--- End quote ---
Sorry my bad...
Also my missinterpretation of "That's how they started".. I took "they" to mean bowyers in medieval times.
:-[
Baaaad kitty
I shall go sit on the naughty step.
Del
--- End quote ---
BAD KITTY! No cat nip for you.
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