Main Discussion Area > English Warbow

135lb holly bow

<< < (3/5) > >>

WillS:
I don't usually get much colour change when I temper them actually.  I feel that if it's done well you can barely tell.  Certainly hazel doesn't show it and that's very white!  I think it's quite common for people to get the heat source too close and scorch instead of bring the wood up to the right temperature slowly.

FilipT:
What is the rule for how much draw will certain ntn length allow?
Since I am slowly getting into warbow building and archery, I am working on bow that will be 70" ntn. Reason for that is that I had string of length for that bow and I read there were in past shorter warbows so I though "why not?"
Also I read that there is no reason for draw over 31" or even 30" and I wanted to know would 70" ntn allow me a 30" draw?

WillS:
Yes, 70" is ok for a 30" draw, as long as you tiller properly.

30" is the average draw length for a medieval bow - the 32" thing is very modern, and came about because the BLBS Standard arrow was designed before any real knowledge of medieval arrows was available.  It was made 31.5" long, so a little bit of a safety margin on bows ended up with 32" becoming standard for everything (at least, that's what I understand happened - might be wrong.)

By the time your body is being compressed by a proper weight military bow, 30" or less is perfectly sensible.  The Westminster Abbey arrow dating to somewhere around the 1400s is 29" long.

FilipT:
So they even had some with 28" draw in 15th century? Do you know were these shorter than people usually make?

WillS:
On the Mary Rose, there were arrows as short as 26", which would give a draw length of just over 25".  The two main averages were 28" and 30", with the 30" arrows being 4x as common.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page