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Jere's flightbows

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JNystrom:
Thank you guys. They are, and soon comes the hardest part, to keep your hands off of them for the next months!

NorthHeart: Well you have the sheephornbow for horseback archery also! I think is best to choose the style or original bow as you would like, but only downscale the reflex and poundage.
Like the ottomans, they had really heavy bows in the 120-140 pounds range for flight and war, also heavily reflexed. This not only demands of a strong archer, but superb skills to glue the bow so that when you start to open the full circle it wont destroy into little pieces... I know i'm not that kind of super ottoman yet (:D) so i leave the tips a bit open, and aim lower with the poundage.
If you make any configuration bow with mild curves, reflex and poundage, you will succeed. If you want this kind of ottoman bow for shorter 26-28" draw, if not, choose some crimean tatar for 32" draw and so on. Then there are mongolian bows and such without this aggressive recurves. It's a endless sea of bows, whatever you like.  :OK
If you are interested, i recommend you to buy Adam Karpowizc's book "Ottoman turkish bows, manufacture and design". It's a real goldmine for hornbowyers.

stuckinthemud:
I was wondering what wood are you using for the core? Its the one thing i am having real trouble sourcing

JNystrom:
I use maple as limbs and oak as a handle wood. This is norwegian maple, so not exactly sugar maple but pretty close in tightness.

stuckinthemud:
Thanks, I might get more luck with that - none of the UK suppliers I talked to (I've talked to a LOT of UK timber suppliers) can get more specific than 'hard maple' when I was asking for sugar maple

JNystrom:
Hmm, well the norwegian maple is a nordic thing. I don't know if it grows anywhere else than in scandinavia and Finland.

Basically the core only need to resist for shear forces and accept glue well. Maple is perfect for that, but if you don't have a heavy, top performer in your mind, you could go for ash, elm, rowan or such. Many of the 0.5sg woods could do. Using soft wood would maybe just make the bow take a little more set. Same thing as in a wood laminate bow. Actually elm and some other hard woods could be even more suitable for heavy heavy composites. I know some guys have made bows using birch and ash.
There is a old mongol bow found that had core made of willow. Well there are many willow species, so hard to say exactly more about it, just that many species of wood has been used if there wasn't any better.

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