Main Discussion Area > English Warbow

How to make a lower poundage, yet full size English longbow?

<< < (6/7) > >>

WillS:

--- Quote from: Gimlis Ghost on July 06, 2021, 08:38:48 pm --- Heck the unfinished staves were three and a half inches around a foot from the tips. They were obviously a work in progress.
--- End quote ---

I'm not gonna bother addressing all the rest of the nonsense, but this sort of thing is exactly what gives new bowyers a misleading time when making heavy bows and is therefore relevant to the forum - 3.5" in circumference is 1.1" in diameter, or 27mm.  You say that's a foot (12") from the tip and is "obviously" therefore an unfinished bow stave.   

Three of the Mary Rose copies I've just measured in my collection are 26mm, 28mm and 25.5mm at this point along the limb.   They are 140lb, 145lb and 130lb in draw weight, made of English yew and all shoot very nicely.  They are not unfinished staves.

You are using one person's opinion from the 1800s to base your entire theory on, and completely ignoring the reams of current,  tested data and information that says otherwise. 

Just because nobody was around in Pope's time who could shoot 150lb bows doesn't mean that's it.  It's not surprising that he looked at those bows and assumed they were unfinished but we know far more now.

Gimlis Ghost:
Well the only way to learn is to discuss things in depth.

We do know that quality of Yew available at any point in time varied greatly. Henry contracted for Italian Yew during that time period but other sources of quality Yew were drying up due to over harvesting.

I'd be interested in hearing more about the Italian Yew used for some of the MR reconstructions. Where sourced and how seasoned etc. Imported Yew staves cost three times as much as English Yew at the time.

What is your opinion of "Piking" the limbs to obtain a stronger more even draw?

What is your opinion of American Yew?

I'll allow that the staves recovered from the stern castle (8 in all, Pope having access to only two) were more exposed to the elements and unlikely to have been as well treated after being found to preserve their original dimensions.


All other historical sources state the Long Bow was to be the length of the owners height. I can see an elite company of the King's hand picked men being far taller on average than the vast majority of bowmen of the period. The Prussians had entire companies of men close to 7 foot tall, but they were not the average soldiers of that army.
During most of the Middle Ages periods of famine among the commoners were the rule. Bones recovered from people of the time show evidence of stunted growth.
I figure that far from being typical of long bows of any period, and the Long Bow was in use for centuries, the Mary Rose bows were exceptional examples as were the bowmen themselves.

Del the cat:
"The only way to learn things is to discus things in depth"
But it's not much good if discussing stuff that is poorly documented/hearsay/cherry picked from dubious sources.
The problem with trying to discus that sort of thing is that one gets drawn into the realms of
"... Yes but I read of a X1-3 replica that performed blah blah blah...." it degenerates to a load of unsubstantiated nonsense.
Much like all the magical properties of "Italian Yew".
https://bowyersdiary.blogspot.com/2016/07/old-wives-tales-and-yew.html
Personally I'd rather go by what physical evidence we have and by actual practical experience. Discussing that is fine...
Del

Gimlis Ghost:

--- Quote ---poorly documented/hearsay/cherry picked from dubious sources.
--- End quote ---
And what "dubious" sources would those be?

The post that was objected to as merely quoting Saxton Pope on his recreation of a Mary Rose bow, the information was easily found in his book.

What we have in the Mary Rose bows are exceptional bows once used by exceptional bowmen. The remains of at least one of these men found in the hull were of a man well over 6' tall.
I'm sure much of what Wills has stated is true enough but I'm also sure that what Saxton Pope wrote was true as well.

Pope examined the 1836-41 recovered staves and found no sign of a nock of any kind on either. Perhaps the more exposed staves from the sterncastle simply had surface details destroyed by the elements.
An article on examining the best preserved Mary Rose bows in recent times noted the odd absence of any signs of these having been used at all. There being no rub marks of an arrows passage. That might have been due to the archer's using the right side thumb rest confirmed as the most likely method by the preponderance of historical evidence in the form of artwork and manuscripts.


The recreations Wills speaks of were copied in high quality high altitude Italian Yew. Not all Long Bows were made of Italian Yew much less the highest quality. At that stage much of Europe's Quality Yew had been over harvested.
Wills seems to believe no archer of Pope's day was capable of drawing a 150 pound bow, yet one of Pope's associates involved in his studies was an exceptionally large and powerful man with thirty years of experience in use of every type of heavy bow.
Perhaps if Wills attitude were a bit less strident I'd give his words more weight.
I found this post from 2019 that may sound familiar

--- Quote --- Ash is very hygrophobic so is pretty useless when it gets wet or is kept in damp conditions. This is one of the reasons the Mary Rose assemblage should potentially be seen as quite a different set of equipment to the more well-known period of the military bow such as the 100 years war.  The danger we can get into today is assuming that once the bow and arrow had been figured out, it stayed that way until gunpowder but it was evolving and changing in response to all sorts of reasons - we only have equipment that was used and stored in a naval capacity and it would be somewhat naive to assume that bows and arrows were the same when used on land in pitched battles!
--- End quote ---

Denigrating historical sources and 20th century authorities out of hand doesn't add weight to any modern claims.
As for Pope's MR bow replica I gave the facts as he recorded them , this is not my claim it is his. Rather than make any effort to understand why Pope got the results he did using Pacific Yew Wills pontificates using the best quality italian Yew as the only possible wood. Pope himself stated not all wood is the same and a different stave might have made a stronger bow.
As it was Pope's 70-75 pound bow (being only ten pounds lighter than the minimum estimates of the strength of the unfinished staves before the experiment began} performed quite well and he also used replicas of English war bow arrows of the known dimensions for parts of his testing.

If any one wishes to read Pope's work on the study of historical bows done by close examination of bows preserved in various museums and private collections it can be found on the Internet Archive. Well worth reading.

Del the cat:
@ Gimli...
I'll just point out that I, as a modern day man of average build who spent his working life at sedentary jobs, doing only little exercise or sport managed, at the age of 60, to train up to shooting 100# in a couple of months.
Any claim that warbows were of lower weights is pretty facile.
I am willing to discus what I or you have done, or about the artifacts we have at our disposal. The accuracy and validity of claims by people long dead is a moot point, as one can't question them about their sources or methods etc. Just because something is written down doesn't mean it is correct or accurate.
Del

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page