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Benefits of a lenticular crossection for white wood bows?
Aksel:
willie: its handle is 29 mm thick and 24 mm wide. Looks comfortably rounded. Reported to be 120mm long. I do not have other details of the grip but there are pics: https://www.tradgang.com/tgsmf/index.php?topic=178571.0
superdav95:
Interesting post. Now that I look back at my builds I can say that I tend to make my yew bows more rounded/ lenticular belly then I do with hardened white woods or Osage bows. Not to say that I did this deliberately but more subconsciously I think. Maybe more of a styling thing or by feel. Not sure on this actually. It just seemed like they looked and felt better made that way. I cannot say that I’ve done enough testing of each shape to see a particular performance advantage either. I think that kidder is onto something about personal preference factor and personal style of bow builds. This being said we bow builders today still like to replicate things that we admire. A personal reflection for me is the mollegabet style bows. I’ve made several of them and have never claimed that they are replicas or dimensional copied even. I make them loosely based I guess while adding my own flare to them. Some may say this is subjective and varies wildly even in deliberate replicas. I wonder if this is partly what has happened over time with bows that seem similar in style over time in this case thousands of years.
Aksel:
Superdave, for sure can trends play a part in this, but i wouldn´t think they would last over 5 thousand years if performance didn´t play a big part in it also.
With the wooden bow revival -over the last 30 years or so - we keep "discovering" things stone age man knew 10´000 years ago; super skinny tips, sapling bows, lever tipped bows, Hollow limb design, probably fire hardening as well just on top of my head. I am convinced there are more things to discover, and cross sections are one of them. ;)
Hamish:
Hey Aksel, I don't doubt there are paleolithic bows out there with really flat bellies, It would just be harder to make them flat, vs lenticular, especially with stone, or bone tools
The cross sections that you show are lenticular in the working portion of the limb(wide), one is flat on the narrow non working or barely working portion.
That makes sense to me as very little tillering needs to be done on the levers, once you have initially roughed in the intended dimensions . The width is very narrow here, so it matters less if its flat or rounded, as its not as difficult to get the intended result. The wide working portion is a different matter.
The lenticular cross section lessens the chance of twist, as the centre of the belly acts as a keel. Over a 2" wide working limb, it still acts as virtually flat, without the difficulty of achieving a perfectly flat belly. Even though the bellies on these bows are not truly flat, I've always seen them referred to as flatbows.
The concept of flatness, or straightness, especially in pre modern times was relative. Design was organic, with no dimensions other than hands, finger widths, spans etc. If it achieved the desired result, with less work, then that's likely to be more common.
willie:
--- Quote from: Aksel on March 26, 2024, 06:14:40 pm --- I always like to think about,
--- End quote ---
and in the Americas, rectangular cross sections developed in similar cultures, but maybe after contact with metal tools?
the sudbury, of course might represent a more "traditional" NA design
it would be interesting to see if there are any surviving examples of pre-migration Asian bows
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