Main Discussion Area > HowTo's and Build-a-longs
Mary Rose Replica Bow Build-Along--An Entrance into the World of War Bows
Kviljo:
Hmm, I don't know what to believe :)
From what I've heard, the pacific yew is more brittle than the european, where the european should be more tough. But from what I understand, the pacific yew may be less dense, and therefore yield a lower poundage than european, if the same measures are used.
Even though it also seems convincing that tests are beeing carried out on trees that grew in the same locations as the originals, the climate is not the same, and the soil is probably not the same as it was either. However, tests of such staves would probably be the closest one could get, and if we are to have any opinion, we must allow ourselves to use the avaliable data.
I guess they would use bad quality wood because of the enormous quantity of bows that were made. They even made warbows out of yew branches ;) (if we are to believe Robert Hardy). Other woods were also used, so I guess they would prefer to use yew as long as they could get hold of it. But as I'm beginning to understand, the Mary Rose bows are top notch of what were used back then. So using the best yew we have today will probably give us the best draw weight estimates we can get.
Have there been carried out reliable and accurate tests of these Italian staves yet?
Jaro, smile :)
Fred_Hagell:
I'm just going to throw this out there; Have any of the original Mary Rose bows been shot (or can they be shot)?
Is it possible that the dimensions of these bows has changed since the ship sank?
Please excuse my ignorance.
Fred
Jaro:
"the climate is not the same, and the soil is probably not the same as it was either"
- do you have anything to support this? The best wood we have now is roughly worst which has found on original MR Bows.
What do you mean by "Accurate tests" - the bows are fairly accurate replicas, from the same material. We have lots of people shooting them and recording the distance, this is what we have.
What exactly do you want to do other with bow, which has the same profile,taper, material, poundage and drawlenght for testing than shoot it?
"the climate is not the same, and the soil is probably not the same as it was either"
- what is this? Show me some hard data supporting this, show me how it affect yew tree growth in the sense of wood quality and we will talk further. This is bloody "wave hand" dismisal, without anything to suport it.
(I guess the climate is different, but not the soil, on the other hand my guess is that is different in the sense that in mediaval times it was better for warbow quality yew than today. Its notable to say that trees which are cut today started their life exactly in that climate and soil as some of last warbow staves were cut there - means 400 -500 years back)
What Hardy writes is that branches were used for second rate quality bows, means bows used at home in england for law invoked archery practice and hunting. These are also called peasant bows.
However this is not something a front line professional soldier would have issued and used, after all none of MR bows seems to be branch bow, they are all excellent quality timber. Actually if my memory does not fails me Roger Ascham writes exactly the same thing.
If you think I have waxed out, you are right. Because internet is full of people throwing opinions around like if they were facts and who have nothing which could support the statements and who search for another exuse the moment when they are presented with solid rebutall.
Just now, there is somebody on englishwarbow pages who says that arrows in bundles were of different lenght (I mean in each bundle were arrows from say 28 -33´´), because you see, the soldiers were of different height and have different drawlenght. Why should it be so, where is any benefit?
Why should even the crown buy it that way (means for more money) Where are the data? Does the idiot not grasp that a short archer can draw long arow, but long draw archer cant use short arrow? And stop with "but he can shortdraw" - he cannot, because it is dangerous to do with warbow and good way to tear your shoulder muscle. With warbow full stretch of frame is imperativ.
Every single myth about the warbow is repeated again again, speculations without solid ground from people who neither made one, or shot it, there is books, there are people who know, but everytime one thing is straightened out another pure stupidity emerges.
There are more knowledgeable people than me, particulary those who dont care about internet and thus have more time for bows but I wont be silent when I have something to say.
And sorry I dont believe everything what Pip says, because he has been caught bullshiting about the tests, he said he conducted with Steve Stratton and Mark wont have anything to do with him for some time.
Jaro
Jaro:
They cant be shot after 400 years on bottom of the sea, they have been strung and several of them pulled on the tiler, hovever the elastic modulus of the wood is off after such long time in salt water.
But the shape on tiler remained alright so we know how they bend.
What we do now is that we have the same wood, roughly the same or slightly worse quality than MR bows and bows out of it to dimension, tiler and profile wont come under 100#.
Actually as I wrote, most of replicas is made in lenghts of longer examples of MR bows, if you should cut them down to shortes we have then they would be 20-30# heavier.
Jaro
duffontap:
Jaro,
I understand your frustration. Quality dips pretty low on internet research sometimes. I'm trying to learn as I build, so I'm listening to anything people who actually make a shoot these weapons are saying. I started this build-along because I wanted other people to get excited about something that I'm really enjoying. I also thought the PA page could use a little more on the war bow.
Different length arrows in the arrow bags:
I have been guilty of saying this very thing. I suppose I'm the one you're talking about on the English War Bow page. The reason why I said this is because the original leather disks that were in the arrow bag still contained the remains of arrows in an assortment of lengths. If you can point me to definitive, published proof that this is not true, I would cheerfully withdraw my comment. But your 'shoulder injury' theory doesn't change the fact that the arrow bag disks contained a variety of arrow lengths.
J. D. Duff
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