Main Discussion Area > HowTo's and Build-a-longs
Mary Rose Replica Bow Build-Along--An Entrance into the World of War Bows
duffontap:
Hello again,
The bow is finished, and while it waits for its armor-piercing arrows, you have a couple days to finish your own and meet me on the beach for a Medieval flight shoot. For those of you who wonder why this is taking so long—let me tell you—a bow like this is not easy to build. Since it is a replica bow, lots of rules must be followed and rushing has not been an option. Well, let’s finish this up.
Step 6: Tillering a Heavy
Tillering:
Many bowyers, particularly newer bowyers, have trouble hitting their desired weight. They may be shooting for 50 lbs. and end up with 33.5 lbs. This problem increases as higher weights are desired. So, when faced with the task of building a war bow of 100# plus, the risk of the bow coming under weight should always be on your mind. A couple things that helped me a lot:
1. Dial caliper: the Medievals didn’t have this tool but I didn’t have a 5 year apprenticeship. Check everything twice with a dial caliper before you take wood. You can ruin a heavy with one misguided stroke of a drawknife. I can tiller a good 60# hunting bow in a couple hours. This bow took me days.
2. Tillering String: The first picture shows me pulling on my war bow with a tillering string I made. I’m pulling really hard to get this 3” of bend! It’s easy to forget, this bow will be too stiff to floor tiller in the regular fashion—unless you’re much bigger and stronger than me.
3. Card scraper: The most versatile bow-building tool out there. If you don’t have one, they cost ten bucks at the most and they’re easy to sharpen. I had a luthier show me how to sharpen my scraper once and it’s my favorite tool now. I wouldn’t trade it for a bow scraper. I must have tillered about fifty pounds off this war bow with a scraper, removing long, transparent sheets of wood.
4. Bend, Caliper, Scrape, Sand, Repeat. After you’ve gotten your section perfect and all the tool marks scraped and sanded, the real tillering begins. Never let a heavy bow get to the point where you have to take ten pounds off to fix the section or get tool gouges out.
If you make it through the floor tillering process with enough wood to still make a war bow, you’ve survived the worst. At this point I added temporary nocks and shot my bow from an 18” draw to work it a little. I was a little displeased at how much is was following the string so I put it in my drying box for a week at 95 degrees to dry it out a little more. Then I added the horn nocks. Many of you who are reading this have successfully done horn nocks already. If you’re had any trouble, look at the pictures for a simple tool you can use to check the taper of your bow tip. When you get a perfect fit, you can glue the tip on with almost anything. I’ve used epoxy, wood glue, and super glue. Five drops of super glue will work as well as anything and sets fast.
It’s my day off and I need to get busy making arrows. I’ll post the finished bow on a new thread on Monday. Thanks for hanging around everyone. My knowledge about these bows has grown immensely since we started. It’s been a lot of fun, too.
Oh, yeah—I’ll post a video before too long of the flaming arrow and thatched roof. Give me a little time though!
J. D. Duff
[attachment deleted by admin]
Dane:
JD, this has been tons of fun, informative, and very generous of you to take so much effort and time on this topic.
I was wondering if you are going to address the string you plan to make or buy for this bow? Linen, Dacron, etc.? Endless, Flemish? What is marginally or safely safe for such a powerful bow?
As well, how about arrows, and where you sourced your broadheads, bodkins, etc.? I kind of think of all this as a weapons system, before maybe the term was invented.
Thanks,
Dane
duffontap:
Thanks Dane,
I was wondering if anyone was still listening. ;D I'll cover arrows and strings, too then. I'm working on arrows today, so I'll take pictures as I go.
I'm currently researching strings and talking to some other war bow shooters about what they're using. I'll include my string choice in the next couple of days.
Thanks.
J. D. Duff
Ryano:
LOOKIN GOOD JD! :D i JUST MADE THE SAME TOOL AND INSTALLED THE HORN NOCKS ON MINE! WOW, YOU GOT TO LOVE THE SMELL OF HORN GRINDING ! :P NOT!
Justin Snyder:
--- Quote from: J. D. Duff on November 15, 2006, 03:27:08 pm ---Thanks Dane,
I was wondering if anyone was still listening. ;D
J. D. Duff
--- End quote ---
I have been listening for quite a while, the problem is I always wind up having to read it anyway. ;D Thanks for keeping on working, we all appreciate this post. Justin
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version