Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => English Warbow => Topic started by: akila on February 06, 2008, 03:14:36 pm
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Hello i wanna ask you something guys....a friend of mine asked me today iff i could make him an english warr bow , and he want the bow to be 160#@ 32"....do you think its posibile to make such bow from Ash stave??? and i wass hoping that maybe you could point me some dimension to start with...how long the bow should be, widh,thickness....and how much will last a bow like that untill he brokes or something??? this friend of mine he is realy crazy aboute heavy bows...he also build laminate bows but he is not so good with self bows so he asked for my help....i have make a fiew bending trhu the handle bows but nothing so heavy so.....im waiting for your help...thks a lot.
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I don't know about a full 160#, but an 80" ash bow 1 1/2" wide over most of the length whould be able to yeild as strong a bow as you can tiller out. Heavy bows are hard to reach target weight on the first try though- at least that's been my experience :P.
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If you have an exceptionally dense stave, you can pull a war bow about 120-130 lb out of it, but if it's a normal piece of Ash.....probably not.
Sean
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i'd like to see the size a fella that can draw 160-180 at 32 in. i'm a big stout guy and i can shoot about 120 with any control. you're lookin at tearin shoulder and wrist tendons tryin to pull that much weight. be careful and work your way up from lighter draw weights.
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i'd like to see the size a fella that can draw 160-180 at 32 in. i'm a big stout guy and i can shoot about 120 with any control. you're lookin at tearin shoulder and wrist tendons tryin to pull that much weight. be careful and work your way up from lighter draw weights.
I know whatt you mean but the bow its not for me....i only use bows up to 60# .....this friend of mine use heavy bows so.....this is his problem ;D....he only asked me iff i could make him a 160# bow....theoreticly its posibile i sad to him ,but.....its not that simple whenn you dont have acces to good cality wood,,..
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A 160 pound self bow can kill you if it fails. I did one that went off my scale at 140 pounds at 24 inches but took a full draw of 31 inches without any problem, so what the weight was at the 31 is anyone's guess, but that was in hickory. It was 80 inches with a max limb width of a tad more than 2 1/2 inches and a longer upper limb than lower limb. In the same design I self destructed a red oak version and when that sucker exploded it sounded like a gun shot. It broke into 4 pieces, and I never found one of the tip.
Not to be preachy, but if you have to ask that question, please don't attempt to make a bow that heavy. If you don't have a lot of experience with the particular wood and the particular design, you could kill someone experimenting with bows that heavy.
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Thats a good point John, bows are about 75# and even less can be dangerous when they explode. I don't believe in demensions anyway. I think you have to build a bow to the materials you have. Steve
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So true Badger. Until deer start wearing armor, a bow that heavy only serves itself. Just casue ya can do something doesn't mean ya should, eh?
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So true Badger. Until deer start wearing armor, a bow that heavy only serves itself. Just casue ya can do something doesn't mean ya should, eh?
Good point...but i see quite a fiew boyers that still build bow upt to 100# AND EVEN MORE....
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So true Badger. Until deer start wearing armor, a bow that heavy only serves itself. Just casue ya can do something doesn't mean ya should, eh?
But not everyone's a hunter,you hunt with a Bow where i live and they'll put you in Jail! Some of us are interested in the Historical aspect of Archery,Bow's are/were not only used for taking game.
Pax
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Yess this is the thing here with my friend...wi are live in Romania and here wi cant hunt with the bow...They put you in jail also...but this friend of mine is interestid in historical aspect....this is why he wants a bow like this...the only problem is that i dont think i will be able to make him from ash. :-\...i dont know..maybe iff i could put some backing or something..just to be safe....
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Is a narrow round bellied "war bow" made out of ash actually historical? This is where I get kicked out of British bow forums: I'm with Pip Bickerstaffe on this one.. Anyone that's actually tried to build a narrow round bellied ash self bow at a really high weight has gotta come away with the idea that yes, the yew war bows were built the way everyone wants them to look like, but in the secondary woods, and let's use some common sense here, the secondary wood war bows HAD to have been built differently. Pip told me an old English long bow was anything that wasn't a cross bow. Now for those of you that want to jump on me for saying this, I hope the other guys that are on this board will chime in... Try to build a round bellied white ash self bow that won't gain massive string follow or just plain blow up in your face that's even over 80 pounds, let alone 160, and you are wasting your time.. Pardon me for being blunt, but anyone that thinks you can magically make White Ash violate the rules of wud is living in a fantasy land. Please ,prove me wrong, find one member of a British Bow Guild that actually sells a White Ash self bow that's over 100 pounds that follows the 5:8 rule set down buy the British Long bow Society...That's lees than 9 feet long BTW.s
Yup, this is about that time when I get called a yank with a bad attitude and anger management issues.
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http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,3835.0.html
John, here is a 90-95 lb Ash bow. Notice in reading that he says he knows someone who makes a 100 lb version from Ash..... I recall him saying that it takes an exceptional piece of wood, and, according to my speculation, no, it can't be made to the same specs as the Yew bows were. It is a less flexible wood, so it needs to be made wider to withstand the stress of bending. But nonetheless, a war bow can be made of Ash. Just not up to 160 lb.
Sean
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Yup, absolutely, make them wider and flatter so you're working within the particular wood's limits. I guess where I get upset is this stubborn notion that a heavy secondary wood ELB must fit a particular design based on "tradition". A perfect example of this can be found by googling English Longbow or long bow. A group of bow companies pop up. Go to any of the ones that are based across the ocean and you find trilaminates, and bows that are backed, made of woods that aren't native to Europe or the UK such as hickory.. Hickory isn't a European wood BTW. I'm a simple guy and think that since there is sooo much good available ash, white oak, elm and other woods that are Eurpean type trees, and since there are so many great bow makers out there, there must be a good reason why there aren't tons of heavy weight secondary self war bow for sale. There's a huge market just waiting for heavy weight secondary wood war bow replicas... Huge. They are simple bows, the wood is available, and plenty of skilled bow makers... And a huge potential customer base. It's a conspiracy I tell ya... It's all based on the perceived notion of what the actual bows must look like not what they really looked like. This ultimate perfect specimen of ultra high density white ash that made one or two bows doesn't wash. When tens of thousands of heavy weight self, secondary white wood bows were needed, did they really have the opportunity to search the country side for the perfect stave? I'll say it... I will always believe that the heavy secondary wood bows looked more like big flat bows... Why not? Is flattening a bow's belly really that huge of a technological jump?
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a year ago I would have agreed with you guys. But I have readjust my thinking on this. I have found that yew bows will accomplish a design with typicaly less mass weight than many other woods which would translate into better cast, but not by a very big margin. last year I made several bows over 100# and 32" draws, nearly all of them were elb style. None of them were shot enough to be thourouhgly tested as I cant draw that much. so instead I just gave them good workouts on the tiller tree and monitored the results. But from what I can tell nearly any hardwood with reasonably good compression characteristecs can make a good shooting elb. Maple, red oak, ash, hickory, elm, cedar hornbeam, and no doubt many others. I don't think the strain on an elb is any greater than with any other bow design. It has a bendy handle which really relieves the rest of the limbs tremendously. regardless of the wood if the length and draw weight is the same I will just build them to the same mass weight from any wood. A 76" 150# elb I would build at 41 oz, it would automaticaly become an elb with a 5/8 ratio using that mass figure. Steve
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John R.
I think you have some good points but I would say they had more than an 'opportunity to search the countryside for the perfect stave.' Warbows were the essential military technology in medieval England. I question the assumption that medieval bowyers would just pound out flatbows so they could use inferior staves. It's surely possible--but not necessarily true. Most of the little empirical evidence we have of medieval bows comes from the MR bows (I know you know this--just stating it for beginners who might be reading along), which showed a selectiveness in staves that is unrivaled today by any bowyer. Why would the English go to Italy, climb to 10,000 feet (TEN THOUSAND FEET!) and carefully tend stands of Yew trees for hundreds of years so they could become war-winning bows if they could just punch flatbows out of inferior staves. It seems obvious to me that they were in it for the best wood they could get and with the King's money--they could get it. I love good bow wood but I will never take a trip to another country to get a good stave--they did it for hundreds of years. It was a different time with a different standard so why wouldn't they cultivate groves of high-density Ash for building bows?
J. D. Duff
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John R what you say is all well and good but what you said earlier in the thread implied there was no point making heavy Bow's,not untill Deer start wearing Brigandine's. ;D
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So true Badger. Until deer start wearing armor, a bow that heavy only serves itself. Just casue ya can do something doesn't mean ya should, eh?
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marlon :)
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Fight Nice Children...evryone is entitled to their Opinions....until we can go back into History and see for Ourselves exactly how Hoh Yew Warbows were manufactured....there will always be speculation........and everyone will have just try to build one and see....
But when you try to get 140-160 pounds out of Hardwoods.....and they blow in your face because of Compression Fractures....dont say that you werent warned....I have seen what happens to Red Oak when you try to make a Bow over 75 pounds by ELB Standards....and it want pretty...Thats Just My Opinion ....I Could Be Wrong!!
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I have been trying to make a heavy bow from ash for a while but I have found 110lb at 32" to be about the limit whatever shape I make it
(although I am using kiln dried wood and I am not a very experienced "bowyer")
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Hi again...i wass gone from town a fiew days and i just got home and find your replays to me..thks a lot for all your help ....your opinion its verry important to me ,...this is why i asked you first iff its posibile to make such a bow from ash...i have to say that i wass pretty sure that its all most imposibil to make an 160# bow from ash stave..but i wanted to be sure...maybe this friend of mine will accept an 100# bow..if not...this is it...aniway thks.so much for your help....you know i just realise that wi also have Yew here in Romania, but i have to say that this wood is protected here by the law....and iff you get caught cutting a tree like that from the wood you go to jail 100%.. ;D....
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So true Badger. Until deer start wearing armor, a bow that heavy only serves itself. Just casue ya can do something doesn't mean ya should, eh?
I don't know if read the section title but it's called 'English Warbow'. If that's too cryptic for you but it's about English Warbows. English warbows were used in the medieval and Tudor period for war, and they were also very heavy, just so you know. Can you shoot a heavy bow? I strongly suspect not otherwise you would not be making fatuous statements like the above.
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Hello again...plz guys dont fight over this topic.....now im feeling a little guilty :-\...
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But when you try to get 140-160 pounds out of Hardwoods.....and they blow in your face because of Compression Fractures....dont say that you werent warned....I have seen what happens to Red Oak when you try to make a Bow over 75 pounds by ELB Standards....and it want pretty...Thats Just My Opinion ....I Could Be Wrong!!
Could be wrong....you are wrong, i make loads of heavy draw weight bows from hardwoods and maybe only get 3% or so which blow up. Don't make sweeping statements like that, all it does is upset people.
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Bear in mind that the BLBS rule on cross sectional dimensions was intended to preserve the use of the post medieval target bow in lawn archery and should not be taken as a rigid definition of a war bow, particularly one in a secondary wood.
If a bowyer wanted to make an efficient heavy bow out of such a wood the smarter bowyer would make the necessary dimensional adjustments though he might well stop short of making an out and out flatbow.
Although a flat or semi flatbow was common enough in earlier times in NW Europe.
I certainly would not even consider drawing a heavy self bow in oak given that woods propensity for exploding in lethal splinters.
Yew was the preferred wood for good reasons, though there are relatively safe alternatives each depending for durability and efficiency upon appropriate adjustment of the assumed yew bow model dimensions.
Rod.
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Hi....i know yew is the best wood for making an ELB with that D tipical cross section....but this is not an option for me...becose its to expensive to buy , and here in my country its ilegal to cut yew from the wood...and its realy verry dificult to find such wood in the forest...this is why is protected by the law.I wass thinking that maybe i can make this tipe of bow, by using a diferent cross section, and maybe make the bow a little more longer, and wider thenn a clasis yew Elb....after all this friend of mine its interested more in the force of the bow , and not how it looks or whatt design it is....and maybe iff im using a diferent type of cross section i will be able to make such a bow from wite ash....