Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => English Warbow => Topic started by: Kviljo on December 09, 2009, 05:51:50 pm
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...before you start complaining about measurements - yes, this one follows exact measurements taken from an original MR bow :P
The measurements are from Bow A in Secrets of the English Warbow. - which means it is 75" between the string nocks.
The nocks are buffalo, but I think they should be reasonably good both in shape and size.
The bow weighs 36 oz, and according to Badgers Mass Formula, it should withstand 120 pounds at 30 inches. Some of you might remember my "replica" 55#@28"/70#@34" MR bow - this is the sister stave. One deflexed and one reflexed. This one, however, seems to become quite a bit heavier - at least over 100#.
I have given the stave the measurements from the original, so it was nearly tillered before I put it on the tiller. There are some adjustments needed because of the difference in the staves, which I will touch up by only scraping the belly. - which means it will end up slightly destressed compared to the original.
Hoping to finish it within a few days.
(http://kviljo.no/bue/mrreplika2/8.jpg)
(http://kviljo.no/bue/mrreplika2/1.jpg)
(http://kviljo.no/bue/mrreplika2/2.jpg)
(http://kviljo.no/bue/mrreplika2/3.jpg)
(http://kviljo.no/bue/mrreplika2/4.jpg)
(http://kviljo.no/bue/mrreplika2/5.jpg)
(http://kviljo.no/bue/mrreplika2/6.jpg)
(http://kviljo.no/bue/mrreplika2/7.jpg)
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Loverly looking bow as allways, what weight do you think it will come out at
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Very nice looking bow.
Craig.
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So this is what you've been working on instead of those horn sinew composites. I can't wait to see this one and the other ones finished. Hopefully I will be able to make my own someday.
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On a side note what sort of distances can your yew bows achieve kviljo, the grain is all nice and tight it does look like quality yew.
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Thanks, guys.
I'm pretty sure it will land just over 100# @ 30".
Yep, Ryoon, I had to do something in the meantime while I wait for more hide glue. :) I'll probably make a topic for my horn bows here in a while, if I manage to get one shooting.
Ian, I haven't really been putting my yew to the flight-test yet. I'm hesitating to make highly explosive bows out of yew, so my golden staves mostly end up as regular longbows. I'm hoping to make a recurved yew flightbow some time this winter, though. I've been getting some yew here and there, so the quality varies quite a bit. This one is quite light, but with nice colour and reasonably tight growth rings.
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This looks really nice!
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Man that's real eye candy:)
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Very nice and clean work!
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i can appreciate the work that went into that. Good one, man.
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Stunning bow!! Mind if I ask How thick are the horn tips ? .
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Kviljo, that is fine. One question, could you measure for reference the width taper of last 10" of the limbs in step of 2" for reference?
I think there is some potential of wood removal there.
Good hit on the nocks.
Jaro
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That's nice of you, folks :)
Jaro, you should get the book by Hugh Soar. There's good measurements of two bows in there.
I must say I really wanted to scrape off a lot of wood near the tips. The tiller it has from the measurements are way too stiff-tipped. If it is going to break, it will be near the handle. I think the original is the black bow with the two natural deflex bends at midlimb, so that might be the reason it was tillered this way. I will make it bend slightly more towards the tips, but I won't remove the width as I think that is a more visible part of the reproduction.
I'll get back with the measurements of the tips.
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I have read that book and at least two people from the sam archery group I m contributed to it. But I never thought that we should copy blindly anything since no two pieces of wood are the same.
The black bow is favorite of my friend Alan Edwards. It must have been somebodys favorite bow, brought from home, since it does not look like all those fine quality weapons.
My commentary only touches the fact that my personall preference would be making the outer limbs lighter, unless I was set on making exact dimensionall copy of certain bow - which doesnt have much sense if the wood is not of comparable stiffness.
Let us know how does it shoot.
Jaro
PS - I caught somebodys commentary on short Mary Rose bow, which is Tower - very thick, tapered, uninteresting stick, with surprisingly thick tips. Now that doesnt sound much like, unless it was originally longer bow, which was shortened, without the tips being actually shaved down, the job perhaps inexpertly done. That puts the whole "stiff tips" in different light entirelly, at least with some of the bows.
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The stiffness/density of the wood is unknown, so how then should one go about making a replica, other than copying the dimentions and touching up the tiller by scraping the belly?
Regarding shortened bows - there could be a possibility that such a shortening would be visible on the surface of the bow, if the whole bow wasn't re-scraped totally.
However, I'm not quite sure, because even this black bow is supposed to have had the small ~12mm nocks. If it was shortened without re-tapering the limbs, the non-expert bowyer probably wouldn't fit such small nocks without being aware that the outer 10" of the limbs could be narrowed too?
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Very nice work! I sure hope you're gong to post some more pics!
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Will do :)
(http://kviljo.no/bue/mrreplika2/a.jpg)
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I braced this bow some days ago and pulled it on the tiller. It made two painful sounds before I calmly de-strung it and hung it on the wall. The relative humidity is down to 35% in my workshop now... :) I'm in no hurry, and I don't want to risk the nice piece of wood, so it'll have to wait for more humid days. I'll get back to it in the spring.
A good scraper is really priceless when working with yew :)
(http://kviljo.no/bue/mrreplika2/9.jpg)
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:o I hope there was no damage. That happens here in the winter, as well. The humidity takes a nose dive, and the wood becomes very brittle.
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come to oklahoma it is allways up here.
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Don't think it got any major damage. I couldn't see broken fibres on the back, but it was probably some left-over of the growthring I scraped away on the back that cracked. It will be pretty lively if it survives, that's for sure. It's pretty thick for it's width. I was quite amazed that it acted as stable as it did.
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Just thought I would give an update on this bow. It hung on the wall for about 8 months waiting for higher humidity in my workshop, untill a few weeks ago when I decided to try this one out as a Standard Arrow flight bow at the Norwegian Championship that were held not long ago.
It is drawing ~80# @ 28" and ~100# @ 32". The bowyers mark is carved into the bow and represents I and M, which are my initials - Ivar Malde. If I weren't making a replica, I would have made it bend more towards the tips. However, I like that it has about the same tiller as the drawn original bow shown in Soars "Longbow". I decided to have the reflexed limb as the upper limb, so it might look like it is bending a liitle too much at the lower limb. I don't remember the exact amount of reflex the stave had, but the bow is straight even just after it has been shot.
The string is made from dacron and is about 3mm thick. I also made a 15 strand FF string for it, which I tested with a standard arrow today. The FF string made the bow sound like a guitar, but it didn't shoot measurable further. The Standard Arrow landed between 174 and 182 meters with both strings. The arrow was fairly point heavy, so I think it should be fairly easy to pass 200 meters with the bow.
The bow also won "Selfbow of the year" at the Bowyers competition during the Championship. With a shot of 174 meters at the Standard Arrow flight shoot, it came in third. An ash/walnut ~100# warbow shot 212 meters. (which I believe is a new world record for it's class!)
(http://kviljo.no/bue/mr/1.jpg)
(http://kviljo.no/bue/mr/2.jpg)
(http://kviljo.no/bue/mr/3.jpg)
(http://kviljo.no/bue/mr/4.jpg)
(http://kviljo.no/bue/mr/5.jpg)
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Very nicely done, Ivar! It's good to be patient, and listen to the wood. I think your tiller is bang on for a warbow, and the weight certainly qualifies it as such. I love the side nocks, as well, giving your bow a true replica quality. Nice work! You're also getting some decent range. When you say "standard arrow", are you referring to EWBS standards at 52g?
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When you cut your side nocks, do you cut them both on the same side, or one on each side? Looking at the bow from the belly side, held out at arms length (like you're going to shoot it), which side(s) are the nocks cut on? Thanks!
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That's a beautiful bow you've Kviljo and from the scrapings I can imagine that the wood is nice and crisp and dense.
By the way the EWBS record for a laminated bow is 281 yards shot/made by Joe Gibbs.
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Thanks guys!
Yep, we wanted an extra class for the flight shooting, and decided to simply loan the english "standard arrow". By the interest we saw this year I bet there will be many competitors for the class next year.
All the MR bows I have seen drawings/photos of, have had the sidenock cut on the left side on the upper tip, and on the right side on the lower tip, seen from the archers point of view.
You're quite right, Yeoman, the wood felt like it had the right consistency. Opposite of dry, and did not show any signs of cracking at all while drying. I haven't measured the density, but it isn't overly heavy. Perhaps 0,7? I have two more staves from the same tree that I look forward to starting on, though this one was the cleanest with the most reflex.
We must have misunderstood the Meane-woods and non-historical-terms a little. Meane woods is non-laminated selfbows from native english woods, while all the laminated is competing in the non-historical class? Are there any specifications as to what type of bow one has to shoot in the non-historical class? Could one enter with a flatbow? In the meane woods class, it still has to be a longbow? It seems we have something to work on still, then. :) 281 yards is fairly hefty!
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We'll soon have a flight competition with several classes of war arrows. (I'll post it soon on the Norwegian forum Ivar :))
As I have understood it the meane wood class is all bows from all other wood than yew. (North european woods)
Laminated is laminated, and yew has a class of it's own. I don't know if there are any rules on what type of string has to be used, but if you remember my replica of the same bow made about 200 meters when we tested it with a perfectly tuned 52gr. arrow. I guess what made a difference was me using an FF string. My bows were a little late for the competition, but it would have been fun to compare the two one day. Both the 120# ash and the 110# elm constantly outshot the 100# yew, but I guess poundage does matter when it comes to war arrows.. :)
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So happy to see this bow finished. Great job.
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Thanks guys!
Yep, we wanted an extra class for the flight shooting, and decided to simply loan the english "standard arrow". By the interest we saw this year I bet there will be many competitors for the class next year.
All the MR bows I have seen drawings/photos of, have had the sidenock cut on the left side on the upper tip, and on the right side on the lower tip, seen from the archers point of view.
You're quite right, Yeoman, the wood felt like it had the right consistency. Opposite of dry, and did not show any signs of cracking at all while drying. I haven't measured the density, but it isn't overly heavy. Perhaps 0,7? I have two more staves from the same tree that I look forward to starting on, though this one was the cleanest with the most reflex.
We must have misunderstood the Meane-woods and non-historical-terms a little. Meane woods is non-laminated selfbows from native english woods, while all the laminated is competing in the non-historical class? Are there any specifications as to what type of bow one has to shoot in the non-historical class? Could one enter with a flatbow? In the meane woods class, it still has to be a longbow? It seems we have something to work on still, then. :) 281 yards is fairly hefty!
Hi Kviljo,
This is taken from our website
The English Warbow was the bow the longbow used in battle by the Plantagenet and Tudor armies of the 14th, 15th and 16th Centuries. The EWBS defines a warbow to be a bow that follows the pattern, profile and tiller of the bows found on the Mary Rose.
The Society imposes a lower limit on bow draw-weight for adult males (70lb at a measured 32” of draw), although there is no lower weight limit for women, juniors and archers over 60. In order to encourage beginners, further allowance is made for a new member’s first year.
The bows are organised into three classes for the purpose of recording scores at events:
Mary Rose: Self yew bows
Meane: Self bows made of other woods available to the medieval bowyer, such as Ash or Elm.
Laminate: Non historical Bows: made from multiple layers of (exotic) woods. Any laminated bow would be in this class, exotic or otherwise, as would backed bows and self bows of wood not used in the above period by Anglo-Welsh armies (e.g. osage).
The arrow specs' can be found here...
http://www.englishwarbowsociety.com/EWBS_ARROW_SPECIFICATIONS.html
I'd urge any shoot organiser wanting to use EWBS classes, albeit in an informal way to check its website.
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Brilliant, Nidrinr! Looking forward to that. Hope I will be able to make it. We should definitely compare these two bows. ...I just need to shoot some more to be able to draw the bow fully... :)
Thanks, Ryoon!
Good stuff, Yeoman. In other words, no flatbow/etc would be allowed at your shoots? Has it ever been allowed to shoot Standard arrows with anything else than longbows at flight competitions?
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PM sent so as not to divert from the beautiful bow.
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Excellent bow as always kviljo
I see you have not dared try a loop on your sidenock though ;-)
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Excellent bow as always kviljo
I see you have not dared try a loop on your sidenock though ;-)
Speaking of which, does it weaken the string to bring it back through the loop, and then around the side nock? Also, are you using a timber hitch for the bottom nock? Thanks!
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I have used the same noose on my sidenocks with no problem at all (upto 140lb bow)
I have only recently found out how to use a loop with my sidenocks and have been telling kviljo about it, hence my pulling his leg about it here ;-)
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Thanks!
I guess there's no risk in trying a regular loop on this bow either, but I want to try it on a not so expensive bow first.
The ultimate would be to try it on a yew bow with cow horn nocks glued with hide glue, together with a linnen or hemp string. It should be done some day :)
The synthetic strings are usually way stronger than they need to be, but a plant fiber string would definitely not like to be wrapped around the nock as on my bow. Fairly good point. I'm sure they would have found a way around the problem if they really wanted a self-tightening loop, but why bother if a regular loop works and saves string material?
Challenge taken! This should be a goal for bow B, hehe :)
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Thanks!
I guess there's no risk in trying a regular loop on this bow either, but I want to try it on a not so expensive bow first.
The ultimate would be to try it on a yew bow with cow horn nocks glued with hide glue, together with a linnen or hemp string. It should be done some day :)
The synthetic strings are usually way stronger than they need to be, but a plant fiber string would definitely not like to be wrapped around the nock as on my bow. Fairly good point. I'm sure they would have found a way around the problem if they really wanted a self-tightening loop, but why bother if a regular loop works and saves string material?
Challenge taken! This should be a goal for bow B, hehe :)
I don’t understand what big problem you guys have with a normal loop with sidenocks. I have been using self sidenocks, and now cowhorn ones for decades, and it is a long time since I found a noose necessary.The loop should be a fairly close fit, and the nock should be cut in an inch above the edge of the horn, because if the loop allows the string to touch the wood, it won’t hold very well, in my experience, Alan. There is no danger to the bow even if it doesn’t hold, Kviljo. The loop won’t come out of the nock before the arrow is loosed.
Erik
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Erik,
Can you show us some pics of your strings and side nocks? Thanks!
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I don’t understand what big problem you guys have with a normal loop with sidenocks. I have been using self sidenocks, and now cowhorn ones for decades, and it is a long time since I found a noose necessary.The loop should be a fairly close fit, and the nock should be cut in an inch above the edge of the horn, because if the loop allows the string to touch the wood, it won’t hold very well, in my experience, Alan. There is no danger to the bow even if it doesn’t hold, Kviljo. The loop won’t come out of the nock before the arrow is loosed.
The problem I had was that just looking at the nock it is very difficult to understand how the string will stay in the nock, so despite people telling me they are doing it and my belief this is how they would be used I just couldn't understand how it would work
once I finally met someone who was doing it and I could see it in real life then it was instantly clear how it works and there was no longer any problem
I have updated my sidenock page with pics of my 130lb bow using sidenocks and loop on string - I hope that from these pics people can see how it works
www.alanesq.com/sidenock.htm
The string pulls down the side of the bow but stays in place
BTW - I use a bowyers knot on the bottom nock, but there is no reason you couldn't use a loop on both ends
As bow-toxo says, if you look at the picture of the bow at full draw, there is no way the string can come off
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Just a note that I have now updated the above page with pics of a sidenock with second slot for stringer (on my 130lb yew bow)
this I can report works very well
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I don't come in here to often, but I am glad I did today. That is a really nice looking bow. Congratulations.
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That bow is beautiful! Can you post a link of you shooting it? The first war bow I saw and touched was made by Gary Davi, formerly with PA mag. I said it looked like a walking stick that couldn't decide which end was up. Then he let me pull, er, try to pull it. It had wonderful tiller and I still covet it as well as yours.
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:)
I don't have a video-camera any longer, and my video-editing skills are no good, so I guess the pictures will have to do. It is fairly smooth do draw as it has so little string follow. Although I must admit that this bow is about as much as I can shoot at the moment. Haven't been shooting regularly for over a year. Too buisy making bows... 8)
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The problem I had was that just looking at the nock it is very difficult to understand how the string will stay in the nock, so despite people telling me they are doing it and my belief this is how they would be used I just couldn't understand how it would work
once I finally met someone who was doing it and I could see it in real life then it was instantly clear how it works and there was no longer any problem
I have updated my sidenock page with pics of my 130lb bow using sidenocks and loop on string - I hope that from these pics people can see how it works
www.alanesq.com/sidenock.htm
The string pulls down the side of the bow but stays in place
BTW - I use a bowyers knot on the bottom nock, but there is no reason you couldn't use a loop on both ends
As bow-toxo says, if you look at the picture of the bow at full draw, there is no way the string can come off
Hi,
Great addition to your site, I hadn't seen that page before and I wasn't aware of that surviving nock thanks for bringing it to our attention and sharing the pics.
Del
BTW This longbow is a worthy winner of BOM, some how I'd missed it, else I'd have voted for it too.
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thats perty! ;D
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Beautifull bow ... congratulations Kviljo I'm not surprised it's won awards.
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Hoping to finish it within a few days.
Again, congratilations on one of the too few period replica bows, and Merry Christmas to everyone ! !
Erik
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Thanks guys! I recieved the BOM-cap a few days ago. Oh joy ;D
Happy solstice to all the humanists out there! ;)
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Hi, I've just caught up with this thread again.
Great bow and I like that picture with all your bows on the wall behind.
It's great to see the side nocks in use and to see how we all share information on this site.
Wishing you all good bowmaking in 2011.
Del