Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Horn Bows => Topic started by: Tom Dulaney on March 31, 2020, 12:06:42 pm
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After looking at the cross sectional illustrations of some Egyptian bows, I got the idea or scribing horn in to the wooden core instead of trying to glue horn on to the surface of the wood.
If you can imagine taking a narrow wood core, scribing a 'slot' in to it, and gluing horn strips in to the slot, that's what I mean.
One advantage of this could be that you're getting more surface area attached to the core, since the shoulders of the horn will be glued to the walls in the 'slot'.
I've been interested in making a horn bow with minimal tools and effort. This could possibly bypass the flattening and planing of horn and the wood surface.
Cross section of a laminated Egyptian bow. The two laminates on the sides of the bow offer more reinforcement to secure the horn.This design looks like it good be more forgiving to less-than perfectly-fitting components, perhaps what we might expect from people who had only poor saws, no C-clamps, no steel files, crappy planes, no power sanders, etc.
(https://nwzimg.wezhan.cn/contents/sitefiles2023/10116755/images/5847581.jpg)
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A little off topic but is that a layer of horn between the core and sinew back?
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Very interesting Tom.It should work.
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DC: No probs. Yes it does have two horn layers
http://margo.student.utwente.nl/sagi/artikel/ancient_composites/
BowEd: Thank you
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Thanks...Even more interesting reading about it.
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The wood layers on the sides are not to strengthen the core to horn joint. They are to protect the side of the bow from impacts. Turkish bows used leather strips.
There is no 'easy' way to make a horn bow ;) If there was somebody would've come up with it by now :) There are some designs that are easier to execute than others.
Simple tools are definitely not a hinderance to making any hornbow, indeed the best tools are the simple ones. Most cultures hornbow making tools are variations on a theme but essentially very similar and perfected over many years. I doubt many bowyers used 'crappy' tools!
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The wood layers on the sides are not to strengthen the core to horn joint. They are to protect the side of the bow from impacts. Turkish bows used leather strips.
There is no 'easy' way to make a horn bow ;) If there was somebody would've come up with it by now :) There are some designs that are easier to execute than others.
Simple tools are definitely not a hinderance to making any hornbow, indeed the best tools are the simple ones. Most cultures hornbow making tools are variations on a theme but essentially very similar and perfected over many years. I doubt many bowyers used 'crappy' tools!
Didn't they have leather at that time? Hard to see why you would glue that thick wood on the side to just protect from impacts.
What they do (and we can verify this):
- widen the bow, make it more stable
- increase the glue surface for horn-core joint
Simple tools aka high carbon cabinet scraper laser cut to toothed shape. Pretty simple but not really an original tool as meant here.
I mean its quite obvious the tools weren't as high quality steel and such. Still it might have not mattered much.
An easy way is to use a router bit to make perfect matching grooves that never fail even with bad glue prepare. There is no arguing about that either.
Personally i don't think the reason for side-wood was either increasing glue surface or protecting from impact. Might have been just a part of bow development. They got to use really thick, narrow horns that are easier to produce and i bet the bows shot just fine. To be honest the horn on the back is the one that makes a lot less sense.
It would be interesting to make such a egyptian bow. Maybe one would learn a lot...