Ozbow

Hi all,

Daryl suggested I start a new thread with this one (definitely a good idea) so here it is.

So far I have glued the backing and given it 24hrs to dry, filed the crown onto the back, rough rounded and then scraped the belly to remove working marks.

The stave is still pretty dam stiff although when held in a vice the limbs can be bent back far enough to achieve a 6" brace height and seem to have a nice even bend throughout tho whole limb.

I will post photos of the stave straight and then try to get one of along the bending limb if I can hold it with one hand.

Feeling at the moment like I will probably be needing to thin the handle section somewhat to allow it to bend a bit otherwise it will go 150+lbs... Im aiming for 90-100 @28"

This one is a prototype for one I will be making for a friend and if it survives I'll be hanging on to it most likely

Cheers,

Colin

looking forward to seeing some progress shots.

I saw that you were aiming for 90-100lb draw - wow! I wouldn't want to be doing an afternoon at the buttes with that bow...

Are you backing with hickory & chasing the ring through? Where do you source hickory in Brisbane?

Ok guys,

Here is a couple of photos (bit crappy tho), Its really tricky to take pictures of a bow that's 84 inches long haha.
Shot of the hickory backing... Should have put something on it to show how wide it actually is. Will do on the next ones!!
Here's one of the little bend that you can get into it... Takes about 47lbs of pull to get the tip back 5 inches so its well over weight at the moment.

Cheers for the interest Bob, will try to get plenty of picks while doing the rest of this one.

Hey Newzin, yea its going to be interesting pulling it the first few times, but I have pulled 120@28 a few times and it wasn't too bad. It wont be something I shoot all arvo that's for sure haha, just something to finish up with on a few shots for distance.

The Hickory was not chased for a growth ring... a few of the guys on here have had good success with them unbacked (mikaluger has an ash one around 90lbs) but the "crown" on the back seems to help make a smooth transition into the belly and mimics the natural shape of a tree. Dennis explained his reasons for doing it to me a while back but I wouldn't do his explanation justice if I repeated it poorly.

Not possible to get Hickory locally in Brisbane either mate, trust me I've looked everywhere!! Mick was kind enough to mill and send me a few backing strips up from Melbourne to get me started on the ELBs. I do believe Otto's timber yard has some in stock every now and then but its pricey and costs a bit to get up here in full lengths. Personally I don't mind the cost as I like the full length strips more than a spliced one, just my personal preference tho. Swing Otto's an email and they should be able to help you get some.

More photos and progress on the weekend as I will be working tomorrow till then and wont have a chance to work on it any further.

Cheers,

Colin

Good on you Colin. This one will be a ripper of a bow. You have done well so far. Just take it easy.

Nezwin,
You don't have to chase growthrings with Hickory as a backing. Quarter sawn laminations are best, but backsawn is not a real problem at all. That is the beauty of the stuff.

Cheers Dennis!! Slow and steady will be it for now, really font want to mess this one up after the time that's gone into it.

its scary strong at the moment so some reduction is needed.

Colin

I think you will perhaps have to learn to 'lay your body into the bow' to get it back like this bloke on eBay.

I have been trying it out and it seems to work, but I am only on lightweight bows yet. It feels very strange though when you don't have your dominant eye over the arrow. I worked it out by bringing the bow up to near the jaw-line level with the bow at brace height and then push the bow away into the draw while keeping the drawing hand back rather than drawing with it. Your upper body is sort of forced to move forward with the push.

As the whole comes into position, the drawing hand just moves a little bit to anchor - perhaps only 1 or 2 inches to level with my ear. Most of the draw is actually a push from the bowarm. Strangely, it does let me 'push' a heavier bow out better than drawing the same bow. I am actually shooting much better for it, but it feels so strange. That is partly because of a problem I have always had with my left eye which I have discussed elsewhere.

Cheers for the photo Dennis!! After many hours watching videos on YouTube I have picked up the medieval style draw without too much trouble, and yes it definitely does allow you to pull a bit more.

I find most people tend to use too much arm and not enough back when shooting, not concentrating on the correct muscles during the draw. This I don't have a problem with due to my many years of lifting weights and focusing on particular muscles during a lift.

I will try to get a good shot of myself back at 32 inches when this bow is done and I have some arrows heavy enough for it!!

Colin

I agree with the 'too much arm' bit. I was amazed when I started this pushing style draw. I could tell straight away that my old draw used mostly the shoulder muscles until the very last bit when you came to anchor and used back muscles to hold till loose even though that part doesn't last long at all. The English Mediaeval draw is very very different indeed and I seem to be using back muscles more than arm muscles even when I push - sort of like a slow punch using a tensed trapezius or something similar. Hard to explain really.

I have looked at a lot of those pommie blokes drawing their heavy ELBs and very many of them do not lay their bodies into the bow at all. They still seem to use the conventional draw with a lot of swinging up from the waist to get the arrow back, then swing down and up again to get the last bit of draw, and then loose.

Dennis, have a look at Jake Fennwick on YouTube. For a young bloke (21 I think) his technique is quite good and he can manage 140lbs without too much trouble. Joe Gibbs shooting 170lb Mary Rose replica at 32 inches is also an eye opener. He seems to be doing it with ease!!

Interesting, nocking the arrow on the other side of the handle.

Daryl.

I was waiting for someone to spot that Daryl!!!!!!!!!!!

Well-spotted Daryl and Mick. I did not notice that one. Not a good side to loose from using a Mediterranean loose. The arrow would go all over the shop as it left. Perhaps it is just a shot for his ad at the time, but I can't think why he would do it anyway.

Colin, I will look those blokes up later today (Friday). I have a CT scan tomorrow at lunch time and I have to get a bit of shut-eye soon.

I managed to get a string ( 22 strands of B55!!) on the bow this arvo and get it to a 1 inch brace height. There is still a lot of stretch left in the string to hold the bow at brace properly.

It is currently pulling 70lbs at 12 inches!! just a tad heavy I think.

Plan of attack is to slowly increase the bend in the handle as the tips are coming around alright already, maybe thin them a little bit as I go to keep them bending.

photos tomorrow morning.

Colin

If you want a FF string Colin let me know...... I will make you one up.

Cheers for the offer Mick, but I will be ordering myself some from Tradbits this week, should only take a couple days to turn up. The Dacron one will do for now, just need more twists as it stretches out.

Ok here are the photos as promised. This is after a little bit of work this morning.
The bow holding a 2 inch brace height (only 4 more to go haha)
Second shot is the bow at 18 inches draw. Pulls 73lbs at 18 inches now.

From looking at the photo I think the tips have enough bend in them so I just need to get the mid limb to handle area bending around and all will be good!!

More scraping and sanding to do. Photos as I progress with it.

Colin

Dennis La Varenne wrote:You don't have to chase growthrings with Hickory as a backing. Quarter sawn laminations are best, but backsawn is not a real problem at all. That is the beauty of the stuff.

Thanks for clearing that up. I'm looking at experimenting with some different backing options, like bamboo, so I'll have to see about trying out a little hickory.

The days progress...
Got this sucker to a 6 inch brace height and a nice even bend out to the max of my scales at 75lbs!!!
Bit of maths (very inaccurate extrapolation) provided a figure of 7lbs per 2 inches draw so that would be 110lbs @30 inches, but it feels much heavier shooting it. Id hazard a guess at around 130-140lbs with the stacking at the back end of the draw.

Finally, I broke Dennis's 3d rule in bow making : never over stress a bow past the desired draw weight in tillering.

I just HAD to try shooting this beast!!! and the result below.
I think that I'm back at around 29" with this draw as my normal draw is 27.5 to my lip.

I absolutely love the bend this bow has taken through my tillering!! I don't think I could make it any better if it tried.

Shooting the bow now it feels like about 10-20lbs too heavy to be a really fun bow to shoot so I am going to sink it a little when I acquire some scales that go heavy enough to make this thing more comfortable for me. That will involve scraping and blending the entire length of the belly.

Comments and criticism are more than welcome, I would love Dennis to work his magic chord lines on the full draw photo if he can get it straight enough to work with.

Colin

what a beast!!!, nice job colin!. 84"!!! How would an average sized person shoot that bad boy? They'd have to be standing on a hill

Well you've done it Col, That my friend is a war bow!
Post it on Facebook and see what our friends think of the tiller, should be interesting!!!!!
I think that tiller is just about perfect, and you should just sand her up, put your nocks on and leave her be.
Well done mate.
P.S. that hickory is outstanding.

Haha cheers Cmoore!! Im 6'1" and stringing it is a stretch (no pun intended) even for me. I made this as a prototype for a mate and he's a bit shorter than me so his will have to be a tad shorter I think.

I certainly did and she's up on FB Mick don't you worry, haha!! I even made the point of mentioning its very slight whip tiller in my post to make a point. The eye is very deceptive on this one tho I will admit. First time looking at the photo I thought circular but looking closer you can see its a little stiffer in the handle. We'll wait and see what Dennis recons tho

Yes the hickory is amazing stuff!! Cannot thank you enough for sending it up for me mate.

I'm starting to think that after I weight it tomorrow and know how much its pulling I will do the horn nocks and a good sand and seal to finish it off. Bit of shooting it and I'll get used to the weight. Cant wait to shoot some clout with it!! Throws that 60 gram arrow in the photo likes its nothing.

Next challenge is some hand forged bodkins for a set of war arrows to go with it!!

hunterguy1991 wrote:......... inches draw so that would be 110lbs @30 inches, but it feels much heavier shooting it. Id hazard a guess at around 130-140lbs with the stacking at the back end of the draw.........

Colin, with the bow being 84" n to n stack should not be an issue at a 30" draw length. Maybe the bow is a lot heaver than your estimate.

Nevertheless you have made good progress.

Daryl.

Hi Daryl,

"Stacking" was probably the wrong word to have used...

What I meant to refer to was the steepening of the draw force curve as the resistance becomes greater per inch of draw length. The guess of 110lbs was based off the draw force curve linearly extrapolated out to 30 inches using the gradient between 18 and 20 inches (as I mentioned the scales I have maxed out there), 130-140 is how it feels to me going off other heavy bows I've shot. I will be gobsmacked if its more than 140lbs and I managed to pull it that far!!

Thank you for the compliment, its really awesome when something I work so hard on gets some praise from people far more skilled than myself.

Colin

Colin,

I think you have finished your apprenticeship and we will send your Journeyman Bowyer's papers directly. I also agree with Mickaluger. That tiller is about as good as it gets. Cut a bastard-nock into your upper horn above the shooting nock and use a bit of cord to make a bracing cord. It is much easier on your back.

This bow won't begin to tack unless you can draw it to close to 40 inches. That is not about to happen even at your arm length. I would expect the force-draw curve to be nearly straight with this bow. If it is, then it doesn't stack. Stacking is an accelerating increase in the rate of draw weight increase, not just a steep curve. On a graph whose X and Y axes are of equal length on the page, I would expect a straight curve close to 45 degrees slope.

If you want to see how far you are drawing without an assistant standing by to help, get an arrow shaft with a nock glued on and drill some holes horizontally through the shaft at 1 inch spacing from around 20 inches right out to the end. Push a nail through at say, 26 inches and draw until the nail hits the bow's back and hold it there and then you know you have drawn that far. Then set the nail out further one inch per time until you know exactly what you are drawing.

If your facebook colleagues reckon that the tips whip too much, they haven't learned their craft yet. Apart from draw weight, this bow will also have a fair bit of limb mass and it will do best with very heavy arrows. I doubt it will shoot lighter arrows much further than the heavy arrows if I am correct in suspecting that there is a relationship between high limb mass and high arrow mass which is inversely proportional in a logarithmic way if I am expressing myself correctly.

Dennis, my measuring arrow has a line drawn around it every inch from the nock. Instead of a nail, I put a rubber band around the shaft, doubled over and over and over etcetera, then roll it from mark to mark.

Fills the same purpose, and means you don't need to drill into a relatively narrow round section.

Good work on the warbow mate!

If you look at a force draw curve of a well made longbow, you will see the lb/inch line is roughly linear, and doesn't change much over the majority of the draw.

The phenomenon you report may be a perception thing of drawing longer than a usual draw length. I suspect that the perceived difficulty increases exponentially (or something approaching such) as you go above your normal draw length.

Hickory is legendary. I must get some.

Thanks Dennis!!

I am very happy with the tiller on this bow, and as you say I don't think I could get it any better. The people on Facebook don't seem to grasp the concept and advantages of a slight whip tiller that I go for... more fool them I say!!

The arrow in that photo is one that I won at the Abbey Medieval tournament a few years back and is pretty much as authentic as they get so I thought it was fitting I shoot it off that bow a few times. It weighs about 60 grams (no idea in grains) and the bow throws it like its a kebab stick!!

I have cut false nocks both ends in the timber to string this one with a stringer cord now and will be doing false nocks both ends when the horns go on as well. There is no way I could string this using the push pull method!! Even using a stringer its painful on bare feet to string it haha.

I have acquired a new set of scales that top out at 225lbs so I will be weighing it after my new tiller stand is built!! Going to build a fancy one with rope and pulleys for exercising the limbs and watching the bow bend as its drawn. Photos will go up later of that.

I will also plot out the draw force curve for this bow out to 30 or 32 inches to see how linear it actually is.

I went out this morning to get a heap of stuff for bowyer-y and making my forge for making bodkins and also picked up some half inch poplar dowel for arrows. I have a taper jig made up to taper them from half inch at point to 3/8ths of an inch at nock, I could also adjust it for doing barrelled shafts as were found on the Mary Rose. Hope to get a half dozen "quarter pound" arrows made up through the week for shooting this bow in.

Cheers for all the support guys, really is a big confidence booster for me and a massive help in learning this amazing craft.

Plenty more of these to come now!!

Colin

Got the new tiller all set up and weighed the bow this arvo...

I have indeed made a warbow!! Tipped the scales at 115lbs @ 30 inches

Right around where the maths said it would be too.

Very happy to be over 100lbs and cant wait to get some 14th century arrows through it.

Colin.

hunterguy1991 wrote:....Tipped the scales at 115lbs @ 30 inches....

Colin, that is an excellent result, my body aches just thinking about the draw weight.

It will be interesting to see if the bow sheds much poundage after a few hundred arrows.

Can you tell us what is the physical mass of the bow?

Daryl.

Dave,

That is a good idea about using your rubber bands. It is the only way you can tell how far you are actually drawing unless you have a bystander helping to mark the length you actually draw to. I have found that when I go up to a heavier bow, I get some collapsing of the bow-arm even though it feels like it isn't happening and the resulting draw-length is not as far at I think I am drawing. That is why I did the nail-through-arrow thing, but your method is just as good.

Colin,

60 grammes x 15.45 = grains; in this case 927 grains. That is a bit of a lightweight arrow for your draw weight. 1150 grains would be better proportionately or 74.4 grammes. Just the same, it will be nice to know its speed and cast using your 60 gramme arrow.

With the bastard nocks, you only need the one. It is customary to put it on the upper horn. The loop of the bracing cord just abuts the shooting string on the lower horn and won't let it slip. Bearing in mind, that we are not at all sure that bastard nocks wer ever used by Mediaeval English military bowmen. Extant pictures of them bracing their bows do not show them using this very easy and reliable device. There seems to have been variations of holding the upper tip whilst pushing a foot into the bow's belly about the handle area or even kneeling on the same spot whilst holding the upper tip up at about shoulder height. The lower tip would have been pushed into the ground a bit by this technique.

I did read recently of archery bracing their bows with a second string in case one broke in battle. I think it was in Ascham.

Daryl,

I will let you know about the draw weight shedding when I have some arrows to put through it haha. Still working on making them as I need heavy hand forged bodkins. Hopefully I will have a forge set up today to make a few up.

The bow weighs 1306 grams with the string on... Pretty weighty I reckon.

Dennis I know that arrow is a bit on the light side ( thanks for the conversion tho, that will come in handy!) but it is the heaviest arrow I have here at the moment.

Plan is to make up some quarter pound arrows to shoot the bow in with. Quarter pound is 113 grams, so nearly double that arrow's weight. I do believe flight arrows are about 75 grams or so but will have to confirm. In the warbow societies they shoot arrows of numerous different weights for different events.

As for the nocks, I do double false nocks as a bit of a trade mark... I know they only usually do one but I wanted to make mine a bit unique, something you wont see often.

Colin