warbow

[ichiban]

ok guys know what i just wont bother posting it!

[TomMcDonald]

ok guys know what i just wont bother posting it!

What, why not??

[ichiban]

well the point of this thread was to show ppl how im building this EWB style bow, and we have pictures of brazilian and african archers on it and disscussions as to waeather laminating bows is traditional and which cultures drew to the ear, if people would bother to read what has already been writen then this thread could be short and concises and maby of some use to some1 who wanted to build a bow like this. if any 1 is interested pm me your email address and il send you pics and info as i go along, sorry tom, whitehawk and len im not normaly like this. its darn frustrating when people hijack your thread for no reason.

Dave

[GrahameA]

len or whitehawk are prolly beter to answer this but all english warbows where drawn to the ear, its known as "shooting in the bow" but other cultures as far as i know didnt do it (american indians for example) the welsh and frentch etc would have drawn to the ear

It went off track when "someone" made a statement that was plainly wrong and it was pointed out that it was wrong.

[ichiban]

yeah no your right me saying as far i know is totaly wrong of me, go make more threads about compounds.

[TomMcDonald]

yeah no your right me saying as far i know is totaly wrong of me, go make more threads about compounds.

Oh, here we go!

[ichiban]

basicly if you dont have anything to contribute my origional post just dont add anything, i was asking for any ideas for the project.

[looseplucker]

Your project looks fascinating - it didn't really get off topic - for mine it went in a direction that was well within context. I don't think anyone was hijacking you or anything.

[GrahameA]

yeah no your right me saying as far i know is totaly wrong of me, go make more threads about compounds.

Ichi

Lashing out at other people because they, highlight the fact that you provided wrong information and then got burnt over it, is not a smart way to go.

[Dennis La Varenne]

Dave,

I am very interested in your project and that you continue with a build along for the benefit of others on Ozbow who are very much interested also. Your build along will become part of the resource library which Ozbow provides for all we toxophilites.

I am one of those guilty of posting a little corrector which I never imagined would hurt your feelings. It was just a small technical information consideration, not a criticism of what you are attempting.

Please do not be disheartened or discouraged. What you are doing is always worthwhile . . . for everyone. Please continue.

Dennis La Varenne

[ichiban]

i didnt post wrong infomation i said as far as i know there for its not wrong i also said that len and white hawk would know but as i said grahame if you cant contrubute constructively just dont at all, you seem to know alot about archery, manufacturing methods and history so i was kind of hopeing that you of all people could contribute more than a list of cultures that drew to the ear, thats not what i started this thread for.

dennis,
im sorry for this im haveing alot of fun building this bow, so when i finish would it be possable for you to delete all this irrelevent junk so it may be of some help to someone.
i know when i started building bows i looked over every page available from this site and i would preffer to save someone in the same shoes some time.

thanks,
Dave

[GrahameA]

so i was kind of hopeing that you of all people could contribute more than a list of cultures that drew to the ear

I didn't - all I said was:

It went off track when "someone" made a statement that was plainly wrong and it was pointed out that it was wrong.

[ichiban]

whatever graham if you want to disregard what i have already said thats fine i dont really cair.
for the rest ill finish the bow and then post all the info at once so others can see how to i do it, thanks for the support.
its not that being corrected offends me its that because of this sillyness were up to page 2 and have only glued up the stave.

cheers,
Dave

[greybeard]

Dave,

This is your original post.

my next bow project is for me (yay)
feel free to build along.(prolly finish b4 me)
i plan on building a series of bows capeable of being drawn to the ear so my first will be 40lbs at 33" the bow itll be spotty backed with blackbutt (i had fun on the last one) and will be 80" long.
startind dementions will be 1" at the center tapering to 1/2" nocks.

any extra/other design ideas would be grate.

thanks,
Dave

There is no reference in your post to suggest that it was to be an English style war bow. "any extra/other design ideas would be grate."

Daryl.

[Dennis La Varenne]

Dave,

Following your broad advice request which Daryl pointed out above, that -

any extra/other design ideas would be grate.

One of the very easiest long bows to build is the Cherokee style of rectangular section flatbow. It can pretty much be built using an electric planer, or if you have access to a thicknesser or lamination grinder, you could put some master tapers under it and put in a fast taper to take it from around 10 - 12 mm thick in the midle tapering to 4 or 5 mm thick at the tips. A bow as long as you intend would probably be somewhat thicker for your approximately 40lbs draw weight.

A mate of mine made some bows like that in his beginning days from Vic Red Ironbark (slightly less strong than the northern Grey Ironbark) using only his bench saw to cut the width profile, his electric planer as a thicknesser and some sandpaper. He cut completely through the growth-rings and it didn't make the slightest difference to their durability. I still have two of them which I will take some pics of and post them for you. They are simplicity itself.

Because Spotted Gum is an Australian perennial wood, it may also tolerate this kind of building.

The only thing about Cherokee style bows is that because of the shallow rectangular cross-section, they can be uncomfortable in the hand to shoot until you get the hang of holding them which is a bit different.

One other thing you may want to take into consideration is that the physical size of the bow you want to make means that it will have a very high mass with only 40lbs to propel the limbs forward. Don't become disheartened if it is a bit sluggish, especially if this is a first attempt at building this kind of long (small 'l') bow. If you follow Len's tillering advice, you'll find that it is applicable to all these kinds of centrebending handleless long bows. Heavier is only a bit thicker and a bit wider, or a bit shorter, if you need it.

Don't take the criticisms too much to heart. We all get it - heaven knows I have had my share. Just move on.

Dennis La Varenne

[ichiban]

sorry i should have been a little more clear i guess i thought the starting demensions would be enough to show what type of bow it would be, the 1" grip straight taper to 1/2 nocks is a very basic starting pointfor alot of english/weslsh/french/african D bows, im just refering to it as and english long bow because thats where my heratige lyes.

i was thinking more about trping the back to give a rounder feel to the bow and reduce mass since it is made from dressed boards, or possibly effel towering the tips to improve performance, any idead on this type of thing has any1 had experiance in this aria.

[Dennis La Varenne]

Dave,

Seeing you are sticking to the English Longbow pattern, I would hazard a calculated guess that the Blackbutt backing of your bow would easily stand the shallow rounding of the back which was characteristic of this design. The rounded back is the classic shape of course along with the highly cambered belly most commonly (50%) found on the Mary Rose artefacts, although as Daryl and Len have pointed out, many were also round and some slightly rectangular with rounded corners.

My wood book gives a Modulus of Rupture of 140 - 144 MPa and for Spotted Gum of 150 MPa. As there is apparently a theoretical strength advantage in wood under tension of about 20% compared to when under compression, the combination of these two woods in this kind of bow seems fairly well matched according to the numbers. The actual strength of the individual laminates you are using will vary from the listed numbers of course and only a real-life go at it will see how it works in practice.

Dave Clarke's (Yeoman) treatise on using maths in bow building has a set of sums for calculating the actual strength of the wood you have rather than depend on industry lists.

Your proposal to trap the back of your bow is a technically sound idea because of the relative strengths of the woods you are using, but not strictly according to the classic pattern. It is entirely your call of course and will depend upon how close to the classic pattern you want to go. A flat back with trapped sides will be slightly safer than the rounded back for reasons of mechanical strength under tension. But, based on my experience of these bows (I have built more of them than any other kind), too flat a back can overcome the normal very rounded belly because of the relative proportions available on the surfaces of the back and belly to deal with tension and compression. Rounding on both surfaces balances these forces better in this kind of bow, unless you build yours more in the moderate rectangular section where the back and belly surfaces are similar in shape.

The basic principle in building ELBs successfully from my perspective is to have the shape of the back and the belly the same and rely on length to distribute the bending load along the limb rather than across it. Your bow of 80 inches will more than compensate for a rounded back and belly if that is the way you choose to go, but will cope even better with the slightly rectangular design.

My only concern as I expressed above is that the sheer mass of the bow may be rather high for its modest 40lbs to produce reasonable cast for you, and perhaps a length closer to 72 - 74 inches may produce a happier result. At any rate, could I strongly advise that you make your tips as fine as you safely can and that the outer 1/8 of your limbs have a faster taper to lessen outer limbtip mass as much as practical. The Mary Rose bows also had this outer limb taper by all accounts I have read. These old blokes were onto something. Roger Ascham in Toxophilus (1540) referred to the practice as 'whipping at the ends'.

I have attached a classic ELB cross-section drawing I did for Len once.

Dennis La Varenne

[ichiban]

AH HA exacly what i was looking for, thanks heeps for that i chose blackbutt for the backing because of its maginly lighter mass compaird to SG however i dont have any wood books yet so good to know i lucked out with its rupture strength.
and thanks for the diagram very helpful, i have seen it b4 but for the life of me couldent remember the thread.
i went with 80" because of the 33" draw (and to minimise string angle) do you think that this is over kill?
the purpose of this bow is more that of a training bow to get me better at the shooting in the bow style for higher weights, i thought i would post this one as all subsequnt bows for this project will be made the same way and due to its low draw weight has a smaller chance of failure.

[Dennis La Varenne]

Dave,

i went with 80" because of the 33" draw (and to minimise string angle) do you think that this is over kill?

Len makes his bows up to this length for around 30" draws which seems to be a standard for the Warbow people. Your reasoning is sound enough I think, but I don't consider adverse string angle would be a serious issue even with a bow 6" shorter, especially with your low intended draw weight. The difference in string angle from 28" to 33" will bring your tips back maybe another 1 1/2 - 2" which doesn't really represent a troublesome increase.

The bottom line is that it is YOUR bow, and about the only thing that overbuilding MAY do is cause it to lose a little bit of speed, but it will be much safer and less prone to breakage because of the quite low stresses you will be putting on it. Keeping your tips as fine as you can will always help maintains speed and give a sweet loose. If you have Traditional Bowyer's Bible Vol. 1, have a look at Tim Bakers comments on the performance of his 50lbs 96" flatbow compared to the 50lb 48" flatbow on page 70 and a bit either side. His findings on the difference in speed between very long bows and very short bows is revealing.

Notice in my drawing above that the width profile shows one limb plus the parallel centre section. The bow is divided into quarters. For your 80" bow, you will have the following 1/4 length sections -
1 x centre full width parallel section of 20";
2 x mid limb sections of 20" each tapering from full width to 3/4 width;
2 x 1/8 length outer limb sections of 10" each tapering from 3/4 width to as fine as you can go and keep a string on.
The ELB actually tapers in two stages from the centre parallel section to the tips.

Lastly, and this may present more of a problem than anything else you may be concerned with is that you have a very long bow which is also very narrow (1 inch I think you said). A bow of such slender proportions may well have problems of lateral stability - the limb may tend to bend sideways and twist. If that happens, it will almost certainly break.

This is the main reason, on safety grounds, that I suggest that you go for a bit shorter bow or a bit wider bow which is a bit shallower than the 80% stack shown in my drawings. Lateral stability is one of the more important problems of the ELB design which is why I took some trouble in my drawings to show the box-section with parallel sides as a stiffener against sideways bending. The two-stage taper in the limb widths is also a safeguard against this endemic problem.

This is your first go at the ELB style after all. Have a bit of fun, learn a few things and pass them on. If it breaks, learn about why that happened too.

Dennis La Varenne

[ichiban]

ok thanks for that, its not my first go at an elb (i have made 1 that didnt blow, its under the thread "next bow") that bow was a total of 70.25 inches long for a 29" draw, i guess i ws reasoning the 80" length for higher weights as my next 2 bows will be 60lbs then 70-80lbs do you think that a more rectangular cros section would reduce the risk of lateral flexion? or just increase the width over all?? by say an extra 1/4 inch?

oh also congrats on your acknollagement in john clarks book on laminated longbows, hes also been a pleasure to deal with,
infact when i get around to building my adjustable form (long bow to recurves in one form, thats the plan) im gonna be building some longbows from that very helpful book.

thanks heeps.
Dave

[Dennis La Varenne]

Dave,

Simply making your bows a bit wider - even 1/8" - will help with lateral stability. An extra 1/4" will increase the draw weight quite a lot and will be better suited to your later bows from 70lbs +.

But, the more rectangular pattern is better for both lateral stability AND bending loads on the back and belly and still within the historic range of design variations.

As a side issue, I have an hypothesis that the originals were 'made by numbers' and that the staves were squared out from the logs - meaning that they were cut to length and of rectantular section according to a pattern of defined widths and thicknesses and to standardised templates.

When it came to the tillering and sinking, minimal wood was removed during tillering and more was removed to bring the draw weight into the standardised weight ranges for military issue. Every log would yield wood of differing density and elasticity. Therefore, those staves which were stronger at the standard size needed more wood removed to bring them into the standard weight range which resulted in more rounding of the stave producing the classic D-section and some almost circular examples. Less dense staves required less wood removed from the standard template, so were only lightly rounded to bring them into range resulting in the more rectangular examples.

Because military usage requires a fairly standardised performance, that is, standard issue arrows needed to be able to be cast a certain distance within standardised parameters, it is not unreasonable that bowyers were required to build their bows to support a specific weight at the length of the standard arrow. Maybe they just hooked a big sandbag weighing a set amount off the bowstring and sunk it until the string drew back to the standard draw length.

Because military needs require very high volume and mass production techniques, I seriously doubt they would have 'tickled' their bows into tiller and draw weight the way we do these days. That's not to say their bowyers did not take care. We know they did. But for mass military production, they needed mass production techniques for the tens or hundreds of thousands of bows and millions of arrows and strings they made for these bows.

Dennis La Varenne

[ichiban]

hmmm a very interesting theory, makes sence to considering the bowyers where payed by the 100 bows, the wouldnt want to waste imported materials, where all the mary rose bows heart and sapwood or where some all heartwood ( prolly not rellevent as the longbow had gone out of fasion by then)

[Len]

The Mary Rose bows were sap wood and heart wood and very good quality yew. The longbow was still the main form of range weopon in English armies at the time, it was really Henry's daughter Elizabeth that started to kill off the longbow offically.

[ichiban]

hmm i thought that the mary rose sank in the 14th century and the warbows heviest use was during the 12th-13th centurys and hey how come WBA hasent sent me anything i wanna read more!!hehe

[pdccr]

dave, you got any pics yet?

[GrahameA]

hmm i thought that the mary rose sank in the 14th century and the warbows heviest use was during the 12th-13th centurys and hey how come WBA hasent sent me anything i wanna read more!!hehe

Nope.

Went down 1545. 16th Century.

[Len]

The biggist use of the Elb/warbow was the 14th & 15th C. with use well into the 16th C. the last big victory where the longbow played a significant role was probably Flodden in 1513.
I thought Gav was sending some stuff ? look up the Quadrivium news letters for a couple of articles on the warbow , a good starting point to whet your appetite