Working with elm

[Brumbies Country]

Just wondered who has worked with elm and could let me know any peculiarities I need to think about. I cut the 8 ft branch 10" thick about two months ago and spit it. Relevant though is that we had cut most of the tree a year before and poisoned the remainder with glycoside (including this branch) to stop regrowth into an old shed.

I've just started working on it. Moisture content looks OK. White sap wood is softish in comparison to the plank ash I've worked with previously and a way lot softer than hickory but by contrast the dark reddish brown heartwood seems very hard. At one point the heartwood seems to come out to almost meet where the bark was and that is not far below centre of the stave.

The intention is to make a flat bow along Meare Heath lines. Any recommendations re elm?

Simon

[jape]

Which elm is it? I'd be surprised if you got a decent bow out of 'english elm' as it twists a lot. The grain can be all over the place and difficult to work but sharp tools will do it. It can be quite strong. The yanks use 'red elm' a bit for bows though.

[Brumbies Country]

Which elm is it? I'd be surprised if you got a decent bow out of 'english elm' as it twists a lot. The grain can be all over the place and difficult to work but sharp tools will do it. It can be quite strong. The yanks use 'red elm' a bit for bows though.

Thanks Roland

I reckon it would be English. There are two old guys on our place and 5 or so down the valley. The local history is pretty well documented and it looks as if the old trees were planted by convict settlers 1827-1835. The tree to which I refer is an offshoot of one of these. Doesn't look easy to work and although the stave is straight the grain is a bit hows your father. Robert Hardy's book seems to allude to some of the Welsh archer's bows being made of elm and that would be English elm, you'd reckon. The white sapwood looks OK to work but the red/brown heartwood is tough.

As an aside the convicts did alright. Quickly established a pub, a sawmill, and a courier business and went from 40 acres to 4 large properties.

Cheers

Simon

[jape]

If you have got it dry without twist it may be fine then as it was used for scythe handles and the like, it could be bent and kept the bend OK and must absorb shock well. I had worked a bit of it here and there years ago in my antiques workshop and remember it was a real pain to plane. People used to use ash, beech, oak rather than elm for furniture, because of its poor properties I think as it was common in UK fields and roads before dutch elm disease in recent decades. I only saw it in chair seats and odds 'n sods like salt boxes, coffers. It was never used for firewood or in old buildings either that I saw, because of the twist I suppose, and I have worked on restoring and rebuilding dozens of old buildings. It was used for coffins though as it is said to be waterproof, but that may have superstitious reasons because of magickal associations!

I think that before sawmills the main reason for not using in building and firewood would have been that it didn't split well at all, almost impossible with that interlocked grain.

Good luck with it Simon, hope you have got a good bit, that's the marvel of wood, it is live to work and you never know until you have a go, you may find a bow in it. I get the feeling that if you do, it will be a good one!

I noticed that the americans using red elm for selfbows use the sapwood not the heart.

[Brumbies Country]

Yeah the splitting of this was something again and Paul Comstock in the The Bent Stick talks about that. He talks in terms of elm being OK for bows although he didn't differentiate the elm species. I think the 2 Meare Heath recreations he did we made of elm. I thought I'd use it because it was readily available but it certainly looks tricky. I'd use only sapwood if I had an option, but with this particular bit I'll need to use a bit of the heartwood as well.

[jape]

Just a thought but if you could work it from the bark in, removing just the bark without breaking into that side so it makes an unbroken back, it may not be too hard to shape the belly side and leave some of the heartwood mainly in the handle and tip area, if you can picture that. Others may say different of course, well, I am not a bowyer by a long shot except for a few sapling bows, but I always thought that would add strength by keeping natural integrity to the back.

[Glenn]

Simon, it will be intresting to see how you with the elm. A general rule of thumb is that a sucker like the one you have will have inferior timber and is considered to be rubbish in the building trade, but you never know until you try it, it just may make a good bow with the right design....Glenn...

[Brumbies Country]

Simon, it will be intresting to see how you with the elm. A general rule of thumb is that a sucker like the one you have will have inferior timber and is considered to be rubbish in the building trade, but you never know until you try it, it just may make a good bow with the right design....Glenn...

Hi Glenn

Just wondered if this actually falls into the sucker category. I had assumed it was self seeded, although it's around only 35-40 feet away from the old tree and I guess it could be a sucker. Was around 8m-9m tall when we lopped it. Have to say it does look tricky and I might be better to concentrate on some remaining hickory I have to make the flat bow.

This is getting dangerous. I'm getting to like the idea of trying to build these things more than, well at least as much as, shooting them. Have to say there is a good exercise factor too. Scraping away at a piece of timber in an outside shed in the falling temperatures of a NSW Southern tablelands evening can raise a sweat!

Simon

[Glenn]

Simon when I read this "The tree to which I refer is an offshoot of one of these" I took it to be a sucker, my mistake, be intresting to see how it goes...Glenn...

[greybeard]

Hi Simon,

The attached file covering an English elm 'Holmegaard style' bow made by Hillary Greenland may give you some ideas.

A Bowmaker's Tribute To the English Elm.pdf

(233.21 KiB) Downloaded 109 times

Hope all goes well,

Daryl.

[Brumbies Country]

Thanks Daryl

That's terrific and I'm very grateful. Just the sought of thing I was looking for. Very interesting to read his reasoning re grain and twist as he progressively worked his way through. Also encouraginging that in the end that he found the bow plenty fast enough and forgiving to shoot. I've printed it off and will put it in my ever increasing file. Will get back to working on it tonight-it's worth the challenge.

Thanks again

Simon

[greybeard]

Hi Simon,

'he' is a 'she' and is a very accomplished bowyer.

Daryl.

[Brumbies Country]

Gee Daryl

Things are getting rough when I can't tell the difference. Could lead to all sorts of problems . In my defence I was too busy reading the text. That's my story and I'm sticking to it .

Simon

[greybeard]

Hi Simon,

The following is an extract from a book written by David Gray.

Of interest is the fact that the bowyer is using Elm saplings for his creations. I do not know if it is similar to English elm and what is regarded as a sapling.

The Holmegaard
This is the type of ancient bow referred to in this chapter’s introduction.
Two artifacts of the Holmegaard were found in a bog in 1943 during the process of cutting peat. The bog site is about 50 miles southwest of Copenhagen,
which is on the Danish Island called Zealand.
One of the bows found there is complete, and apparently the very oldest complete bow found in the world to this date. It is about 5 1/2 feet or 154 cm.
The other artifact is only half of a bow, but in its complete form it would have been considerably longer, estimated to have been between 66 and 70 inches
(170 to 180 cm). About 9,000 years old, the artifacts are preserved in the National Museum in Copenhagen.

Flemming Airune (1996) has become a leading voice on the Holmegaard.

He lives in Haslev not far from the Holmegaard bog, and cuts his elm saplings close to where the artifacts were retrieved.
From the photos, one notices the Holmegaard’s unique architecture. Looking at the bow from the back or the belly,
the limbs narrow abruptly around the midpoint (along a distance of about 2 1/2 inches). Looking from the edge, the handle gradually tapers,
as usual to the limb midpoint, where it actually thickens just perceptibly, and then flows almost parallel to the tips.
What was probably the belly of the bow is flat, and the back is convex, following the outer growth rings of the sapling in the traditional manner.
Differentiating the back from the belly, however, has been controversial.

Holmegaard Bow.JPG (10.12 KiB) Viewed 4156 times

Volume 2 of the Bowyer’s Bible (1993, page 91) shows that the bow was actually reversed—the back being flat. Alrune and Callahan, however,
are convinced that the bow was not reversed.

Daryl.

[Brumbies Country]

Again grateful thanks Daryl. Great to read this. I was looking through the early part of Robert Hardy's longbow book a couple of nights ago and it was talking in terms of three of the Zealand bows having the heartwood on the back and sapwood on the belly, but it looks like the confusion between what amounted to back and belly on these bows could well explain that.

My intention is to make a Meare Heath replica at this stage. Just wondered what performance comparisons have been made between Meare Heath and Holmgaard construction. In the Bent Stick Paul Comstock talks about two Meare Heath replicas he made of elm and of their relatively good performance and smooth draw. In describing them he used them to depict the advantages of an overbuilt bow.

Simon

[GrahameA]

Good Morning Simon

My intention is to make a Meare Heath replica at this stage.

A wonderful choice and with some nice lacing on the bow it will be an excellent talking point.

[Brumbies Country]

Good morning Grahame

The leather lacing will be a challenge and one that I have wondered if I'm up to, but then the confidence of an ability to make selfbows bows didn't rest easily until reasonably recently and look at the fun/challenge I'm enjoying now .

Simon

[longbow steve]

Good on you Simon, looking forwards to this one . Steve

[Brumbies Country]

Thanks Steve

Don't think I'll ever make it to the fibreglass scene and my bows will be inevitably rustic

Simon

[longbow steve]

Hey Simon, I would prefer shavings over dust anyday Steve

[Len]

G'day Simon, I've made a couple of Elb's from English elm and as long as the grain is straight its a very good bow wood, very histoically correct as well. One thing I've learnt about elm is never leave the bark on, you'll need an electric plane to get it off otherwise.

[Brumbies Country]

Hey Simon, I would prefer shavings over dust anyday Steve

I take your point . Have to say your bows look great and they obviously shoot very well

Simon

[Brumbies Country]

G'day Simon, I've made a couple of Elb's from English elm and as long as the grain is straight its a very good bow wood, very histoically correct as well. One thing I've learnt about elm is never leave the bark on, you'll need an electric plane to get it off otherwise.

G'day Len

I've quickly learn't about the bark the hard way:roll: . The grain on this one leaves something to be desired. I have a second stave which has better grain so if this one doesn't make it there is another immediately round the corner. Historically it gets a fair bit of mention as I delve into the appropriate books. It seems historically in Britain, if you didn't have access to yew then the next wood as a bowyer's choice was elm.

Simon

[greybeard]

Hi Simon,

The bow dimensions below may be helpful. Text by David Gray.

"The Meare Heath
In 1961, an English peat company discovered two very significant bows, or the pieces thereof, in the southwest corner of England. They were pulled from two different bogs a few miles apart, one in the Meare Heath, the other in the Ashcott Heath. Heaths are open areas, often covered with heather and other shrubs, so these locations were centered in Glastonbury in the Somerset County lowlands, or “Levels,” some 20 miles south of Bristol. Thanks to the sensitivity of the workers extracting the peat, the remains were safely and quickly transported to skilled archeological experts at Cambridge University, where they still reside in the University’s Museum of Archeology and Ethnography. In both cases, only one-half of a bow was recovered, each broken at what appears to be mid-handle.
The Meare artifact dates to 2690 B.C., with a 120-year error term plus or minus by radiocarbon testing. This is confirmed by strata dating and plant residue on the staves. So again, we have a window into the life of the archers, bowyers, and ancients of nearly 5,000 years ago. About half of the handle is extant; the full limb is quite well preserved, yet the nock is only partial.

This is a huge bow, probably about 71 inches (190cm) or more. The limb configurations are very wide, 2 19/32 inches (6.85cm) at the widest and a very thin 19/32 inches (1.75cm). The limbs also taper into a very definite handle section about an inch wide. In the other direction, the limbs taper extremely gradually ending at a width of about 1½ inches at the nock. In other words, at first glace the limb edges seem to remain nearly parallel to the very tips. In cross section, the back is convex and the belly is nearly flat. The side view shows that the limbs taper gradually from the handle to the tip, following the string a little, and the handle is just noticeably backset. This is interesting because of the difficulty in building it. The large amount of mass in the ends of the limbs and the excessive length for a flatbow must have reduced its efficiency."

Hey Simon, I would prefer shavings over dust anyday Steve

I agree.

Daryl.

[Brumbies Country]

Daryl, I'm impressed with your scources of information. This is actually a bit wider than Paul Comstock talked about. He was talking in terms of limbs being a maximum of 2'" wide in his two re-creations although his thickness is similar. One thing I'd like to know is the depth of the handle. That it's described as "just noticeably backset" suggests not alot of depth though I figured there might be a fair bit of stress there. I'm looking around 66" length. I'm really greatful for the information.

Simon

[GrahameA]

Good Morning Simon

The original research article on the reconstruction of the Meare Heathe is on the web somewhere. If you cannot find it let me know as I probably have a copy somewhere.

When I made mine I used linen thread for the lacing - it works. If I was making another today I would use artificial sinew for the diagonal lacing and leather thonging for the bindings.

This chap makes some very nice replicas:
http://www.kunst-griff.info/en/index.html

As far as projects go another Meare Heath sits at around #3 on my list of things - after a Hommellgard and a usable Manchu.

[Brumbies Country]

Good morning Grahame and thank you

Did you find it difficult to make and anything special I should look out for?

The thought subsequently occured to me that the lacing could act as sighting points. Would likely disqualify it in AA longbow classes but historically correct in the Historical bow division IFAA/ABA rules. Having said that, when I was shooting my 30lb longbow while recuperating from shoulder problems there was a bow finish mark that lined up very well at 18-20m, but I actually found I scored worse using the mark than using a split vision semi-instinctive method.

Simon

[GrahameA]

Hi Simon

No, just make sure it is a good piece of timber.

Hmm.. you would probabbly have issues re Longbwos but just take you docujmentation along for the Historic Class.

[greybeard]

Hi Simon,

My intention is to make a Meare Heath replica at this stage. Just wondered what performance comparisons have been made between Meare Heath and Holmgaard construction. In the Bent Stick Paul Comstock talks about two Meare Heath replicas he made of elm and of their relatively good performance and smooth draw. In describing them he used them to depict the advantages of an overbuilt bow.

If you have enough material available I would suggest making a Meare Heath bow and a Holmegaard. If these bows are made as close as possible to their original specifications you can arrive at some sort of performance level for each style.
I believe that the bows should be representative of their purpose and place in history and not how they perform on a target round.
As to performance [speed] I think the Holmegaard would have the upper edge, but when taken to a hunting scenario of the time the ball game may change. Unfortunately, details of arrows from this period are scarce.

Unlike pumping out laminated glass bows made to a recipe the apprenticeship of a self bowyer never ends and for every achievement you make it poses new questions.

Daryl.

[ichiban]

all i can say is best of luck with the elm the TBB says that ALL elm are exelent bow woods and the elm species is even older than the yew species so best of luck, also you could prolly find large amounts of golden elm in your aria.