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Author
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Topic: A question about bow woods and horn nocks in 1471
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Fire Stryker
Admin & Advocatus Diaboli
Member # 2
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posted 05-22-2001 10:13 PM
    
Hi Gaston,I'm surprised to hear that this bowyer is using red oak. Oak is brast - i.e. it is a tough grainey wood, but it splinters rather than bending. I would think a bow made out of red oak would be prone to come to an explosive end. As an aside, It is my understanding that many, if not most 'livery bows' - that is bows made for a military contract and intended for issue as replacements for broken or worn out bows had no horn knocks. They were also a little long, as the intent was that a archer could 'tune' it to suit him. Yew definately, ash and elm I've heard of as bow wood, but oak? who'd a thunk it? Then again, I can hardly hit a barn from the inside with a bow, so what do I know. (I can smack it real good with any kind of hafted or choppy, pokey, stabby thing you like though) -------------------- ad finem fidelis
Registered: May 2000 | IP: Logged
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Friedrich
Member
Member # 40
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posted 05-22-2001 10:57 PM
I would strongly dissuade the oak. It is asking for trouble. The wood structure in oak when dry is prone to splintering (actually exploding) under stress. It's the same reason oak is not used (or preferred) in making wasters (practice swords). Oak also does not return it's stored energy well. Recovery speed is slower and not even from what information I have read. I also look at it this way. Medieval engineers and weapons makers were not daft. They chose yew for a reason and left the oak for crossbows.Much of this is discussed in volumes of the Traditional Bowyers Bible as well as the very recent reprint/update of Robert Hardy's "Longbow". The later, in particular, now has some wonderful mathmatical analysis of poundage vs distance & force of impact. Ideally, I would ask for yew (pacific yew in the US) or ash. We are currently working with a 104lb longbow of yew with good results so far. (The arrow shafts are enormous.) In the 30lb range (even 50lb), horn tips are generally not necessary UNLESS you shoot hard and shoot often. A couple top bowyers in US that I highly recommend (yes you get what you pay for): Welchman Bows
Paul Rogers - www.woodbow.com More findings/reports are due out soon from the Mary Rose find. Part of what is supposed to be presented is more on the horn tip analysis and arrow shaft specifications.
Registered: Jul 2000 | IP: Logged
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hauptmann
unregistered
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posted 05-23-2001 12:35 AM
I recommend a yew stave bow. We know they're right and they're really nice to shoot. I'm using a 66# bow I made myself (my first yew bow) and I like it a lot. Before that I used a 45# billet bow from Yumi in Canada. Still shoot it sometimes but it's rather limp.My question to you:
Why 80"? Are you really really tall? I'm 5'8" and my bow's 72"long. I'd think 80" would be ungainly.
IP: Logged
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Bob Hurley
Member
Member # 58
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posted 05-23-2001 12:56 PM
Well, this has certainly been an interesting project so far.Jeff, I had based my thoughts on bow length on comments on the Mary Rose bows at www.primitivearchery.com, and on the fact that I wanted a longer draw and didn't want the bow to stack or break (I'm a shade under 6 feet and have a long reach). I now shoot a Howard Hill style, leaning into the bow with slightly bent left arm and body quartering toward the target, at 28 3/4" draw. If I straighten, square up, and pull to the ear instead of the corner of the mouth as I do now, that draw will increase to +30". I talked to Phil about an ash bow, and he said that to get the proper crescent-shaped tillering he would have to make a 60# bow about 1 1/5" wide and 3/4" thick, instead of the D-shape a yew bow would have. That may indeed be a period solution to the different wood characteristics (no ash bows survive, do they?), but it's going to give a markedly different appearance, looking instead like a large flatbow. I am hesitant to use something so different if I can find no provenance, even if the idea is logical.
Registered: Oct 2000 | IP: Logged
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Dave Key
Member
Member # 17
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posted 05-23-2001 01:02 PM
The inventories I've seen for the mid C15th don't tend to mention any differentiation in quality and if you assume that the Mary Rose bows (c16th though they be) are the equivialnt of what you call 'livery' (i.e. boxed central supply rather than personal) then these have horn nocks (they have actually found at least one of these now ... but the others show signs of having had nocks).Additionally the bows for the 1475 campaign are described as either Yew or Wych (Witch Hazel or Witch Elm ??). Curiously no Ash ... most of the varieties come from Asham as far as I recall. I'd be interested in any evidence for archers actually doing tailoring 'in the field' to issued bows. As a By-the-by the nock from the Mary Rose only has the grove for the string on one side ... apparantly useful for high poundage bows and used in Scotland into the c19th
Cheers
Dave [ 05-24-2001: Message edited by: Dave Key ]
Registered: May 2000 | IP: Logged
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