Ozbow

It appears to be a bit quiet on the bow making scene.

I have been busy making laminated longbows and Danish flat bows [nothing special] and when I use up my last two strips of glass I will go back to making bamboo backed bows and selfbows.

Hopefully I will be splitting some yew in about four week’s time.

Daryl.

Hi Daryl,

I hope you’re well...

I’d be interested in a Bamboo Backed Longbow...

What style and materials would you be considering...?

Cheers Guy

hi daryl ,i,m doing a bit of bow making lately r/d long bow ,35lb recurve and a shoot off the hand take down longbow for les to take to china next year,and i have a horse bow on the drawing board and have plans to make some bamboo backed long bows as well cheers gazza,

I am making what will be my last Selfbow. My Body just will not allow me to work Timber with Hand Tools any longer. The Stave has a big propeller twist and a heavily reflexed Limb as well as numerous Knots. I have never made a Bow heavier than 70# from memory and I am looking at bringing this Bow in around the 100# mark, I'll be happy with 90#. Why so heavy - because after more than 25 years making Selfbows, I want to go out big ! It should be finished in a couple of Weeks !

Old Mate Hunterguy 1991 [ Colin ] is on my case cause he wants to shoot the heavy Bow for me - bloody show off

Next cab off the Rank will make my very last Bow, a Laminated Timber Asiatic style Recurve as pictured below of only 25# - 30# as this is the upper limit of what my Body will allow me to shoot now. Plan is to take up shooting with a Thumb Ring and retrain myself to shoot in the Asiatic style which utilises a different range of movement and it might just allow me to shoot a few Arrows every now and then. It will also fit in with a new direction I am taking with getting more involved with Medieval Reenactment. I have joined a 14th Century reenactment group
regards Perry

Guy,

Presently, longbows aren’t on the list as there are several other styles of bows that I want to make. In particular I want to make the renaissance yew recurve styles of the 14th.century.

Gazza,

Good to read that you are busy and hopefully keeping out of mischief.

Perry,

I know the feeling when the body goes downhill. My bow draw weights are now below 40#.

Some diagrams for the two-wood bows. Although bamboo backing may not be true to the style it could prove to be a durable alternative.

Daryl.

Yep I'm still making a variety of laminated bows recurve and longbows one piece and 3 piece TDs

greybeard wrote: ↑Mon Aug 06, 2018 4:11 pm

Perry,

I know the feeling when the body goes downhill. My bow draw weights are now below 40#.

Some diagrams for the two-wood bows.
Two-wood Bow - Compilation.jpg
Although bamboo backing may not be true to the style it could prove to be a durable alternative.

Daryl.

that is some fantastic information in those designs there Daryl, thank you so much. I was pondering Bamboo and I do have a Backing piece but on Sunday Gary cut up some American White Oak for me and one of the Staves was a little wide so we ran it through the Saw again and I have ended up with a lovely edge ringed Backing Strip that I will use on that Asiatic.

What ever happened to that all Bamboo Asiatic you made back in the olden Days when we where fine strapping examples of Manhood

regards Perry

Extract from ‘RAGNAR INSULANDER.’

Two-wood bows;
“The oldest record of a two-wood bow is from Korekawa, Japan. The wooden fragment is dated to 2600
BCE (Rausing 1967: 121), and consequently belongs to the Jomon culture.
This type of bow is otherwise considered typical of the Finno / Ugrian tribes (Sirelius 1919; Kiil 1954: 135). According to Adler (1902:50)."

From another site,

“Early bows were quite simple; they were called Maruki (丸木) and were made of plain wood like atalpa, zelkova, sandalwood, yew or mulberry...”

From Wikipedia; Finno-Ugric peoples.

“The Finno-Ugric peoples are any of several peoples of North-West Eurasia who speak languages of the Finno-Ugric group of the Uralic language family, such as the Khanty, Mansi, Hungarians, Maris, Mordvins.
Russia: 2,322,000; Finland: 4,948,400; Hungary: 9,982,000; Estonia: 936,000; Ukraine: 156,600, Norway: 60,000–100,000; Sweden: 507,600.”

At some time in history this style of bow could have been in wide spread use in Europe.

I had to replace the backing bamboo on the little Asiatic style bow because it had developed stress fractures.
As a result of the liberal applications of Danish oil some had soaked into the bamboo core and I could not get the glues to stick to it.

Daryl.

[Some citations may have to be verified]

.

I use the term ‘Danish flat bow’ to describe the bows I make in the style of the bows found at Holmegaard and nearby Vedback. There are differing opinions on wether the bow is a Holmegaard or Mollegabet bow.

As the boffins can’t agree I prefer to use the term flatbow. The Danes refer to them as a flatbow or simply a bow.

A similar situation exists with people referring to Asiatic static bows as ‘horse bows.’

Daryl.

hey Daryl this is the new bow I, ve been working on I took it out of the form this morning, cheers gazza

Looking good Gazza,

What draw weight are you hoping to get?

I’ve had a static tip bow on the shelf for a fair while and it comes in at about 65# at brace height.

As I can’t reduce the weight any more I might finish it and make it a wall hanging.

Hi Rod,

Gringa Bows wrote: ↑Tue Aug 07, 2018 7:59 am Yep I'm still making a variety of laminated bows recurve and longbows one piece and 3 piece TDs

I do apologize for not replying sooner.

Are you using the Bingham type limb bolts or the ILF type fittings?

Daryl.

I see what you mean re the Riser Gary. Not so sure you'll get the 32" or so with a Thumb Draw but once you rough it out and begin tillering you'll work it out.

regards Perry

40@28 in the rough happy with the outcome

Couple of just finished around the #50 mark. These are made from acacia lieocalyx. I've still been plugging along with laminated riser self bows. All the timber has been collected from my property which makes them a bit spesh, I'm keen to put a deer on the ground with a self bow some time soon. Cheers

Rhino, you appear to be having success with the black wattle. Can you offer any opinion as to the performance of the timber in selfbows?

I have only used this timber as laminations under glass and in handle sections.

We have an abundance of wattle growing on our club grounds, but mostly of poor quality and grub infested.

Daryl.

Good looking bows Rhino. Is that pattern burnt into the back of that bow?

Jeff

Daryl, Ive probably made less than 14 self bows in my life and still learning with every build so I don't know if my opinion is much chop (pun intended).
When I was harvesting staves from deer properties around the Kilcoy area I never bothered too much with wattle as I could gather excellent material from Red ash, pink ash, spotto gum etc.
Since then I've moved to small acreage in the Gold Coast hinterland, we have lots of regrowth with plenty of 4 metre + high saplings. Unfortunately I can't get a reasonable stave of soap ash as every stave here has really pronounced propeller twist but the acacias here are very straight, we have a. Fimbriata, a. Concurrens, a. Cretata and lieocalyx.

In my opinion it makes a better bow than spotted gum, either fresh or floorboards.
It isn't as snappy/springy as red ash but has to be on par with pink ash, at first I was unstringing all the time even between shots but I've sinced noticed that it doesnt get the timber memory or sloppiness or lose poundage like other timbers I've worked with, knots are hard to work with.
As I am clearing bush areas here I will be saving as much material as I can store and your welcome to a stave or two if you like.

Big Jeff, the pattern is an imported snake skin backing and the patterned riser material is spalted acacia from a dead tree I cut down whilst building my pig pens.
I really appreciate the interest, thanks gentlemen

Rhino1 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 10, 2018 10:25 am the pattern is an imported snake skin backing

Thanks; I never picked it as actually being a skin.

Jeff