He read up everything on the topic, because he knew absolutely nothing and nobody who did. Mostly, he found articles in the local firearms magazines which pursuit had hitherto been his only hunting interest, and still is, but without the only these days.
The first people who were the forefathers of bowhunting in Australia were blokes of the calibre of Dallas Conway, Bob Doring, Ian Fenton and especially Kev Whiting, the actual founder of Australian Bowhunters’ Association who has effectively been blacklisted from recognition by the very organization which he founded.
There were a few overseas icons as well. From England, the land of origin of our form of archery, there was almost nobody. Roger Ascham wrote the first textbook on archery in English in 1540, and Horace Ford wrote the then definitive textbook on target archery back in the mid-1800s, many of the principles of which are still relevant today. We know about some highly reputed bowmakers and we know there was a very active archery community, but almost none of them seems to have risen to the heights of a national hero in the same vein as those in the US and here. The sad fact is that bowhunting in England has been prohibited for centuries and still is. The very essence of shooting the bow has been lost to them and they have forgotten its purpose.
In the US, there were the Thomson brothers, Art Young and Saxton Pope, Fred Bear, Ben Pearson, Bob Swinehart and the Wilhelm brothers, along with a few others, most of whom made films about their hunting and trick shooting exploits. But none had anything like the reputation and aura of a truly remarkable bowman and bowhunter than Howard Hill.
To this day, his exploits remain the pinnacle of bowhunting and archery achievement. Many have tried to knock him off his pedestal, and all have the questionable motivation of those lesser beings who try to outdo another by undermining them. Nobody has genuinely outshot Howard Hill in the fields of both bowhunting and field archery, although he was never really a serious tournament archer.
I have bought anything I can which relates his life and exploits and read up all I can on his exploits, including the opinions of his rather sad knockers.
One of the things which impressed me for no particular reason were his all-bamboo bows. They fascinated me. I closely examined every picture I could find of them and there were not many outside of Craig Ekin’s book “Howard Hill – the Man and the Legend”, first published in 1982 only a few years before I obtained my first copy.
I had seen quite a few ‘Howard Hill’ bows here in Australia made by the various Howard Hill bowmakers by the mid 1980s. They were all glass bows and mostly made by the Kramers, whose operation was later taken over by Craig Ekin as I understand it.
Even with glass, the bows still had that characteristic stubby lower tip and long lanceolate upper tip much copied these days. The early 1980s bows still had the small leather wedge on the side of the arrow shelf as a sort of assistance to keeping the arrow on the shelf during drawing. The other significant aspect of their design was the fact that the sides of these bows was well rounded, leaving the core material well proud of the glass which helped protect it from splintering if the bow limbs struck something hard.
All those bows were made with the upper limb one inch longer than the lower limb, putting the arrow pass at the shelf only one inch above the geometric centre of the bow which was how bows were routinely made in the pre-compound days. Very few were made with equal length limbs like today.
I have always been a fan of this design of uneven length limbs, a practical stubby lower tip and the protective well rounded sides – all features which hearken back to the wood bow days.
During his all-bamboo bow days, I realised that on studying available pictures of them that he made his bows by gluing parallel laminations of bamboo together to a required thickness, putting some back set which we now refer to as reflex into them. Craig Ekin describes his bowmaking process in some detail on page 66 of his book. Howard could not have put much more than 3 inches of back set into his bows or they would not have fitted into the 6 inch steel pipe which he used to cure his glued up blanks.
Once the blanks were glued up, he just treated them as selfwood bows and tapered them down in the same fashion. This can clearly be seen in the pictures in Craig’s book and the later book by Bob Burton, ‘Howard Hill Collectibles’.
It can also clearly be seen that the bellies of Howard’s bamboo bows were mostly cambered – only slightly closer to the riser block, but by the end of the limbs were just as rounded as an English Longbow. Perhaps that is why he referred to his bows a American semi-longbows, because they were not 6 feet long and they still had cambered bellies. Certainly, for the most part, they were definitely NOT flatbows.
He was clearly pretty old-fashioned in his approach to bowmaking, even for those days in the 1930s and 1940s when the advantages of the flatbow were very well understood following the work of Klopsteg, Hickman and Nagler. But, through his writings and Craig’s book, being at the forefront of bow design was not a serious consideration. He seemed to have done a lot of experimenting with his preferred design to get the best out of it rather than abandon it to a scientifically more highly developed design.
Not a thing wrong with that. It worked and it was a reliable design, albeit in either Craig’s book or his own ‘Hunting the Hard Way’ (I cannot remember which) he says that his favourite bow Grandpa which drew 85lbs had a point on distance of about 55 yards which is less than impressive, but clearly did not phase him in the least. What his bows lacked in performance, was more than made up for by his shooting genius.
The principles established by Klopsteg, Hickman and Nagler which explained what made a bow work had long been incorporated into the manufacture of target flatbows which at 40 - 45lbs draw weight could use a 6 o’clock hold on the gold at 100 yards in the old York round. This is attested in Robert Elmer’s book ‘Target Archery’ and in my repro Ben Pearson catalogue from 1941.
I know from my reproduction 1941 Ben Pearson catalogue that he was producing wood flatbows with up to 17cm of reflex by the same method we call Perry reflexing. Part of his advertising was that these bows were guaranteed not to follow the string. Mostly they were Lemonwood backed Lemonwood or the same from Hickory and the really expensive bows were Hickory backed Osage or Yew. None were made longer than 64 inches for a 28 inch draw unless on special order.
They really knew their stuff back then.
But, I digress. Despite knowing all that, I have long had it as an ambition to build myself a replica of one of Howard’s all-bamboo bows. I wanted to see among other things how well they would perform with their outdated-for-period design compared to similar draw weight flatbows I have made myself.
I must also confess quite unashamedly to rank nostalgia in this. Admire the man, admire his bows.
Back in about 2007 or 2008, I embarked upon a plan. I ordered 4 full length parallel laminations of bamboo from Howard Hill Archery. They were all close to 4.5mm thick – the only lam having variable thickness was the backing lam which had the nodes and exterior rind. All the others were interior lams from just under the rind containing the ‘power’ fibres which are still used in modern bowmaking. The trick was to glue them up.
On one of my annual trips up to Jeff Challacombe’s, we used his gluing air form. He provided a riser block of a pretty dark coloured North Queensland Walnut. The block was shaped in the fashion of a normal glass bow and we glued the lot up using Smooth-On glue and by turning the whole gluing form upside down and putting the air hose under the backing lam so that the pressure would push the blank up into the female half of the form and the hose would conform to the irregular surface of the backing lam.
It ended up with about 32mm of parabolic reflex in the glued up blank. The average thickness of the limbs at this stage was 20mm. The reflex shape accelerates toward the tips as can be seen from the picture. The overall length of the bow blank was 72 inches shown in the following picture. All captions are BELOW the pictures shown.
- IMG_1568.jpg (34.85 KiB) Viewed 7492 times
The following series of pictures (2 - 6) show the blank from the sides and belly of the handle riser block and the thickness taper markings on the sides of the limb at the tip, mid- and inner positions. I commenced marking the thickness taper at 9mm at the tips, increasing at 0.5mm intervals every 75mm.
The blank was marked out on all four sides of the limbs – a process which I always use when marking out my wood bows so the belly surface matches with the back surface. This stratagem gets around the problem of uneven thickness across the width of the limbs which can produce rotational twisting or lateral bending.
- IMG_1562.jpg (61.57 KiB) Viewed 7492 times
- IMG_1567.jpg (60.52 KiB) Viewed 7492 times
- IMG_1566.jpg (69.46 KiB) Viewed 7492 times
- IMG_1564.jpg (60.22 KiB) Viewed 7492 times
- IMG_1563.jpg (69.28 KiB) Viewed 7492 times
After the rather tedious but crucial mark-out, it was a simple matter to rasp the limbs to thickness using my trusty Farrier’s rasp. Both sides of the rasp were employed to put some shape into the limbs to bring them to floor tiller stage. Before the tapering, the basic blank was almost impossible to bend using my meagre 54kg of bodyweight.
Based on my previous experience with thickness tapering of flatbows, the taper I put into these limbs should have produced a stave of Herculean draw weight even at 72 inches, but amazingly, this stave was rather spaghetti-ish and limber. I couldn’t believe it. Bamboo is certainly different to average hardwood.
I piked the stave down to 68 inches and things improved somewhat draw weight-wise, but not impressively. Quite frankly, disappointed does not come into it. But, I continued with the project and shaped the bow to the shape depicted in the various pictures in Craig Ekin’s and Bob Burton’s books. The belly was modestly cambered closer to the riser and slowly increasing to half-rounded by about 15 cm from the tips.
The riser block was stepped down and faded into the camber of the limbs producing the characteristic leaf-shape common on Howard’s bows. This shaping of the riser block fadeouts cannot be achieved on a bow with dead flat limbs. Flat limbs will have either a straight-across fade or perhaps a somewhat rounded shape shown in the picture 4. above of the riser block before shaping. Although not at the finished stage, this picture (4) depicts the shape of the fades of a bow with an almost or dead flat belly.
- IMG_1592.jpg (86.09 KiB) Viewed 7492 times
At the stage when shaping and tillering was completed, it drew just under 30lbs at my 26 inch draw and shot like a dog with 400gn arrows. It also took on nearly 65mm of set. I couldn’t believe how bad it was and was very close to binning it.
Then another idea occurred to me from a previous exercise some years ago at removing string follow in an ELB I owned at the time - heat the limbs and physically bend them into reflex and hold.
The limbs were heated over my kitchen gas stove by passing the limbs over the flame about 75mm above and moving them back and forth over the count of 6 seconds from end to end so heat was not concentrated on any one part of the limb. I did manage to scorch them mildly close to the lower tip but not destructively.
As I passed the limbs back and forth over the heat, a surprising thing occurred which I have never seen before. You could literally see the limbs straightening out and losing most of the string-follow or set. I was not even bending them into reflex. They just straightened themselves out. It was not complete, but it reduced the set to less than an inch. It did not hold however. After a 24 hour cooling period, I rebraced and shot it again, only to have the string follow recur, but not quite as badly – about 50mm.
There was nothing to lose now. I gave it another heat treatment which had to be done quickly. I formed lumps on each end of the bow tips to hold a bowstring. You can see these garden twine lumps in the following pics.
- IMG_1574.jpg (38.52 KiB) Viewed 7492 times
- IMG_1575.jpg (45.22 KiB) Viewed 7492 times
When the limbs were almost too hot to the touch I applied a bowstring BACKWARDS and pulled the limbs into 150mm of reflex and let them cool overnight.
Bracing it and shooting it the next day produced much better arrow flight and after shooting drew 35lbs at 26 inches. It still had 40mm of string follow, but after resting, it reduced to 25mm. The nock to nock length of the bow was 68 inches.
I was still unhappy with the draw weight, so the heat treatment was applied again, putting a bit more reflex into it by bracing it backwards again and pulling the string around a 40cm cooking pot as shown in the pictures below.
- IMG_1570.jpg (77.57 KiB) Viewed 7492 times
- IMG_1571.jpg (37.8 KiB) Viewed 7492 times
Actually, the use of the cooking pot did not pull the limbs into much greater reflex than before. It went from 15cm to about only just over 16cm. I think string stretch from the Dacron string I used was the cause.
The overnight cooling period was adhered to and in the middle of the following day, I braced it up and shot it once again with very little improvement at all. It returned to 40mm of set with 25mm remaining after resting.
The next step was to try to increase the draw weight by piking.
Looking through the examples of Howards bamboo bows in Burton’s book, on page 18, there is a picture of one of Howard’s personal bows which was made in his standard style but was only 64 ½ inches long. I was relieved. It meant I could shorten my replica and still be within the length range of bows he made, albeit this one would have been pretty short even for him and his 28 inch draw.
So, next day, I piked the bow to 65 inches nock to nock and the draw weight went up significantly, but happily, the set did not increase at all. The final weight of this bow at my 26 inch draw is 40lbs. And what an improvement in cast that 5lbs made to the flight of my 404 to 420 grain arrows.
I finished the bow with several coats of satin Minwax Wipe-on Poly and used a bit of greyish kangaroo hide I had for a handle wrapping using a small built up wedge as an arrow shelf as depicted in the picture on page 18 of Burton’s book. The handle wrapping in this picture is dark, but most commonly, Howard used grey mule-hide which is reasonably close to the colour of this kangaroo leather.
When applying the grip wrapping, I butted the ends together in the middle of the back of the handle, but it was quite common in Howard’s time to actually skive the ends and overlap them with the overlapped end extending around the grip almost to the offside of the handle. There are a few examples of this method in Burton’s book and many in my old archery catalogues. The direction of the overlap depended upon the handedness of the bow. The top and bottom edges of Howards bows generally were also skived so that there was no step, blending the leather into the bow much more neatly.
As with the pictures of his bows in Burton’s and Craig Ekin’s books, there is no arrow strike plate either which Howard did not apply to his personal bows apparently. The bowstring in the pictures is made from Irish linen kindly supplied by Looseplucker from Ozbow.
- IMG_1584.jpg (63.54 KiB) Viewed 7492 times
- IMG_1588.jpg (62.75 KiB) Viewed 7492 times
- IMG_1608.jpg (70.86 KiB) Viewed 7492 times
- IMG_1595.jpg (54.53 KiB) Viewed 7492 times
- IMG_1604.jpg (48.45 KiB) Viewed 7492 times
- IMG_1598.jpg (43.71 KiB) Viewed 7492 times
- IMG_1602.jpg (54 KiB) Viewed 7492 times
- IMG_1600.jpg (55.02 KiB) Viewed 7492 times
Since the completion of this bow, at mid-lower limb immediately next to a node, there has developed a 1/4 limb width fret. I have treated this in the conventional Ascham technique of pricking completely around the fret to relieve the compression stress from the harder material above and below the fret from transferring into the actual fret area.
This has always worked well for me with hardwood and Yew bows in the past. Here is a picture of the fret with its treatment.
- IMG_1609.jpg (16.37 KiB) Viewed 7492 times
Observations
The most obvious aspect of making an all-bamboo bow was how badly it took a set very early in the building.
I began with a taper of 9mm at the tips, increasing it at the rate of 0.5mm per 75mm which should have produced a very heavy bow. Even now, the limbs look thick enough to be for a bow around 70lbs if it were a hardwood bow, or even a Yew bow. You seem to require a lot of bamboo to make a bow. In future, if I ever get to repeat this exercise, I will know to allow a great deal more thickness in the limbs than I did this time. I do not consider that the cambering of the belly had anything to do with it.
I have a 1930s vintage Yew static recurve here at home backed with clarified calfskin (as they did back in those times) which is 71 inches long and draws 47lbs at 26 inches. The string nocks are barely in line with the back of the handle because of the huge amount of set forced on the inner limb by the static recurves. It would have performed just as well if it had been built as a straight ended bow in my opinion because it would have suffered far less set.
Anyway, this bow is no thicker than my Howard Hill replica and has a similarly cambered belly. But even as a much longer bow (never mind the static recurve tips), it has kept a much higher draw weight than my replica at 6 inches shorter and much quicker by far.
I had obtained some short samples of bamboo lamination offcuts from Craig for bend testing, but it was too short to suspend between two supports and take the increasing weight to measure an elastic limit. It didn’t break. It just bent so far that it dropped between the two supports and took an enormous set pretty early. So, I could not get a sensible reading. Now I can appreciate that I needed much thicker lamination material which would support the weights I was trying to suspend from it. Had I realised that at the time, I may probably have woken up to the idea that an all-bamboo bow was going to need to be very thick.
I was very disappointed at how badly the bow took a big set so early and how little draw weight it yielded for such a bulky limbed bow.
The other thing which surprised me is the way in which with applied heating that the bow reduced its set without me having to apply any kind of reflex bending. As I heated the limbs over the kitchen gas stove, each limb almost literally ‘rose to the occasion’ quite visibly. A very slight reflexing push brought the limbs back to dead straight, but it was not permanent.
On each subsequent occasion of heat treating, the limbs behaved the same way, straightening out like a bloke enticed. But on no occasion did the limbs return back to the amount of reflex put into them. They only ever returned to just short of straight as they had done on the very first occasion of heat treating.
It is my supposition that bamboo must have some kind of elastic memory which, once set, remains that way. It may be tied in with the degree of set first occasioned in the bow at or near the time of its first heat treating and doesn’t change thereafter.
The other thing to my continued astonishment throughout the whole process was that the bow did not delaminate from the repeated heating. When Jeff and I glued it up, we used the modern bowyer’s common choice of glue – Smooth-On. Clearly that stuff must have some serious resistance to heat once cured, because I got the limbs of this bamboo bow hot to the point where you could not grab them and they needed to be touched very gingerly with the fingertips to assess the amount of heat I had applied.
Despite this, the glue did not let go, and that was a bit of a revelation.
If there is one thing above all else I learned from this exercise, it is the fact that bamboo is a different animal to wood and behaves much differently when subjected to stress. When deciding how much to allow for thickness with this bow, I tried to source mechanical data for bamboo. There is very little, and because of the vast number of different sub-species, there is little chance of obtaining anything worthwhile. That is the reason I opted for trying to obtain my own data using bamboo known to be bow-friendly from Craig Ekin at Howard Hill archery.
The most common data seemed to establish that its tensile strength was almost equal to fibre glass, but its compression strength was poor in comparison, reflected in the early stages of this bow.
But clearly, something else happens to it when subjected to heat within a certain range.
Heat seems to harden it against compression which is probably the genesis of the technique of heat tempering which has been well known for centuries in Asia. I cannot say to what degree this tempering process improves its compression resistance compared with an average bow hard wood, but my impression from this exercise is that it is still far less than hardwood, unless perhaps the outer rind of the bamboo is able to be used on the belly side of a bow as well.
Such a technique presents problems of working out the amount of thickness required for a given draw weight and the fact that once glued up, the belly cannot be scraped during tillering to sink the bow. Tapering the core laminations, some width tapering and varying overall length would be all that would be available to the bowyer.
Anyway, I hope this little effort of mine is of some interest and use to members.
