After buying the boyer's bible, I've begun a little weekend project of making the three dominant Eurasian bows of antiquity. These are the following:
1. European Long bow
2. Asiatic Recurve bow
3. Middle Eastern Composite bow
Now the longbow is by far the easiest of the three to make, so I built a longbow first. I've tried my best to stick to all natural materials and I've used no power tools whatsoever.
Here's how I did it:
Wood Selection:
Theoretically, a long bow falls under the "self-bow" category. This means that the bow is made from a single type of material. The material that a longbow is made out of is usually yew or oak. But realistically, maple, willow or cherry wood is just as good. My bow is made from a staff of oak wood. Usually, home improvement stores have these waste bins filled with staffs and boards make out of oak or maple. A board/staff that is between 60 to 70 inches long, 1 to 3/2 inches wide, and 1/2 to 2/3 inch thick will do. I got all of my wooden staffs from the waste bin at a local home depot
Notch-Making:
The first step is to cut 2 one inch wide notches on each end of the staff. The notch should not be made closer than one inch from the tip of the staff. This process, when done without power tools is extremely tedious. The notch-making process takes about 5 hours of filing, polishing, and oiling to complete.
Seasoning:
Functionally, the traditional longbow behaves more like a composite bow. This is due to the fact that the wooden staff/board that these bows are made out of have the following traits:
1. The inner side of the bow (that faces the person) is composed of seasoned heartwood that is fairly stiff. Drying of the heartwood is done through the application of heat to dry the wood. Heat causes the heartwood to lose moisture and thus become lighter and harder. In the case of my bow, it was accomplished by putting the belly of the bow near a radiator for 2 weeks.
2. The wood on the outer(belly) side of the bow is in fact young green wood grown during the spring season. Thus bellywood is far more flexible than heartwood. To preserve this wood's flexibility, a curing process is requried. Through the periodic application of oil to partially seal off moisture, the green wood's flexibility is maintained why the excess moisture is allowed to dissapate slowly, thus reducing the overall weight of the bow. This process has to be done once a day for 2-3 weeks.
Tillering:
Once the wooden staff/board has been seasoned , the tedious process of tillering begins. Basically, tillering consists of applying steam to the wooden staff/board and bending it untill it can reach full draw-length. The point of the process is to detect flaws within the grain of the wood. Flaws expose themselves by causing an uneven bending of one side versus another. For example, one side of a staff may be slightly thicker than another, and when bent, the thicker side will bend at a less steep angle than the thinner side. Thus tiny slices of wood has to be shaved off from one side or another during the process to exactly balance the stress on each side of the bow. Additionally, larger slices will have to be shaved off to allow the bow to reach full draw weight. Thus tillering consists of a sequence of large shavings to increase drawlength followed by small shavings to normalize the unequal stresses on both sides of the bow caused by the larger shavings. During this process, any flaws within the grain of the wood would show itself. Burrs and small cracks will likely be exposed during tillering. If any such flaw is found, the bow has to be abandoned because it will likely break under stress. This process takes about 15-20 hours.
Leather Grip:
Draw a line at the absolute middle of the bow. The grip will be made roughly 1/2 inch away from the line, it can be on either side. Basically, the grip consists of a single piece of leather ( 15 inches by 3 inches ') that is wrapped around the handle area on the bow 3-4 times and glued into place. Scrap leather can be had at most local tailor shops for nothing or next to nothing. To make the leather flexible, work warm oil/melted wax into the leather(use a hammer or dough roller to work it into the material). The leather than becomes soft and flexible. Traditionally, longbow grips are glued into place using an adhesive made from a combination of horse hooves and cow offal. Since I lacked these materials, I used an asiatic bow glue formula. Basically, you boil crushed pig bones along with the intestines and swimbladders of fresh water fish (in my case, panfish). Now the concoction is allowed to simmer until 3/4 of the water is evaporated. The remaining solution is applied to the grip area of the bow and the leather. The leather is wrapped 4 times around the grip area and allowed to set for one day in a dry area. This process takes about 10 hours of work. Now keep in mind, any modern epoxy or superglue can be used to reduce time.
Bowstring:
A longbow's string is typically made out of flax fiber. Since there isn't any handle supply of that plant near where I live, I opted for the tried and true synthetic Dacron B50 fiber. For $20 at the local sports shop, you can buy enough to make 10 bowstrings. My bow was tillered at 55 lbs draw weight, thus, the bowstring was made by twising 15 strands of the fiber together and creating knotted loops on the two ends. I used the technique of adding one strand at a time to the string and creating knots to hold the strands in place. The bowstring should ideally be 4 inches shorter than the length of the bow. So my string was 66 inches long. The process takes about 2 hours. Manufactured bowstrings can usually be bought for 3 dollars and that will save a few hours of time.
Arrow Rest:
The arrow rest basically consists of a 1/3 inch notch along the middle of the bow. This has to be done using a file. First the bow must be stringed. The procedure basically consists of a few light strokes with the file(along the grain of the wood), and then drawing the bow to full length to see if any flaws or cracks appear. The procedure is repeated until a groove 1/3 inch in depth is made in the middle of the bow. This process takes about 3 hours.
Silencers:
Now when a longbow is fired, there is a sharp crackling sound caused by the bowstring hitting the 2 curved tips of the bow. This can be greatly reduced with silencers. To make a silencer, cut out a dozen 6 inch segments of a string/fabric made out of soft materials (cotten, hemp, fur...etc I used hemp). Use each segment to make a triple knot on the bowstring near each tip of the bow (6 segments on each side). Each segment will have it's two end strands sticking out, so that 6 of these knots effectively forms a light buffer of 12 strands around the actual bowstring, this dampens the sound of the string hitting the wood when the bow is fired. This process takes 1 hour.
Sealing the Moisture:
Now that the longbow is stringed and working, it's moisture state must be preserved. If the moisture level of the heartwood increases, the bow becomes weaker. If the moisture level of the belly wood decreases, the bow may warp in shape or break. To seal in that moisture, first unstring your bow. Then apply two layers of a water proof agent on the surface of the bow. In the case of the medival welsh, the agent was boar fat mixed lightly with ash. I used congealed pig fat and charcoal ash from a recent BBQ. If pig fat can't be easily obtained, most wood finishes will do just as well. This process takes 2 hours.
Maximum Range: ~270 yards
Hunting Range: ~40 yards
Total Hours Spent: 60 hours
Total Cost: $9
And that's it, a long bow is created! After playing around with this weapon, I was able to shoot a light arrow out to a maximum range of 270 yards. And I'm able to make accurate shots at a pie plate out to 40 yards.
[img]
http://www.tmobilepictures.com/photos/photo08/95/07/da98fb39f960.jpg?_rh=5bqgwfozt8eer710xh67u5x4l[/img]
[img]
http://www.tmobilepictures.com/photos/photo09/c6/c9/53f36b61cb40.jpg?_rh=4bza2ajrfcp5b31iami0xw2m2[/img]
[img]
http://www.tmobilepictures.com/photos/photo07/85/fa/64aa7742b417.jpg?_rh=1kr3re2r65c2gbg8vfqkzan31[/img]
