Attempt at 100# Ash warbow.

[nathan elliot]

I have recently been inspired to make an English Warbow. After reading everything I could find on Ash warbows, I decided it was time to jump in and go for it.

I am going to try and build a +100# Ash Warbow. Started out like this-





Taken it down to this-
Width at handle = 40mm
Width at tip = 19mm
Thickness at handle = 30mm
Thickness at tip = 19mm
Bow length =1980mm

And it looks like this-




Im keeping it oval in cross section, as has been advised.

Thanks to Alan's site for the specs to this bow , it is still a wee bit off the 120# bow given as an example by Alan. So far so good. I am going to stick it in the wood dryer over night to bring the moister down some. I think I am getting ready to put her on the tree and start the tiller.

A couple of questions if I may. When should I heat treat?  And what do temporary knocks look like? I have some horn on the way, but up to now I have only used overlays and am worried about the tillering string slicing into the wood, should I just wait and put on horn knocks and tiller from there?

Regards

Nathan.
 

[Ian.]

Hi
 great to see more people trying for warbows, you mite want to make it more square in section as ash can crysal bad,
 as for heat treating i wouldn't bother but it depends what you want to achieve Ive never done it so i cant say,
 tillering knocks are quite simple just use a round file or tile saw to cut a grove that doesn't slip, and make sure the string stays in place it is a horrible feeling seeing a string come off a bow while tillering makes you think you broke the bow
look forward to seeing it on the tiller
Ian

[nathan elliot]

Hope you can see these pictures, it is quite flat on the belly, I have rounded the corners. I am going to try and keep this profile.



On the heat treating, I have found that the bows I make just pick up less set when heat treated (Thanks Marc St Louis!). I don't want to have too much string follow, maybe 2in. I made this long bow at the weekend from the same Ash tree. 50# at 28in, still less than 1 inch of set after 200 odd arrows. Plus just to push my luck I made the belly nice and crowned. No crystals.....yet!! (I know the black horn look pants on a white bow like this. Thats why I have since dyed it dark brown )



So should I heat treat or not?

Nathan

[Jaro]

You will probably get best results if you heat treat now, then tiler, then heat treat and adjust again.
I have made 90# ash longbow which shot standart 220 yrds this way. Heat treating will help you with some problems which are inherent to whitewood and if you do multiple times as you get rid of the wood, it will end up being physically light, which is the key to have a good shooter.

With this weight and ash, I would like to have physical weight of the bow under 700 gram, 600 more likely.

Regards

Jaro

[nathan elliot]

Thanks Jaro! Great to have your input on this one! I have just shaped some horn knocks. Now for a coffee and then on with some heat treating. The bow weighs 900gm at the moment so I have a ways to go yet. The  horn knocks came out OK, still a bit worried about cutting temp knocks in white wood as I have had some nasty experiences with string cutting right through Rowan ash in the past.

Nathan

[nathan elliot]

Heat treat, scrape, heat treat, scrape. Have had to deal with a few string alignment problems as I have progressed. Finally cut some knocks and put on a long string. I have uprated my pulley system on my tiller tree, still not really happy with it, but it will have to do until I find a better one. Really have high hopes for this bow. Not sure I will be able to pull it when finished, but its something to aim at, no pun intended

The bow so far and my cow horn knocks-



Nathan

[Dauntless]

Great project Nathan, I'll be watching it closely.  It's a fabulous piece of wood you have there.

[Cromm]

Coooooooll..........

[bigcountry]

Interesting.  I am keeping an eye on this thread. 

[alanesq]

Looking very good :-)

As has been mentioned above you will find ash tends to chrysal so you need to be very careful whilst tillering not to over stress any point in the bow and work up drawlengths very slowly
if you have chased a growth ring the back will be bomb proof so no worry there

BTW - I never had much luck experimenting with heat treating myself - one thing I did discover is that heat treating the ash dries it out quickly and it takes literally months for the wood to normalise again (not sure if this helps, just my observation)

If it does happen to chrysal badly don't despair - I have a bow which I removed the belly and glued some lemonwood on and its made a really good bow

[broad_head]

Hi Nathan
                  I recently had a go at making a 100lb ash warbow but undershot the weight and ended up with 85lb at 31 inches. The results were very encouraging though and the set was only about ½ inch. The ash I used had growth rings of about ¼ - 3/8 but the density was about .7 . The cross section was almost rectangular with well rounded corners. Belly was heat-treated and bow was 74 inches nock to nock. I intend to have second go at a warbow, but at he moment I am making an ash 50lb target bow. Hope yours goes OK, keep us posted.
                                                      Peter (UK)

[nathan elliot]

Was not happy using temporary knocks so I went ahead with the horn knocks. Took my time with this, got the fit just right then glued them on. That was yesterday, today I cut some string groves and went for a better brace hight. Not looking bad on the tiller tree at 20 in or so. I am happy with the mid bend, just want to thin down the outer limb to bring the tips round to more of a compass. No crystals so far but I reckon if I pull her any more she is going to pick up too much set. So its some more heat treating for this stave.





Nathan

[nickf]

good work Nathan! impressive! makes me want to start a ash warbow right away... wich I maybe might Warbows are great to make aren't they?

you'll do good to remove some wood at the midlimb and outer limbs, but try not to remove anything after the tiller is perfect. You can always make lighter bows, but it's pretty hard to get them heavy.

you inspired me for another self-warbow dude!

Nick

[medicinewheel]

Hello Nathan,

wondering how this one ended up!?

I had some very surprising results with ELBs  made from thin ringed heat treated European ash and I would want to give it a try for some 90-100# at around 31-32" pull. Would be nice to hear what your final result was!

Thanks.

PS: Are you still in Germany?

[mikekeswick]

In my experience you really need to trap the back heavily, upto a 1/3 narrower than the belly. Ash only chrysals because it's way stronger in tension than it is in compression and most people don't bother to trap (*also if you are rounding the belly at all....). I've probably made more bows out of ash than any other wood because it grows nice and straight here and I can see the difference between non-trapped and trapped plainly when I compare very similar bows. I did a test with a little ash d-bow once,I made it short got the tiller good then pulled the heck out of it! Result = lots of set! About 3-4 inch. I then took that bow and cut it along the netural plane on my bandsaw. The belly half had more set when cut maybe 5 inch and the back had maybe an inch tops. So draw your own conclusions This bow wasn't trapped.
Ash can make excellent bows when treated correctly- contratory to popular belief! One of my best flight bows was made of ash.