Wood for warbow?

[Moen]

Hello, guys.
I want to make me a new warbow/longbow 120-130#@30". And i want to laminate it. I have Norwegian ash, white oak, Norway maple, walnut....and actionboo
What combination/dim will be your choise? And is it smart to taper all laminates?


Edit: Oops! I forgot, i have Osage too.
-Moen

[youngbowyer]

what kind of walnut? you could possibly do boo backed walnut.

[Ian.]

If the ash is good take it to a single growth ring then glue it to the Osage for a good looking/shooting bow,
 or Boo backed Osage, BUT boo is a grass so not a warbow.
 either way you will easy get 120 if the wood is good enough quality

[Moen]

Its Am. walnut. But do you think actionboo can do the job for backing??? What about: Ash-Oak-walnut? Or ash-walnut-osage?

[adb]

I made a nice tri-lam warbow, 100#@30", with hickory back, boo mid lam and osage belly.

[Ian.]

 Am i right in saying that actionboo is like 1/4 sawn, if it is then yep boo is one of the very best backings
I would use the best woods to make a 130 bow and bomboo and osage are the best you have there its not that i wouldnt use the others but you dont need to.
 Oak in my opinoin isnt that good so dont bother putting it with very good woods, it will only take from the bow.
I dont know what Norwegian wood is like but mapel would make the best core wood.
So Osage/maple/boo or osage/boo or osage/single growth ring ash
 Any backing you choose osage should be the belly.

[nickf]

 "BUT boo is a grass so not a warbow"

Ian, I'd like to know why bamboo won't make a warbow? I can't tell since I've only made 5 boo backed warbows (90-130#, 3 ipé, 2 massaranduba). Never knew it wouldn't make warbows.

Moen,

Actionboo's a first class core, if it's vertically laminated. I'd recommend Osage as belly, actionboo as core, and boo as backing (not actionboo, just the normal slat). However ian said bamboo won't make warbows, I used it on both warbows(wich shouldn't work, but actually does) and on normal bows. This stuff is unbreakable!!! I bet it even beats f-glass in tensile strength.

Boo however will probably overpower the lighter woods, like walnut, so that's not a good choice. The really dense osage, combined with the unbreakable boo is a first class combination, just as boo-ipé.

I woudn't hesitate to go over 140# with boo-backed osage, should be an incredible combi. for a 32" drawlength and 90-120# drawweight, I recommend 1" of glued-in reflex, 74" ntn length, and 1 1/4" width.

Nick

[Et_tu_brute]

Personally I agree with Ian about bamboo backings on warbows. Nick, Ian didn't say it wouldn't make a warbow (if by warbow you are talking about a full compass bow of the traditional English style, heavy draw-weight etc.), he said it wouldn't be a true warbow, as bamboo is a grass. I have used bamboo to back bows with before and it's an excellent backing material, but if I had the choice between bamboo and good quality hickory (using hickory as an example, same goes for maple and ash by hickory would be my choice) for making a longbow/warbow then I'd choose the hickory every time. I know Hickory wasn't available at the time, but at least it's a wood and I believe we have evidence for backed bows being introduced in the Tudor period, (Ash backed Yew IIRC) probably more recreational bows than livery bows, but laminates nonetheless.

[Ian.]

Thanks Dave, i agree with everything you've said there.
 Bamboo is natures carbon fibre cant go wrong using it as a backing.
 Lets not get into a silly bamboo argument because it will be one of countless topics, but i just don't like using bamboo in a bow, if you want to call anything a warbow then Yew or Yew or even good quality Yew would be great for it, but if understandably you want a laminate then wood is the only lamination you can use to the same profile and length of a true warbow.
 I have never been a fan of small reflexed boo backed anything, it bears no resemblance to a true warbow it will shoot totally different and feel different to, there just not the same thing.
 
 But back on topic Osage backed boo will make a fantastic heavy bow.
 

[nickf]

brute,

I agree with you that neither Hickory, nor Bamboo has been used on TUDOR ENGLISH warbows.
but
Boo has been used on countless warbows, hickory has been used a little aswell, but mainly on lightweight bows (+- 55#)

let's take a look at this quote:"
"warbow/longbow 120-130#@30". And i want to laminate it"

I would think he just want's a warbow/longbow. Not a true mary-rose replica. So, why shouldn't he use bamboo? bows have been backed with all kind of stuff, varying form rawhide, to sinewcables, to bamboo. Hickory became popular in the last century, however bamboo has been used since the first bows were made.


If you want to be truly traditional, please, don't make any warbows, exept from SPANISH, PORTUGESE, ITALIAN yew, with a rpi of no lower than 60. Otherwise, it won't be a real warbow, since that's what they used. No pacific yew, no yew with a rpi of below 60, no waterbuffalo horn, no fastflight, b-50, d-75, but COWHORN nocks, linen or hemp strings, and DOUBLE sidenocks. and ofcourse, drawweights varying form 160#-200#. Goodluck. Recovering from a shoulderinjury right now, after drawing a 130# without any warming up. That dumb, yeah. But I'm not able to draw that 160# minimum, nor will my skeleton take it, nor will I pay 400€  for a italian-yew stave. Instead, I pay 40€ for a board, 15€ for a boo pole, and make 8 powerfull warbows, wich are, in addition, more efficient.

well, we all know, this true warbowmaking is gonna be very expensive. So turn our 'primitive' mind on, and decide that bamboo is the strongest and most reliable backing. Osage slats are excelent bellies, however flattened osage hasn't been used on any warbows I've seen so far. Exept from modern laminates, ofcourse.

Nick


 

[Yeomanbowman]

Nick,
I feel you are thinking of some of the Mary Rose bows and generalising some what.  Warbows were also made of holly, ash, wych elm, ash, hazel and Balkan/Irish/English yew and perhaps other materials too.  The is no reason why lower ring yew counts cannot be used and no way of saying that that it was not, likewise with the draw weight.  You can make a faithful replica without spending the earth and making/buying an unshootable bow.  The 'elitist' argument doesn't really stand up.

However, I agree with you that a boo backed board bows makes a fast, cheap and effective bows, so why not?  The fact it's a grass is, I think, neither here nor there. The boo is made from the same stuff as wood, being cellulose and lignin etc.  Wood can also come from shrubs not just trees yet not all trees make wood.  Palm trees do not make normal wood, for instance.  Hickory or bamboo was, historically speaking, never was used for English warbows so what's the real difference?  This is just my opinion and I understand others will take a different view.   

[nickf]

glad you corrected me there Yeomanbowman,

indeed, I was talkign about the TUDOR warbows, the mary rose types. Wich actually were made from high-quality yew, with horn nocks, just as I described.
hazel, ash and holly were actually used, I agree. Holly is pretty much a pain to work with, it doesn't split, takes scrapers or drawknifes well, so I guess it hasn't been used that much. However, these woods won't yield bows in the 150-200pound range. I've heard many great stories about these woods, I've been a hazel-fan for a while, but I regularry hear that these woods start to crysal all over the belly once you try to exceed the 120#. According to the info I have, these were usually used for hunting bows, 'kidbows', and trainingsbows.

Yew is one of the very few woods that can stand these extreme drawweights, and thus one of the very few that has been used for these monsterbows. You can ofcourse imagine that you''ll need top-quality yew for a 170#er, right? well, most people don't intend to shoot this. So you get many more alternatives.

"Warbows were also made of holly, ash, wych elm, ash, hazel and Balkan/Irish/English yew english warbows, the mary rose types"  let's go a bit to the east and we can add bamboo, haha Excuse me for my behaviour, but Í'm really impressed by bamboo.

Nick

[bow-toxo]

As an individual more into authenticity than most, I make mediaeval or Tudor style longbows from self staves, no handgrip wrapping. I don't use any additional backing as I consider backed or laminated bows out of period. I consider Pacific yew acceptable as the later warbows were made of whatever yew could be found, in Germany, Switzerland or anywhere else. Hakluyt in early explorations of west coast North America, checked out Pacific yew for bows, but the Crown had all but discontinued their military use by then. With yew difficult to obtain, I have also made do with Osage or hickory made as above. Cowhorn, antler or self sidenocks, of course. I also go for silk as well as linen bowstrings, the preferred kind in those days. As my strength is not up to the usual warbow draw, double sidenocks are not necessary. The above is what I consider for myself as a minimum try at Tudor or mediaeval gear.

                                       Erik

[Yeomanbowman]

Hello Nick,

I take your point about you referring to Tudor warbows found on the Mary Rose and they are indeed as you describe.  However, on other English ships during the very same navel engagement in the Solent were white wood bows.  It's documented also that the breakage rate was very high and I think Hardy suggest that archers were deliberately making them fail to get issued with a yew one.  The fact that white wood warbows were being used tells me that not all Tudor warbows could have been at the draw weights you describe, even with belly tempering (assuming it was done).  Leading warbow authority, Richard Wadge, tells me that white wood warbows were likely to have been present at Crecy so that's a good enough pedigree for me!

I agree with your comments about bamboo, it really is impressive stuff and you never seem to get a bad bit.  For me, it's good enough for a tropical hardwood laminate but some people prefer hickory wich I can understand.  

[alanesq]

What is the heaviest whitewood bow that anyone has successfully made ?

I have a 108lb one (ash) which has lasted ages and showing no sign of chrysals etc. (and this was my 2nd try at a bow so very badly made even by my standards)
I had a 120lb one which did chrysal but still lasted a good while (thousands of arrows) before finally the chrysals got so deep I no longer dared use it

I have tried wych elm and had high hopes for this but if anything it chrysals more than ash

Ash makes a fantastic back, just fails on the compression of the belly
I wonder if we need to forget about the D section for whitewood bows and figure out a completely different design ?