crossbow

[paganwannbe]

My father wants A crossbow primitive style And I was wandering what type of wood would work cause I heard that yew is a good wood  for bows so I thought that that would work for A crossbow any suggestion would be appreciated thank you.

[Frode]

For the tiller, most anything would work, depends on how fancy you want it to be (carved, laminated), what color, grain, etc.  Heck, you can make a perfectly good one from a pine 2 x 4.  For the prod, unless you've already done several, or were going for a horn/wood/sinew composite, I'd recommend buying one ready made in steel.  I started one in red oak, backed with linen, and it just never got not scary.  I put it on the shelf and chalked it up to wood working practice.
Any particular time period or version of primitive you were thinking of?
Frode

[paganwannbe]

no not really but I have not read A lot about crossbow most of the types of thing that talk about them are eager to go back to swords and the battles so I don't really get allot of information on them.

[M-P]

Hi,   Check my post "another crossbow"   Del the cat replied with pics of his crossbow too.   Making a prod (the bow part) is much like making a very short, very heavy, very highly stressed bow.   The center, where the prod is bound to the tiller needs to be non-bending, which increases the strain.   I would guess that most of the originals were heavily sinewed.  I made my prod a little long compared to steel prods to reduce the stress a little.   There is a chapter in the Laubins' Book on native american bows that describes a crossbow made and used by native americans.   That crossbow just uses a regular eastern flatbow (which is sort of a short bow anyway.)   Ron