Penobscot indian bow questions.

[Bearded Mountain Man]

I am curious to know if anybody on here has made a Penobscot Indian style bow. I was looking through a book I found at my local Library and it had a few of them in there. Any information on performance and difficulty of building them. I may interested in giving one a try.
   Here is an example of what one looks like if you don't already know...

[Bearded Mountain Man]

Maybe I should have said "Native American" instead of "Indian" I don't want to offend anybody out there.

[Kviljo]

I've made two of those. They are very cool looking bows. I think the main advantage is that you can make a shorter but more powerful bow, compared to a single bow. The draw force curve is not much different, and they shoot pretty much the same as any other wooden bow. The geometry might be optimalized to give a somewhat fatter draw force curve, but I would not expect anything significant.

However, I'd say go for it. They are not so difficult to make either. There are old original examples of the type where the small bow has no reflex, but that would really not bring much of performance to it, so I would suggest to heat at least a couple inches reflex into the small bow. I used steam first and then heat treated the small bow to give it 4-5 inches reflex. Another issue with these bows is that the main bow should be pre-tillered with slightly more bend in the middle, because once the small bow is attached it will force the bend closer to the tips. Nothing major, though.

[Bearded Mountain Man]

Thanks for the info. I have a couple of osage staves and 2 mulberry that I am going to try and make something out of. These are such interesting bows for there time. I may venture into making one.

[JW_Halverson]

There are old original examples of the type where the small bow has no reflex, but that would really not bring much of performance to it

How old is "old", Kviljo?  I have yet to see reference to one of these bows prior to the 20th century.

[warpath]

I've made about 20 or so of these bows and I really like them. When made properly, you can adjust the draw weight on them within a 20# range. This helps when the natural shoot arrows you make don't spine out the way you want them to. Then you just adjust the tension on the shorter bow heavier or lighter to suit your needs. Bearded- I say go for it!!!

  G

[sonny]

I have never seen one quite like that. All of them I've ever seen had the smaller bow connected directly to the main bow
with no spacing in between.
While I will say the bow pictured is neat, I can't imagine a Native American actually making it quite like that.
Simply speculation on my part .....

[sonny]

here's one that Marc made-

[JW_Halverson]

I dunno...I think the spacer between the li'l bow and the big bow is kinda cool.  Especially when it is used to make an integrated arrow quiver.  It would make a great bow for a post-apocalypse type movie.  Especially if you can get it to make those awesome "real bow" creaking leather sounds!!!

[Marc St Louis]

The bow that BMM shows looks interesting but it is a modern variation of the Penobscot.  The one I made was as close to a museum piece as I could make it.  There doesn't seem to be any evidence that the Penobscot was made much more than 100 years ago.  There's is no advantage in performance with these bows but there is an advantage in that you don't need to make the main bow as wide as you would in a selfbow and it doesn't take as much set as a selfbow would with the same narrow profile.

[Bowman]

I've made this one a couple of months ago. It is based on a drawing by Steve Allely. It's made of hickory. The "little" bow has small refleks, but I think the main bow should bend more at the inner limbs.  Since then the mainbow has been replaced by another because a lots of compression damage. It shoots well. Heavy bow. :-)

[Kviljo]

There are old original examples of the type where the small bow has no reflex, but that would really not bring much of performance to it

How old is "old", Kviljo?  I have yet to see reference to one of these bows prior to the 20th century.

I should probably have said only "original" I don't remember where, but I saw a couple of these in an american online museum catalogue. Those were very small ones, probably kids bows. I've also read somewhere that they could be traced back to the 18th century, but again I don't remember where