90# + MR pattern in ash

[Kviljo]

Hehe

Haven't seen that one I think. Is it pictured in "The great warbow"? - which page?

[sagitarius boemoru]

Huh. Its either in Great warbow, or in Longbow. but anyway, symetrically cut nocks must have coexisted with single side cut ones. Because there is deal of longbowish bows with recurved tips in pictres floating around. And recurve with assymentrical nock doesnt work.
(Though it can be argued that those are all with continental influence)

Jaro

[SimonUK]

Very interesting point about side nocks being no good on recurves jaro. I guess this goes against the theory that the MR bows might have been reflexed.

What are your views on the narrowness on the MR bow tips? I'm under the impression that reproductions are a bit whip ended if built to the same dimentions. Could the outer limbs have been heat treated?

I also started wondering what evidence we have that a circular tiller was really used? We have paintings, but are they accurate enough? Ascham doesn't give us much to go on either. Maybe the bows were whip ended after all.

[Kviljo]

I'm not sure that is the case, although I haven't tried it. But don't think there's much difference in recurve stability with a sidenocked bow or a victorian-style nock. If any difference, I would think the sidenock would be more stable if it was combined with a self tightening knot. If the recurve is bending enough, a narrow-tipped longbow will have stability-issues either way. And you usually need to adjust the recurves with heat to make them stable anyway.

My bet is that this is something they did to their bow when it had been thouroughly used, and they wanted to speed it up a little. A longbow is so long that there is little help in recurves, but recurving a longbow with a lot of stringfollow will make it simulate less stringfollow.

Simon: take a look in Hardy's Longbow, where one of the original bows is shown on the tiller. That would probably be as close as we will get to see how one of them were tillered.

When I see "replicas", I always wonder how close they are to the original measurements. Up till now, I have not even seen one bow that was made stricktly from measurements. If you guys know of any bow like this, let me know! Just following the general width of the originals will not do the job in seeing how they were tillered. Sure, we can make them stress the wood as evenly as possible, but that may be different from what they really were tillered like.

[SimonUK]

If it was done to counter set, why not re-set the whole length of the bow?

I agree, making a bow to the same dimentions probably won't help much.  I don't have the Hardy book, what's the tiller like?

[Kviljo]

Oh, you really should get the book then. It's worth it's money. But I'll see if I can scan the picture next week. Don't hesitate to remind me though.

Don't know if words are good for describing the tiller, and it's some time since I saw it last time, so I won't try to. But it's not far from the new tiller of Alans 165/150# bow.

[SimonUK]

Remember to scan the picture next week, thanks 

Alan's new tiller was still quite whip ended - maybe they really were like that.  I really must get some of these books you keep quoting.

[Holzwurm]

Thats a fine looking Ash bow, congrats..

You'll find that lots of Ash varies in relation to it's usefullness as bow material. If you have the more Yellow ash, you are going to have next to no luck at all. If you are dealing with white ash however, it should yield a fine bow everytime.

[a finnish native]

the tiller is outstanding! and the horn nocks really are something!

[akila]

Hi  ...nice bow...i love ash wood...its a verry god wood for making bows...i wanna ask you whatt thickness have the bow in the handle area and to the mid limb iff you can....?? thks in advance...

[El Destructo]

Nice. I would like slightly less give in the handle and like to see the tips come round a little more. And do I see a homage to the master in the style of the horn nocks?

Rod.

Think it looks really nice....got a good bend to it....I wish I could Tiller a Longbow that well....Photoshop don't lie.......

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[recurve shooter]

wit my limited knowledge of bowmakeing i can say that u got your tiller nearly perfect, your knockwork is exelent, and that is a hell of a draw weight.

[akila]

Yess the tiller looks perfect...but i would realy love to know what thicknes have the bow at the handle,mid-limb and noks area.....thks .....i wanna try to make a bow like this and it will be helfuul to have an ideea of what dimension should i have in the handle, in the mid limb and to the nok or to the tips....i hope you can remeber this dimesnion and maybe send me a replay...thks in advance...

[Hrothgar]

Sag congrats. That's quite a bow, excellent tiller and beautiful horn tips. Ash has become my favorite wood, but I'm a looong way from 90#.  Are the top and bottom limbs the same length, or do you make the upper longer?
Hrothgar

[sagitarius boemoru]

Akila : its something like 34X27 mm at middle tapering to 18 mm tips (original taper) and then there is secondray taper something like 18 cm from each tip down to 11 mm nocks.  The ash has SG around 0.85. Hope it helps.

Hrotgar : when I lay this out I start making bow perfectly symetrical and with alot of more wood then needed. That assures that I have to actually struggle to get the weight down, rather than ending underweight. As I tiler I observe properties of limbs and chose the one with weaker wood as upper. Then I position bowyers mark and arrowpass 1´´ up from geometricall middle of the lenght of the bow and adjust for slightly positive tiler at the end.

I have made 120# bow from the same wood, though with tiler not so nice.

Jaro