The Korean War/Hunting bow

[Peacebow_Coos]

Wow, that is an amazing thing.  Any guesses about the wood?  Maybe some kind of conifer like a cedar?

[bubby]

5'4 1/2" is still short for a wood/sinew bow with tip touching reflex, didn't the koreans like mulberry

[redhawk55]

Go here: http://hornbow.com/mokgng1.jpg and here: http://hornbow.com/bbow1.jpg or here: http://hornbow.com/woody3.jpg at Thomas Duvernays site about Korean bows.

About 14 years ago, I was ordered to make a bow like these ones. Another examples of Korean bows without horn.
I found them very hard to make and cause of the monster- reflex extremely unstable when shooting them. No wonder Korean bows are told "wobble- bows".
Not the type of bow I like.
Michael

[Pat B]

James Parker made a boo back, carbonized boo belly Asiatic style "horn" bow without the horn. It was very short but still achieved a long draw. He may have even made a carbonized belly with a sinew backed bow also but I'm not sure.

[PatM]

I'm trying to just stay focused on the wood/sinew version.

[Pat B]

Contact James. He might be able to give you some insight.

[mullet]

There is an Article in one of the back issues that deals with making an Asiatic bow with just Osage and sinew. I made one that broke in the handle because I didn't wrap enough sinew around it. Chris Cade made one that was a shooter, he still has it. The performance was disappointing, though.

[PatM]

 Have you guys looked at the pics from the museum?  Not the same thing as any of that other stuff. We've already talked about the hornless hornbow and the bows James makes.
 None of them are like this. Every hornbow person has scoffed at the idea and I doubt James would be any different.

 The closest is the one that simson posted recently.

[mullet]

I looked at them. Why are the tips so big? And, I think you'll find James pretty opened minded. He has been pushing the envelope for quiet awhile and keeps a book with meticulous notes and measurements.

[PatM]

The heavier a bow is the bigger the tips can be. You see that in the Chinese and  Sami bows as well.
 Unless someone has actually built one of these it seems like it will just be speculation. I'm not going to bug James about it, he can comment if he drops by.

[mullet]

Oh, looking closer at the picture the siyahs aren't that big. I didn't notice that they were crossed behind each other.

[PatM]

If you look at the rest of the bows  you'll also see  a bow with a wood belly and a bamboo core/sinew back. It just seems like a very undocumented bow style.
 There had to be a reason that they were building such complex shapes out of what are considered lesser or completely inadequate materials for these designs. Again, many guys are adamant that trying this is an utter waste of time.

[mullet]

I wonder if at the time maybe horn was scarce and they were just trying new material. I'm not sure of everybody scoffing at the idea using wood on the compression side.Like Pat said James has been building Asian style bows with siyah, sinew, and bamboo or Ipe on the belly for awhile. I've owned a couple of each. I have had one of Vincent Minor's Bamboo backed and belly bows in this same design that lifted a splinter on the back. I sanded down the Boo and sinew backed it. That really helped the performance from what it had been.

[PatM]

There was a scarcity of horn but the horn based bow was not considered reliable enough for battle by the Koreans apparently. At least in the design that they favored.
 Note the width of the limbs listed on these bows relative to the typical one inch wide horn bow.

[james parker]

a few years back I was told by an elderly Korean lady, that those particular bows could have possibly been heavy weight exercise  bows,, procurement of horn and sometimes the sinew could be far and few between ,so as not to waste good horn on bows that are for building strength and form, as far as knowing for sure- who knows.. the builders of those bows and of  that time are long since dead and gone- maybe  the student was to build bows from lesser materials before he was allowed to commit to using valuable horn,,, I'm no expert, but I can say for sure that that kind of bow can work to some degree, because thats how I built many before I used the first horn strips that I had when I first tried making the Korean bow.. also take into consideration that the presented bows have closed back up due to  being un-used or maybe they were never opened up to start with.. the Korean horn bows  real ones that I have,-have  the most minimum of materials to get the most maximum of draw and results wanted,,, just because those bows have no horn doesn't mean they are any easier to build and tiller out....the particulars and finesses it takes to build them is mind blowing