Thank you DB....Dave glad ya like it.
Simon, I have never had any hand shock on any of these Mollegabet styled bows. I think most folks call them "Molly" as a nickname for Mollegabet. This style bow was found after the "Holmegaard". That bow was similar to an American Flat bow with stiff tips. The Mollegabet has well defined seperation between the working limb and lever elements.
The names come from the way the Scandinavian scientists name their finds....they are named for the nearest town to the dig. I'll post one other picture from the other computer with the artifact reconstruction for you.
(My opinion about the bows and working principles is) I believe that the levers being 50-50 or 60-40 working to lever length acts the same principle as a trebuchet where the working limb is the weight and the lever is ....well the lever. There is also the matter of the lever tip moving considerably farther in it's arc than does the working limb so the stresses are not as bad as one would think. ( this is like an arrow spine tester, the weight and arrow move very little but the tip of the indicator moves a long ways by comparison) Since the lever is notably thicker and heavier at the fade and quite narrow and thin at the tip I believe there is a very powerfull transfer of energy into the arrow just like a trebuchet does and actually the bows works a lot like that because it will give great cast to heavy arrows on the one hand and does not self destruct with light arrows. Like I said I have never had any issues with shock with any arrow weight...cast is very strong. One added advantage is that the levers if made long like the originals....give some advantage to the bowman to draw more weight than with a full compass, the longer levers also give greater safe draw length on somewhat shorter bows because they increase string length. All of my bows are for hunting primarily, and I have made some with reflexed levers....I dont do that anymore because if you reflex a couple inches you will not have string lift off at brace (more noise and vibration) so If you can make the levers reflexed in such a way as to gain speed but have the bow string lifted off the limb/lever at brace you avoid a lot of shock/vibration when the string comes back to battery.
Like I said just an old mans opinion so please take it with a grain of salt.
rich
