Advice on narrow, rounded belly bow...

[Wooden Spring]

As many of you know, my wife and I portray mid-19th century archery at Civil War Reenacting events. During our weekends, it is not unusual for our group to instruct as many as 800 school kids on how to shoot bows of that era.

I have been using flatbows up to this point, telling them that these types of bows were in their infancy at the time. And that's true... The Foxfire Museum up in Clayton, GA has a "mountaineer" example of one from around the Civil War era. (and a really neat crossbow too)

Here's the deal. Our next event is in October, and I REALLY want to have a narrow, rounded belly, English-type longbow for use to teach the schoolkids, but I've never made one, and I want some advice on where to start.

Desired specs:
Around 40# @ 28" (so that men and women can use it)

I'll be making it out of lumber, not staves, and I have access to Hard Maple, White Oak (quarter sawn and rift sawn), Red Oak, Ipe, Purpleheart, and Jatoba.

Can anyone point me in the right direction for how to lay the thing out, and with what materials for around a 40# bow? THE CHILDREN ARE COUNTING ON YOU!!! 

[PatM]

Use the Ipe with either a  hard Maple or White Oak backing. Make it less than an inch wide  and 66 inches long and go from there.

[Badger]

  If you are only looking at 40# I would say most any of the white woods would give you very reasonable dimensions. Say about 66" long and 1 1/8 wide. Red oak, maple, white oak etc. Most any of them would be fine.

[ajbruggink]

I don't have that much experience but I made a 42# @29" ELB out of red oak as my first successful bow. What I did was used a 6 ft 1x2, marked out a 4" handle with a width of 1 1/4" and then tapered the width all the way to 1/2" tips. For thickness I left the handle 3/4" thick and then tapered the thickness to 3/8" tips. I fully rounded the belly on that bow. I did not floor tiller the bow, it was already bending beautifully at these specs. The bow took 3" of set but I've shot over a thousand arrows through it and its still shooting great. This is just the way I did it. Compared to the flatbows I've been building lately, the ELB was much easier to build. The bow to the left in the pic provided is my red oak ELB. Good luck on your project!

Aaron

[Wooden Spring]

So if I make it a Hard Maple backed White Oak (I've made VERY successful flatbows out of this) at 1-1/8" wide, is the thickness 8:5? So it would make the thickness around 11/16"?

[PEARL DRUMS]

IMO, a narrow, round WO core is a bad idea. Use your ipe for the belly and maple, hickory or ash for the back.

[Wooden Spring]

IMO, a narrow, round WO core is a bad idea. Use your ipe for the belly and maple, hickory or ash for the back.

Just out of curiosity, why is White Oak a bad idea for a round belly'ed bow?

[PEARL DRUMS]

Its not compression strong enough to tolerate a high crowned belly and also be narrow. It will either take a bunch of set, or chrysal. WO isn't junk wood, just not a good choice for narrow D shaped bellies. Look at dense woods like ipe, osage, or other exotics.

[Badger]

   When using white woods for a rounded belly the idea is to barely round the belly, just enough so a straight edge will rock instead of lay flat, so almost flat.
I just completed a couple of ipe english longbows, a 70# and a 50#. They are both only about 62" long. The 50 is less than 1" wide and the 70# is right at 1".  Ipe is great for elbs but they tend to come out too heavy for lightweight bows. I really don't like to go narrower than 1" on anything.

[Wooden Spring]

Pearl Drums and Badger, thanks for your insights...  I've made GREAT hard maple backed white oak (quarter sawn) bows and have never had a problem with them - granted, they are all flat bows - so I never thought twice about using it for a round-belley'ed bow. The dilemma that I have is that I need something to represent 19th century European target archery, and all the books I've read say to use lemonwood, but Atlanta Hardwoods doesn't have it and they cannot get it, so I find myself on a search for a substitute...   What about hickory?

[PEARL DRUMS]

Skip all your local white woods, none are what you want. Bet we can get lemonwood real soon now that the embargo has been lifted with Cuba.

[PEARL DRUMS]

Yew would be the berries. 

[Wooden Spring]

...and yew is even harder to get in Atlanta.

Unfortunately, when you live in an area such as where I do, an area geographically situated so that the only thing available is less than optimal, adventures in bowyery is an exercise in compromise.

About the only thing plentiful in Atlanta right now is methamphetamines, but you can't make a bow out of that.

[Badger]

   Another tip, instead of horn nocks you can buy black 2 part epoxy, hardens in about 1 hour. Put it on the ends of your bow roughly shaped, even form your grooves. After it hardens use a file and sandpaper to finish shaping. Looks just like horn. As I said, maple, red oak or white oak will all work fine for 40# bows and give you very traditional demensions. If you tiller them arc of the circle they should not take more than 1" of set.

[blackhawk]

...and yew is even harder to get in Atlanta.

Unfortunately, when you live in an area such as where I do, an area geographically situated so that the only thing available is less than optimal, adventures in bowyery is an exercise in compromise.

Ever hear of a website called primitive archer? It has a sub forum called the Trading Post. Its an invaluable tool for aquiring materials you cant harvest your self in your local immediate area. Even tho im being a sarcastic smart a$$,its true.

But my vote would be for maple backed ipe or jatoba..i have a maple,walnut,jatoba tri lam elb thats low 50's@27" ...its been one of my top go to bows since i made it two years ago....its one inch wide till mid limb then tapers to 1/4" tips.

But yeah...yew would be the most appropriate