Stellmoor Bows

[riggs]

Hi all, I apologize if this subject already has a thread: I've done my best to see if it has already been discussed before starting a new thread... Is there anyone out there that has been working on Stellmoor Bow repros in Scotch Pine? Or even anyone that is familiar with working Scotch Pine? If worked sucessfully with oddball conifers like fir and spruces before, mostly using reaction woods, but never Scotch Pine. I've been working out a design as best as I can given the limited information and yesterday scored some Pinus sylvestris with decent heartwood. Now it's just a question of working a long bias ringed stave out of the center of this  knotty stuff. If so or if you're interested I'm going to be documenting my progress on Youtube. I've rambled about my venture in a few videos already, but in the next few days after I get a juniper bow sinew backed, I'll be adding videos detailing my work on my Stellmoor project bows. A youtube search for Stellmoor should lead you there. Thank you

[ksnow]

I will definitely be following your build.  I am very interested in the Stellmoor artifacts and would love to make one some time myself.  Good luck on your build.  I am still looking for some decent scots (red) pine myself.

[riggs]

Howdy. Yep, scots pine staves are few and far between. I wonder if they are less knotty in their home territory? Maybe a Scandinavian logger could answer that. Thank you and good luck to you, finding a piece that can yield a bow.

[uwe]

Hello,
I made one out of pitch pine. I took a more than 100 year old dealboard for this work. I didn`t have dimensions of the Stellmoor bows. Alfred Rust, who discovered the "Ahrensburger Tunneltal" (Ahrensburg in the near of Hamburg), had found antlers of reindeer, their sceletons and flint arrowheads as well as tools made of bone and antler. The fragments of the bows were not in full length, only pieces of a maximum of 40cm (16", 1f/ 4"). The bowlimbs burnt off in the bombnights of WW2.
My bowdesign was pyramidial of about 1,40m in length and about 40-50mm at the widest part and the width of the little finger on the tips. It was sinew backed and had a drawweight of 40lbs at 26 lbs, if I remember it correct. If you don`t know how the bowwood acts make it long and wide. Long? The length was given by this nice old board with very thin grothrings.
My thoughts: how thick could have been the thickest pines in the iceage? Was sinewbacking already known by these ancient hunters?
It went to the iceage museum in Schleswig- Holstein (Bordesholm). But the Museum moved at the end of the last centenary.
Lots of work for a static display...
Regards
Uwe