150lb at 30" English Yew bow

[WillS]

He's brilliant.  So generous as well, he'll shoot anything you make if you ask nicely

150lb is a walk in the park for him now - he was shooting 190lb on a days rove last year.  Quite an achievement!

[FilipT]

He has lot of practice and had probably a gazillion of bows to work the weight up. No wonder really.

[outcaste]

Hi Will,

Good to see you and your new addition to the family the other day at the Warbow Wales meet at Wye Valley.

Joe shot your bow well and as you said he very kindly offered to shoot mine also. Thought it would be interesting to post the distances shot with a Westminster Abbey arrow and natural strings:

English Yew 150@30 - 237 yards
English Ash 115@30 - 237 yards
English Yew 120@30 - 230 yards
English Yew 110@30 - 186  yards
English Elder 120@32 - 171 yards

All the best,
Alistair

[DC]

Alder eh! Do you know the botanical name?

[outcaste]

Alder eh! Do you know the botanical name?

Sorry, the bow was Elder.

Alistair

[Ruddy Darter]

Nice to see the ash bows keeping up with the yew  , that's quite impressive, I look forward to working the couple of ash staves I have in a few months time, I'm hoping for the same sort of draw weight too,  if I'm capable that is 

Could I ask what weight the Westminster Abbey replica arrows weigh in at? And the general opinion of wood the original was made of?
 
Thanks, 
 R.D.

[WillS]

Hi Alistair,

Always fun shooting with you guys, even if we are knee deep in mud or peering through Welsh fog

I've got an English ash 145lb that I'm just getting on top of, so I'll shoot a Westminster through that next time, should be interesting.  Then Joe can have a go and put an extra 50 yards on it...!

Darren - my Westminster arrows are smack on 45g if I use aspen, which I *think* the original was.  As the WW guys wrote in their web article it's not actually known, but it doesn't look like ash.  It could be something odd like willow or hazel or possibly birch, but aspen seems to do very well at the smaller diameter as it's so strong.

[Ruddy Darter]

Thanks WillS  ,
Crikey, that's light... That aspen sound ace stuff, does a light arrow like that pose a risk of damage to the bow?

 R.D.

[WillS]

I don't think so, to be honest!  Most of my aspen Mary Rose arrows come out between 45g and 55g as well, and that's with a full half inch torpedo taper.  I know that Joe's shot a Westminster arrow from a 170lb bow, so I wouldn't worry

As an aside Alistair, have you got the distance the Livery went from the 150lb bow? I think it went further despite being heavier, so I'm not sure what happened with the WA shot!

[Mo_coon-catcher]

I'm surprised that the 115# bow shot the arrow as far as the 150# bow did. We're the arrows different weights? Did the different wood species play a factor? And I'm sure release form plays a large role in it too.

The bow looks great!! That's my goal weight to shoot someday. But at this point I can stand on the string and it'll just come to full draw.

Kyle

[WillS]

Joe shot both the 115 and the 150 for those recorded distances, so the release would be the same theoretically.  I did tell him that the bow had never been past 28", so perhaps he was being gentle

Good ash will shoot as well as yew (sometimes further) of the same weight, as will elm, plum etc but there should be a bigger gap between the two considering the weight difference.  Alistair is a far better bowyer than I however, so it could just be that!

[Lucasade]

Alder eh! Do you know the botanical name?

Sorry, the bow was Elder.

Alistair

Elder is sambucus nigra (or at least most of the stuff in the UK is). Alder is alnus glutinosa and by all accounts is no good for bows but is better than elm at resisting rot - the Rialto Bridge in Venice is built on alder piles - and its charcoal apparently makes the best gunpowder.

Interesting that a 120lb yew bow (20% lighter) only lost 7 yards (3%) against the 150lb yew. Do you have comparative specs for them and were they shot by the same person with the same arrow?

[Marc St Louis]

Looks good, the lower limb does seem to bend a tad too much but that could just be camera angle

[WillS]

Could always flip it the other way round I suppose!  It'll only get worse as it beds in, otherwise.

[FilipT]

Elder is really cool wood, I throw one stave away after I discovered it has rot, even though shape, length and diameter was enough to produce any bow I wanted.

Jaro says in his "lesser known bow woods" that you can make really heavy bows from it. I believe it, even though at first glance one would not expect such feat from a soft wood.