Author Topic: 1930's turkish-type flightbows  (Read 15085 times)

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Offline JNystrom

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1930's turkish-type flightbows
« on: March 20, 2018, 05:25:45 pm »
This has been bothering me for a while... Has anyone built any of those 1930's turkish style flight bows, 110-130cm with only osage and sinew? I think many of you have seen these, but for a reminder you can check them out at Charles Grayson collection here. https://as-file.col.missouri.edu/fmi/webd/Grayson%20Objects For the search, use "flight" in describtion, "sinew" in material.
I notice there were many builders of these osage-sinew turkish style flight bows, such as E. Bud Pierson, Paul Berry, Curt Hill.

Normal measurements for this kind of bows were 112cm in length, 3.2cm wide, 1.0cm of thickness. If its possible to pull it off without horn, i'm in!
I'm just greatly surprised I haven't read anywhere someone trying these out.

Offline avcase

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Re: 1930's turkish-type flightbows
« Reply #1 on: March 21, 2018, 11:32:51 am »
I haven’t built a sinew backed wood bow yet, but I look forward to follow your progress here. I think it would be interesting to try sinew backing with a stave that has lots of natural deflex in it. The sinew would pull this stave into reflex, putting the belly under tension when unbraced.  It might be possible to do this in such a way that the wood belly of the bow is under little or no stress when the bow is strung!

Alan

Offline JNystrom

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Re: 1930's turkish-type flightbows
« Reply #2 on: March 22, 2018, 05:39:12 pm »
Oh! Sinew backed bows are lot of fun, so definitely you should try it. Actually that osage recurve that I just posted here was deflexed in the handle, then sinew backed. Holds it's profile quite nicely, so it might actually be really understressed.

About these turkish bows made of sinew backed osage, i'm surprised this profile worked without horn. Wouldn't even come to my mind building a hornbow amount of reflex on wood-sinew bow. I guess osage is tough enough, and I think those bows had quite longer bending sections than a proper turkish one. I don't have any brace/draw picture of those bows, so hard to say for sure. I wish I had some old ye sylvan archer magazines... I found you could buy those magazines from internet for 40-80 dollars a piece.

Offline PatM

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Re: 1930's turkish-type flightbows
« Reply #3 on: March 27, 2018, 08:07:19 am »
   People do seem really reluctant to pursue the design due to modern thoughts on sinew being slower and  hysteresis/breaking down of the wood.
  Back then they didn't stress too much over that.  They shot them and made another.

 I don't have access to Osage but  a short sinew backed hickory strip or bamboo  glued to an Ipe belly with spliced in static tips is a good substitute.
 
    Those old  bows routinely shot over 500 yards  and nobody gets close to that now despite knowing better.

  A guy on Paleoplanet did make a  true composite of this design with no reflex and it was pretty close to 500.

Offline Badger

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Re: 1930's turkish-type flightbows
« Reply #4 on: March 27, 2018, 10:47:00 am »
Pat the bow you are talking about was in the overdraw classes. We are playing by different rules today, You seem to fail to see that in your comments.

Offline PatM

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Re: 1930's turkish-type flightbows
« Reply #5 on: March 27, 2018, 10:55:29 am »
Some but not all of them. Besides an overdraw would put most of those little bows in the mushy zone that you're always cautioning against.


Offline JNystrom

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Re: 1930's turkish-type flightbows
« Reply #6 on: March 27, 2018, 11:22:43 am »
Oh my! Situation calls for testing... I think I know the bow you are talking about PatM, is it this one? https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/paleoplanet69529/1930-s-inspired-flight-bow-t55475.html Latest comment from BrunoB says 409 yards. Which is plenty anyway!

The profile i'm talking about isn't that "edgy" profile, but more of a letter C like a proper hornbow, without the horn belly. Anyway, all that era bows are really interesting, since I don't see them anywhere and to my understanding where the most successful profiles!
Those C-profile bows were shot in overdraw division too, i think.

I don't agree sinew is any slower. And I don't know who agrees or doesn't agree, but... my experiences with bows heavily sinewed is that they are completely opposite of sluggish or slow. Off course this demands reflex and proper exploit of materials, but as you can see from those many old-timers bows, the sinew went up to the recurves! So they were quite the opposite to think it's necessary to cut weight down to minimum.

Who likes hysteresis and set, but off course theres more into it, right? I like to keep my all bows understressed and especially flight bows, just because this has proven to be a good choice in my short history of bow making. Now I would be quite interested to push the limits with these radical profiles.

I've just started my first hornbow and the sizing of core and horns, 20 layers of glue on both. If you compare making a turkish flight bow to this kind of wood-sinew composite, skipping the horn belly makes bow building a breeze.

Offline PatM

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Re: 1930's turkish-type flightbows
« Reply #7 on: March 27, 2018, 11:46:15 am »
Yes. I am also lumping all of those short recurves in together when made of the same materials.  Not just the ones that are purely Turkish in shape,

 They were short and if overdrawn were certainly being severely and almost certainly overly stressed.

Offline Badger

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Re: 1930's turkish-type flightbows
« Reply #8 on: March 27, 2018, 01:23:53 pm »
Some but not all of them. Besides an overdraw would put most of those little bows in the mushy zone that you're always cautioning against.

Pat, it just depends what the bow is designed to pull, sinew allows for a lot of extra draw with less stress. I don't think dry sinew has any more hysteresis  than wood but not really sure.

Offline PatM

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Re: 1930's turkish-type flightbows
« Reply #9 on: March 27, 2018, 02:43:17 pm »
Oh! Sinew backed bows are lot of fun, so definitely you should try it. Actually that osage recurve that I just posted here was deflexed in the handle, then sinew backed. Holds it's profile quite nicely, so it might actually be really understressed.

About these turkish bows made of sinew backed osage, i'm surprised this profile worked without horn. Wouldn't even come to my mind building a hornbow amount of reflex on wood-sinew bow. I guess osage is tough enough, and I think those bows had quite longer bending sections than a proper turkish one. I don't have any brace/draw picture of those bows, so hard to say for sure. I wish I had some old ye sylvan archer magazines... I found you could buy those magazines from internet for 40-80 dollars a piece.

    Those prices are generally for a bound set of volumes from a specific year.  Not sure how often it came out each year though or how large each copy is.

Offline JNystrom

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Re: 1930's turkish-type flightbows
« Reply #10 on: March 27, 2018, 03:18:30 pm »
This makes sense. Since google search brings up only books. Like this one https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0211/02/legends-longbow-ye-sylvan-archer_1_18963dcf562afd92ac5a53bc4a542019.jpg
I don't know if they would contain some proper info about flight shooting and gear.

Offline PatM

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Re: 1930's turkish-type flightbows
« Reply #11 on: March 27, 2018, 03:41:36 pm »
Yes, those bound volumes seem to be the typical source.  There is at least some info if not incredibly specific details.

 Read this thread from paleoplanet which has some excerpts paraphrased.
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/paleoplanet69529/cutting-edge-grandpas-t6258.html

Offline sleek

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Re: 1930's turkish-type flightbows
« Reply #12 on: March 27, 2018, 07:09:12 pm »
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,61441.0.html

Is this anything like you were refering to at all?
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Offline Badger

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Re: 1930's turkish-type flightbows
« Reply #13 on: March 27, 2018, 08:13:41 pm »
 Josef Monuz shot a 90# English longbow I made him about 450 yards this year. The furthest I have ever gotten out with a 50# is 380 yards but I know we should be shooting over 400. I wish they would allow feather rests, that would help a lot.

Offline PatM

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Re: 1930's turkish-type flightbows
« Reply #14 on: March 27, 2018, 08:14:18 pm »
No, The bows are actually Turk shaped or like the Bob Martin style static Laubin wrote about in his book.

 That was referring to sleek's post.