Holmegarrd or Meare Heath?

[Cromm]

Hi, Help me choose which style of bow? I'm 6 ft and want the bow to be 55-60lb at 28inchs. If you could give a reason why also, that may help too. Thanks for your time. The bow will be made out of Ash wood.....Ta

[radius]

holme gaard man, and here's why:

it's better

better as in faster, because it has low weight at the tips

it has a smoother draw (little or no stack effect)

looks cooler

less work to make...rather than flat-scraping 2" of wood for four feet or more, you get a real break

look at adb's buildalong in the how-to section.  and find Dennis La Varenne's paper TIllering the HOlmegaard Bow  on line.

later

[Justin Snyder]

Boy that was an unbiased opinion.  Justin

[radius]

hey, i could probably argue with just as much bias in the other direction!   
 
Just matters what kind of bow I made most recently!

[deerhunter97370]

Cromm What are you using the bow for? Meare Heath I would use for more distance shooting. And Holmegard for hunting. Joel

[shamus]

Both styles are flatbows, with different approaches to the outer limbs and tiller profiles.  Both are suited for ash.

A meare heath replica would have too wide of tips.

A holmegaard replica would be better performance-wise because of the narrow tips..

But if you narrow the limb tips of a meare heath, I think you'd wind up with a holmegarrd-esque bow by default.

To me, it sounds like you're wanting to make a flatbow, but are deciding what approach you want to take with the outer limbs (narrow/stiff versus fat/slightly working).

Seems like you're leaning towards a flatbow that is 1.75"-2" for most of the meat of the limbs, tapering in the last third or so to under .5". Depending in what type of tiller profile you want will determine how close to a holmegaard in style that you want to get to. The stiffer the tips, the more holmegaard it gets. Designs can be modified to suit your needs. No need to follow one particular style unless you want a replica. I'm not much into replicas, I'm more into design. Match the design with the wood species, and your needs. 

[CutNShoot]

Holmegarrd!  Man I made one out of an oak board and it was f a s t and cheap. I'm pretty much a rookie too. I think it's one of the best designs out there and it's at least 7 to 8000 years old. If it aint broke don't fix it. They look cool too.

[Fundin]

I would make an holmegard, but not as most relicas are made today with totally rigid outer limbs. I would make it from a sapling to get the high crown wich will yield more speed in elm (like trapping can do), floor tiller it while green to about mid limb, then keep the dept top the ends. After it dried I would  side tiller the outer limbs to a slight bend as you get with the original, but only very slight. I would let the handle flex enough to be felt but not seen. If I had a choise, I would use a dense elm species, as the original is wych elm wich is fairly dense.

If you look at the original, it does not really have pronounced shoulders, and a good way to get that look is to side tiller the outer limbs.

[tom sawyer]

Meare Heath is a really inefficient design, wide limbs out to near tips is not a good use of mass and it makes the thing hard to tiller.

With respect to the Holmegaard, going from working limb to nonworking outer limbs is tricky too.  I'd second the advice to make the outer limbs bend at least a little.

[radius]

it's actually not that hard to transition between inner limb and outer limb.  Either do it abruptly, jumping from bending thickness to, say, 3/4" over a distance of 2" or so, or else do it gradually, getting gradualy thicker as you move toward the very tip.  Just draw your lines and then shape the wood to the lines.

[nathan elliot]

This is a Holmegard-ish type bow I finished a few weeks ago. I love it.





Nat

[radius]

nice one, nate!  god, i'll bet that took some time, eh?

[Cromm]

Hi, Thanks for all the info on the two bows! Now that's a nice looking bow you have there Nathan. Thanks for showing it to us!!!