Meare Heath bow

[bassman211]

I just roughed out a Meare Heath  designed bow that was found in the pete bogs of England that was made roughly 2600 years BC according to experts. It was a broken  bow that contained part of the handle ,and one limb. It is 75 inches long, 2, and half inches wide most of the length of the limbs, and tapers at the tips. The real deal was made with English yew. I used black locust, because it is what I had at hand. If I would have had a good piece of birch that would be what I would have used because of it's light mass. The rough cut bow is currently drying. I went to Utube, and saw a few well made examples by an English bowyer. The bow seems like it will be really heavy, and come with an excessive amount of  hand shock by it's very design. Has any of you on this sight made ,and shot one? Just curious as to what results you may have had. Can't wait to finish mine, and get shooting it. Bob.

[stuckinthemud]

Search this site using Meare as the search term, it’s been a very popular topic over the past few years

[WhistlingBadger]

The Meare Heath bow is a LOT of wood.  I've never shot one but I can't think it would spit an arrow very fast or feel good doing it.  Narrow down the tips and you have a Sudbury/holmegaard -ish design, which in my limited experience are better shooters that don't beat the daylights out of your bow arm.  Those wide limb, narrow tip, narrow handle bows look really nice, too.  And I find it fascinating how similar the designs are on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

Sometimes I wonder if some of those ancient bows got chucked into a bog for a reason...   

[bassman211]

Well I felt a need to build, and experience shooting one, and  if I were to build another one it would be from birch which is a less dense much lighter wood. When you hold this one in your hand it fells like a small oak tree. I have made some Sudbury bows that felt to heavy in the limbs, and to light in the handle, and  redesigned them to suit me. This design has more wood through the limbs, so I don't think it will be a pleasant shooting experience, but so far it is a fun bow to build. I just built a series of Osage plains bows , so this is a drastic switch. This bow is said to be an enigma maybe for good reason. thanks for the replies. Bob.

[WhistlingBadger]

Well I felt a need to build, and experience shooting one, and  if I were to build another one it would be from birch which is a less dense much lighter wood. When you hold this one in your hand it fells like a small oak tree. I have made some Sudbury bows that felt to heavy in the limbs, and to light in the handle, and  redesigned them to suit me. This design has more wood through the limbs, so I don't think it will be a pleasant shooting experience, but so far it is a fun bow to build. I just built a series of Osage plains bows , so this is a drastic switch. This bow is said to be an enigma maybe for good reason. thanks for the replies. Bob.

Sometimes you just have to give it a shot.  Yew is a pretty dense wood too isn't it?  (I've never had the opportunity to work with it)  Makes you wonder.  Maybe the original was made to club animals and enemies to death instead of shooting them. 

[bassman211]

Or used as a double paddle. Any way after many hours of tillering I finished it up this evening. I put a finish on it, and all that is left to do is the leather work. Bow turned out 40lb at 26 inches of draw.  Really thin limbs. If the weather is nice enough tomorrow morning I will shoot through the chrony to check the speed of the bow. If nothing else if I do a good job with the leather  work it will be a nice conversation piece. Hope it doesn't give me tennis elbow, or rattle what few teeth I have left out of my noggin. What ever the results I am glad I made this style of bow just for the experience. Bob,

[WhistlingBadger]

Well, we're going to have to see some pictures!  I'll be interested to hear how it shoots.  A lot of the Native American bow designs in the TBB are similar--wide limbs and not a lot of taper to the tips.  Honestly some of them look like they'd be just awful to shoot...but the Natives seem to have done OK with them, so there must be something good in the design.  If not smooth and easy shooting, durability maybe?  Maybe we'll be surprised and it will be smooth as butter and fast as greased lightning.  If not, you learned something and that's never a waste of time.  Looking forward to hearing about it.

[bassman211]

This morning it was 30 degrees with no wind. I finished the leather work on the bow last night, and served the string, so I set the chrony up , and shot the bow. I shot it at 40 lbs. at 25 inches of draw, and shot through the chrony at a blazing 130 fps. with a  390 gr arrow. It has hand shock, but not as bad as I was expecting. It has 1 inch of set. The bow weighs in at 32 ounces. You could kill with it, but performance is sub par. Not a good design for speed to say the least which I didn't think it would be. It was fun to build, and shoot ,so no regrets. Guys at my club will be aw struck with it's size, and get a charge out of shooting it. Bob.

[bassman211]

To be fair I would also like to say a 75 inch bow won't show much in the way of speed with a 25 inch draw at 40 lbs. This same bow at the same poundage drawn to 28 to 30 inches would show better performance. I nock an arrow at the corner of my mouth. I don't think the English shot that way, and they may have made this bow more towards 70 to 100 lbs which may have served them well with a heavier arrow for hunting , or in combat. In any event the bow remains an enigma, so this may all be conjecture.

[WhistlingBadger]

Interesting!  Always fun when something turns out better than expected.  If it's fun to shoot, that's good enough!

[bjrogg]

To be fair I would also like to say a 75 inch bow won't show much in the way of speed with a 25 inch draw at 40 lbs. This same bow at the same poundage drawn to 28 to 30 inches would show better performance. I nock an arrow at the corner of my mouth. I don't think the English shot that way, and they may have made this bow more towards 70 to 100 lbs which may have served them well with a heavier arrow for hunting , or in combat. In any event the bow remains an enigma, so this may all be conjecture.

I think you are probably correct Bassman. I certainly am no expert on this bow or its history, but it makes sense to me that it would be more suited to a longer draw. And probably a higher draw weight to.

From my limited experience a longer bow is usually smoother draw. More consistent. And should be quite durable.

They are usually more clumsy for hunting. Not speedy. And yes they sometimes feel like you are holding a small tree.lol

I think if the draw length is increased to take advantage of the extra working area of the bow. It would make it a much better performer.

Bjrogg

[bassman211]

Thanks for your replies WB, and Bjrogg.  The Hupa bow looks much like this bow only on a much smaller scale. Paul Comstock liked to build wide bows, and used birch to build some of them.  It can be good bow wood if  belly heat treated the right way, and is lighter in mass, but probaly not near as durable as yew, or black locust, or some of the other popular woods.