Draw weights on self-bows

[huey_fatman]

How do you get a regular bow to get up to a 150 llb. draw. I'm talking about organics means by the way. Thanks.

[adb]

I don't mean to sound like a smart aleck, but you build it that way, out of the appropriate material. 150# draw weight is at the upper limit of selfbow material, but it is possible. The bow has to be long enough, the right material, and tillered properly. It can be done with yew, for example.

[Kegan]

adb- I think 300# is somewhere around the limit. I think someone (Strongbow?) has a WIDE hickory flatbow that draws almost 300#.

Anyway. As adb said, by design. Make it long, wide, and thick. At 1 1/2" square at the handle (ELB style), and about 80" long, most hardwoods would be over 120#, and probabaly reach your desired 150#. Only reason it wouldn't work is difficulty in building/tillering.

[JackCrafty]

Put two 75# bows together (side by side).

A reasonably-sized, 150# self bow can easily be made from ipe wood.

[Badger]

It is surprising how little difference a 150# bow might be from a 50# bow just in general appearance. The bow you guys were talking about above belongs to Marlon( heavybows) he says it draws 250# at 28". Bow has a stiff handle and is built like a typical american longbow just bigger. A friend and myself are palnning an attack on an all wood bow that can draw hopefully about 2,000#. We have been figuring out the demensions we want to try it at. Tillering is going to be a bear and not something I really look forward to, also could be dangerous if it breaks. I am really curious how far it could shoot an arrow. I would enter it in the crossbow class I guess. Steve

[adb]

The current world record for bow draw weight is held by Mark Stratton of the UK at 200#. Who is going to shoot that 300# bow, and especially the 2000# bow??!! If you build a 2000# bow Steve, how are you going to tiller it??! Maybe pull it with your truck?? heh, heh! Can you do a build along?
The heaviest I've pulled is 90#@30", and that is a job!

[Papa Matt]

I would like to throw something in here just for fun.

If you Google or Yahoo Native American giants you can read accounts of early Spanish explorers reaching Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas, who were regularly 7 and 8 feet tall, and had the physical build and bows that went right along with it (were often longbows as tall or almost as tall as they were). The strongest of the Spaniards in one account could not begin to pull back a bow handed to him by one of the indians. It was also said that these bows show exceptional distances and with extremely fast arrows that had amazingly flat trajectory.

Just thought I would share that. If this is the case, either the Spaniards were quite weak or the bows were quite stout (perhaps 200lbs or more?) Try it out, these accounts are not hard to pull up. You can read for yourself.

~~Papa Matt

[sailordad]

either the Spaniards were quite weak

~~Papa Matt

no i dont think sooo

us spics are from from being weak

now you failed to mention who was 7-8' tall,the indians or the spaniards?
if it was the indians,and their bows were man tall,then they would have been more than man tal for my ancestors. that would automatically make the bows stout for them then.
if i gave you a bow built for giant and you couldnt pull it back would that mean that you are weak. or would it mean that the bow wasnt made for you or maybe you would just need a little
more time and practice to get used to such a heavy and lengthy bow. i am sure if they would have been given a year to practice with them,they would have been pulling them back just like the owner of the bow did.

i know a guy who is like 6' 9" tall,has a 33" draw, i guarantee i couldnt pull his recurve back today,give me a year and no problem.

it is not cause i'm weak,only not in the right shape to pull that massive bow back.

                                                                                      peace,
                                                                                             tim

[Papa Matt]

Nooooooooooo, no, slow down Tim, relax ol boy! I'm not saying that. You will never find me putting someone down on here. I meant the indians were said to be really big, supposedly what most people would consider giants. But honestly I don't know how strong the typical Spaniard was, but I also don't know how strong the indians bows were. WHat if these indians were relatively weak, even though they were so big, and these bows were only 90 or 100lbs at best? If the strongest Spaniard couldn't pull it back, then yes, I'd say these Spaniards were a physically weak group. But actually I doubt that they were weak by our standards because they used swords all the time and were explorers. They were actually probably pretty strong. I'm not putting anybody down or talking about anybody's race. In fact, I hate to see you call yourself a spic. I just don't know anything about the physical strength of Spaniards from the 15th century so I can't say.

My wife is from Veracruz, MX and I'm proud of that. I'm just making a mathematical observation, either the bows were pretty strong or these Spaniards were not. 

[Kegan]

A 100# bow is a 100# bow. If you've never shot a bow before (like I'm asuming the Spaniards at the time hadn't, considering they used swords and muskets), 50# would probably be the strongest you can draw. Double that and it won't be any better.

I can shoot an 80# or so bow, but give me 100# and I bet my face would turn pretty red too .

[mullet]

 The first Natives the Spanish saw were the Caloosa's. There was some speculation that they were related to the fierce, cannibalistic Carib's or the Mayans.Their height was actually in the mid 6' range and the bows were around 90 to 100#. Nutrition was not very good during that time in Europe and the average height was around 5'6". The Timecuas also had strong bows but were mostly farmers.

[benjamin]

The heaviest bow I ever made was a 120# bamboo pole bow. I was inspired by TBB1 and accidently baught poles that were thicker than needed. I shot it 50 or more times in a set but I was kinda sore after every practice. I'm confident that I could pull more now but quite honestly, 40-50# is my favorite weight. It does the job and I can shoot 2 hours at a time without paying for it later. I loved having a bow that no one else could pull but at the end of the day, I love being acurate way more. Just my 2 cents.

[wally]

There are strong bow archers here in England and the bows are nearly always self yew bows and are named warbows. I've seen Mark Stratton pull a 200lb'er, very impressive, and he's short but built like a brick outhouse.
The arrows are about 1/2 inch and disappear from view very quickly. Simon Stanley from up north regularly uses a 120lb (In fact Jim Belcher from Belcher archery in USA makes his bows). Simon is in the Guiness book of records for distance shooting with I think a 180lb'er. He is tall, well built to wiry. Our ancestors made bows up to that strength for war, to knock an armoured knight from his horse. Mostly I think so they could shoot massive penetrating arrows far away from the danger of the opposing army, in a blanket of death. This they did to devastating effect against the French armies at Crecy and Agincourt. Imagine a shower of 4000 1/2" arrows with bodkin tips coming out of the sky. Where you going to run to? They say the skies were black with arrows, and the archers (a rough bunch apparently) could shoot upto 15 arrows a minute easily so the shower didn't break for long.
I can't shoot more than about 65lb and prefer 40-45, but I suppose you could build up. English archers started serious training at 8/9 yrs old and old archer's skeletons have shown serious deformaties around their shoulders/neck. At 64 I think it's a bit too late for me.

[huey_fatman]

Has anyone made a recurve with 100#-200# draw bow by layering different types of stout wood together? Maybe a build-along would help.

               Thanks,
              Huey

[madcrow]

No recurves but I did play around and make a red oak board bow that was 100# draw.  I laminated a 1/4" piece to the 3/4" board and went from there.  I also backed with cloth.  The tips were 3/4" wide and 1/2" thick.  I also had fun making some fence posts, I mean arrows to fit the bow.  They weighed 1100 grains, a few weighed in at 1500 grains.  I may make another one day just for giggles.