Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: stuckinthemud on September 28, 2016, 09:20:24 am
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Afternoon everyone!
I have been searching for bows using siyahs and stumbled across a link on PA to a thread on Paleoplanet about Finno-Ugric two-wood laminated bows ( http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/29305/North-Eurasian-laminated-bow huge long thread and really fascinating with lots of useful information, highly recommended). These bows normally use compression pine and birch but sometimes use other woods including choke cherry. I may have missed something in the 15 page long thread and it could be the cherry is for the siyahs? Anyway, it set me thinking - I have compression yew and choke cherry in my wood-pile, so has anyone any experience of using compression wood in a laminate, anyone built a Finno-Ugric/North Eurasian type bow? They seem to pack a big punch without using horn or sinew.
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Yes, the cherry is for the tips. You can use anything really though. I think a few guys here have dabbled with compression wood but the general bow design is just a perry reflex with added tips. You can make the same basic design with a wide variety of materials and end up with this style of bow. Those materials just happened to be the best that they had available.
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Thanks Pat, Perry reflex is glued-in reflex? The shape on those bows is really nice though. Kinda like the idea of a bow that gets faster in damp conditions - it rains a lot in Wales :D What do you make of the way they nock the string right on the end of the siyah - never come across that before.
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I guess you mean bird cherry (Prunus padus)?
Sometimes also willow was used for backing but mainly birch.
I've made one bow out of comp. spruce (Picea abies) with birch backing. It was OK, but not that good what pine is, being very fragile and stiff, also likes to crack if dried too much
Is your yew piece going back and forth when humidity changes?
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Haven't looked at it that closely, only cut it last spring, so its stickered up to season but its the underside of a large branch but should be OK
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You could just use Ipe as a belly. It is actually strongest at a slightly higher moisture content.
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Ipe doesn't seem to be that easy to come by over in the UK - decking boards off that auction site is about the best I can find :(
Just guessing but I imagine the sub-arctic bows didn't use silver birch - I'm literally surrounded by the stuff (the woods up and down the valley I live in are, mostly, mixed silver birch, hazel and beech) but I understand silver birch is not a good bow-wood?
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I wouldn't know. dragonman is in Wales and he has posted plenty of Ipe bows. I bet it's more readily available than compression conifer wood of any quality. ;)
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Maybe I 'll PM him ask him where he gets it from
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Kviljo is good at this stuff. Apparently compression pine approaches yew in compression properties, if not even better from tetratzolover's videos O_o. I'm surprised no Native Americans used it as far as I know, maybe certain species of pine in Europe are better. such as pinus silvestris or whatever. They did use incense cedar though, I wonder if they used the compression side
perry reflex... with two laminations? wat
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Of course you could use any compression strong wood as a belly. But the point of doing compression wooden bows is, that they perform better than any other wood when it comes to high humidity.
What I've read and heard of perry-reflexing, the belly piece needs to be forced to reflex and then glued to back piece, otherwise the "effect" won't happen. Compression wood staves are usually already reflexed so...
First pic is the bow being as dry as it could be at home.
Second pic is after moistening it for one hour or so.
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Stuck,
Nice to see someone exploring the possibilities of compression wood. Looking forward to whatever you wish to pass along.
Markus
have you found any advantages to using compression wood other than it's moisture tolerance? The bows I have made from spruce compressionwood seem better for heavy arrows, Not very fast otherwise.
willie
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I guess it depends if you do the glue up with the belly piece wet or dry. ;)
The increased moisture content of the damp belly will add mass so it's hard to say how much better the combination would work over a simple Perry glue-up.
Has anyone actually tested these bows are prove they are better than any other at high humidity?
I remember Kviljo mentioning that a bamboo Ipe bow he glued up with minimal or even no reflex seemed to increase in reflex when he had it out unsealed at a rainy flight shoot.
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Yes, Kviljo is the guy to ask. In fact, I happen to know that he is currently, as in right now, giving a course teaching people how to make these bows.
I've given them a try a few times (and I've read the PP thread from cover to cover). I've had some bad luck making these bows but it's my ambition to learn how to make them and do it well. In fact, yesterday I started making one – my forth (or is it fifth?) go. Maybe I'll post some pictures eventually. I'm using compression spruce and birch. I've tried both spruce and pine in the past and I couldn't detect any significant differences in properties or qualities, they seem to be pretty similar. I think the most important thing is the quality of the piece of wood – the darker it is, the stronger in compression. That's my working hypothesis anyway.
PatM, judging from the pics, the increase in reflex is something like 3" or so. That's a lot. The bow would have had to suck up a whole lot of moisture for that the increase in mass and increased reflex to cancel each other out. Don't you think? I also think the effect may happen with other combos of woods, like you mention, but if it was as pronounced as with compression wood I think it'd be common knowledge.
OP: I think compression yew will work nicely. Fine wood for a belly!
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I meant wet reflexed wood versus just gluing in that amount of reflex with another belly wood for comparison.
I'm thinking more of someone pursuing the design if not the exact materials.
People have the dry wood(often even over-dried) concept drilled into them so the idea that a slightly damp combination might have any increased potential is going to be a tough concept to adapt to.
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I will get access soon to the pinus sylvestris, is that good compression wood? What should I put as backing? Mind that I live in Croatia, so no hickory and such...
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Had a quick look at the yew - its very dark in colour, I'll try and post some pics tomorrow
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Had a good look at the yew; there is compression wood in it, but not over a long enough section to make a bow :(
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Ah, then I understand, PatM! Sorry about the misunderstanding. That's a good point about humidity. In the PP thread mentioned in the OP there are references to Dmitriev-Sadovnikov's description of how an ostjak bow is made (NW Russia?). This text has been translated to Swedish (my native language). What is interesting is that both the compression wood (spruce) and birch are cut to about 2" thick staves and dried only three days! So basically the bow is made from completely green wood. Another interesting thing is that, in the translation, the birch is cut "flat" and the compression wood rounded. I take this to mean the birch is decrowned.
Another thing to bear in mind is that from the Sámi area (northern Scandinavia) there is only one complete bow found. This bow was bought mid 19th century by an aristocrat on tour in the north. It's called Örbyhusbĺgen, the Örbyhus bow. The only other bows found has been fragments, and then only the compression wood because the birch has rotted away. These fragments where mostly found in marshes during road constructions, as far as I understand it. Why is there only one complete specimen left of a weapon that was still in use in the early 20th century? The reason is probably because the old timers stored their bows in the wet peat in the marshes in order to maintain a high level of moisture. These weapons weren't hanging on the wall when not in use. This is probably not only good for the compression wood/reflex, but also for the elasticity of the birch. I think it's of importance to understand that the conditions under which this type of bow was used were/are quite extreme. Precipitation in Sápmi, Sámi land, is about 2-5 times that in the south of Sweden, and temperatures can drop to –45 °C in the winter. And the Sámi were mostly nomadic or semi-nomadic meaning they did not have the option to cut staves and dry them over a long period of time, at least not down to 7-10 % MC like we're used to do nowadays. They HAD to use wood wetter than that. As a side note, Sámi also made skis from compression pine. This type of ski is much more durable when traveling on hard snow crust in the spring than birch on pine skis. These skis where also stored in peat, probably because of the same reason – they where also made from pretty wet wood, and to maintain the shape in the summer they buried them in peat.
So there is definitely something going on with high moisture levels in this type of bow. Another example of bow innovation to work under specific climatic and ecological conditions.
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I thought examples of these bows exist in museums or are they reconstructions? That thread on Plaleoplanet showed some examples that looked about 100 years old.
The AMNH collection also has many examples of the style if not actual Sami bows. Is the construction not more of a universal style for that area rather than just for one tribe?
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What is the AMNH collection?
I'm probably confusing you a little bit. When we're talking about the northern eurasian bow, we're actually talking about bows from an area the size of continental USA, with change. With the wording "Fenno-ugric" I think one looks more to the bows to the west in this area. There are of course variations in bow design from such a large area, containing numerous different bow hunting cultures, and languages – same bows are 7 feet tall, others are 4 feet; some are recurves, others straight; some bendy handle bows, others stiff, some glue the siyahs this way, others that way, etc. But there are commonalities, and that's why we can talk about this kind of bow one type of bow. What they have in common, as far as I understand it, is the use of compression wood for the belly (I've heard of spruce, pine, lark, and juniper) and most commonly birch for the back, and siyahs from birch or cherry. The bows in the pictures from museums are from the russian side of things. Bows undisputedly Sámi (northern Scandinavia) are very rare, as far as I know. And I've sought information on this topic as good as I can for the last 5 years. From the reading I've done on the subject, there are about a dozen or so finds in total – and all but one are fragments. And even within this group of bows, there are significant variations in design.
What I find interesting is that even though there are variations in design, the different bow cultures might have a lot in common in the way the made there bows, leading back to the "logic" of how compression wood works. And this "logic" is different from the one bowyers brought up on a strict diet of TBB is used to. :-)
That's my two cents about that anyway. Feel free to disagree! Sorry for the confusion, and the thread drift.
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BTW, stuckinthemud, I think silver birch is fine for backing on this type of bow. I think that is the type of birch most commonly used, the most common kind in northern euroasia. Either that or betula pubescens, which are pretty darn hard to tell from each other. The problem with birch is always the compression, but if you let some compression pine take care of that you're fine.
I think there were some discussion about this in the PP thread, but if you want to recreate a fenno-ugric bow the most important element is the use of compression wood in the belly. Ipe and birch will surely make a beautiful bow, but you can't really claim it's fenno-ugric. The reasoning is that c ompression wood has such a strange set of properties in bows that exchanging it for something else makes you kind of miss the point. Or something like that.
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I'm thinking that if I ripped a couple of inches of heartwood off a thick yew stave I have, I'd be able to build a longbow from the outside of the stave and back the heartwood with silver birch and make a really beautiful laminate bow - it would be a much nicer option than axing out the longbow and leaving the heartwood as a pile of splinters. Will just need to go harvest a wind-blown birch - there's always a few fall down over the winter near here.
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What is the AMNH collection?
I'm probably confusing you a little bit. When we're talking about the northern eurasian bow, we're actually talking about bows from an area the size of continental USA, with change. With the wording "Fenno-ugric" I think one looks more to the bows to the west in this area. There are of course variations in bow design from such a large area, containing numerous different bow hunting cultures, and languages – same bows are 7 feet tall, others are 4 feet; some are recurves, others straight; some bendy handle bows, others stiff, some glue the siyahs this way, others that way, etc. But there are commonalities, and that's why we can talk about this kind of bow one type of bow. What they have in common, as far as I understand it, is the use of compression wood for the belly (I've heard of spruce, pine, lark, and juniper) and most commonly birch for the back, and siyahs from birch or cherry. The bows in the pictures from museums are from the russian side of things. Bows undisputedly Sámi (northern Scandinavia) are very rare, as far as I know. And I've sought information on this topic as good as I can for the last 5 years. From the reading I've done on the subject, there are about a dozen or so finds in total – and all but one are fragments. And even within this group of bows, there are significant variations in design.
What I find interesting is that even though there are variations in design, the different bow cultures might have a lot in common in the way the made there bows, leading back to the "logic" of how compression wood works. And this "logic" is different from the one bowyers brought up on a strict diet of TBB is used to. :-)
That's my two cents about that anyway. Feel free to disagree! Sorry for the confusion, and the thread drift.
American Museum of Natural History.
I understand if no Sami examples exist but figured bows of the same construction might adequately represent the style if the same materials and construction is used.
Kind of like a Plains bow. If no actual Sioux bow existed any of a number of other bows still represent the style well enough.
Plus I believe the Sami used bows as trade items so who knows if a surviving bow from another area or tribe might actually be a Sami bow.
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Sound great, Stuck! I bet it'll be a beautiful bow!
PatM, I agree. There are many surviving examples of the style of bow. I have many Sámi friends, from a specific area of Sápmi, so my interest and attention has always been drawn to learning more about the bows from that particular region. That's just me.
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Are there some build a longs for such a bow?
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There used to be a picture series on Paleoplanet depicting the process very well but the general process is just a simple laminate with added tips. Nothing too complicated.
There is a thread on that site showing the basic style being made(using Ipe and Elm) with added sinew which may or may not have been a feature of some of these bows.
My trade bow was inspired by this style. Basically all of the features of a composite without horn.
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I'm thinking that if I ripped a couple of inches of heartwood off a thick yew stave I have, I'd be able to build a longbow from the outside of the stave and back the heartwood with silver birch and make a really beautiful laminate bow - it would be a much nicer option than axing out the longbow and leaving the heartwood as a pile of splinters. Will just need to go harvest a wind-blown birch - there's always a few fall down over the winter near here.
Excellent idea, Stuck. I would like to find a source for yew heartwood suitable for use as belly lams. and osage too.
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Once in a while you can find Yew in a slash pile from logging. Because they've been manhandled by big machines the sapwood is all chewed up. Perfect for this.
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Cherry is stronger in compression than tension. Although it may have been used for siyas in this paper.