The story behind this bow began months ago when I was researching Howard Hill & Hill-style longbows & I stumbled across John Schulz’ “Hitting ‘Em Like Howard” video on YouTube. And while I was there for Howard Hill info, I instantly fell in love with John Schulz instead!
And I also fell in love with the longbow Mr. Schulz was using in the video. It was sleek, narrow, & quick. The only drawback was yes, it was a glass-powered bow. Anyway, I started researching Mr. Schulz…and unfortunately, like so many other traditional & primitive archery legends, he has passed away…but he leaves an amazing traditional archery legacy (books could - and probably should! - be written about John Schulz).
I also started looking for John Schulz bows. After a few months I finally found one - a 60# @ 26” “American Longbow” named “The Legend.” It is 4 tempered bamboo laminations under brown glass. I was amazed by the light weight of the bow…and also by the slender limbs and tiny tips! It was crafted with many of the design elements that we in the self bow community have been employing for quite a while now. And it was FAST! I had heard countless times over that Hill-style longbows were dogs. But that is not always true (obviously it depends on the bow profile, materials used, and the actual bowyer).
And so after all of this I decided I had to create my own American Longbow self bow. And here is that bow & its specs:
* Osage Orange
* 67” Tip-to-Tip; 65 5/8” Nock-to-Nock
* 46# @ 28”
* Max limb width = 1.25”
* Maple tip overlays
* Black Cherry stain (1 light coat); Spar Urethane finish (~5 light coats)
* D97 String (8 strands) with Dacron/B55 padded loops
* Slightly dished out handle
* Chronograph results: 46# @ 28” with a 460 grain arrow = 170 fps, 168 fps, 170 fps
** Lastly, I followed the instructions for adding photos but evidently it is only allowing me to provide a link to the bow photos on my flickr account. Hopefully this is acceptable for all, as I do not see any other options (Weylin mentioned a "bb code" but flickr only offered me 1 link to copy and include in this posting!!).
https://www.flickr.com/photos/195415237@N05/shares/9u7812
