Looking to make Hickory style warbow at TN Classic?

[D. Tiller]

Hey all! I will be attending the TN Classic and its a toss up of what style bow I should build between a cherokee/Eastern flatbow or an English style Warbow out of Hickory. The hickory I saw last year was very straight grained. Anyone know what type of dimensions I should aim for if going to make it 80# at aprox. 30" draw length?

[Marc St Louis]

For that draw weight and draw length I would start at 74" long 1 3/8" wide and 1 1/8" thick.  Finished dimension should run about 1 1/4" wide and 3/4" or maybe 7/8" thick

[D. Tiller]

Should the nocks be 1/" thick or less?

[alanesq]

the Mary Rose nocks are approx 15mm wide at the base
see http://www.alanesq.com/sidenock.htm

[Marc St Louis]

If you mean the diameter of the wood at the nocks then it should be considerably less than 1", exactly what you will have to determine yourself as you tiller the bow out

[nickf]

Dtiller,

some dimensions for a warbow; for your first (couple) make it 78" long for a 32" drawlenght, 76" for 31" draw and 74" for a 30" draw. It's better to keep the belly flat on these whitewood warbows since they tend to crysal when made rounded.

1 1/2" at the handle tapering to 1" thickness at 10" from tip, then tapering to 1/2" wide nocks.

for the thickness I'd want to start with 1 1/4" at the fades, and 3/4" at the nocks. Enjoy!

Nick

[D. Tiller]

Thanks for the info! That should do it. I will go with a flat belly design to keep it from cryslaling. Still similar to some of the rect. forms marry rose bows I've read about so I will be happy!

David T

[nickf]

yeah, you could use the mary rose examples as well. but keep the belly flat

nick

[Marc St Louis]

Actually it is not likely that Hickory will chrysal and even though I have never made a Hickory warbow I have seen the odd one posted here over the years.  I have made a number of HHB and Elm warbows though with a D section and none have chrysaled.  Hickory is very strong in compression so if you start at 1 1/4" thick you will have a fair amount of wood to remove. 

I made a 120# @ 32" HHB warbow 73" long that had a final width of about 1 3/8" and thickness of about 1" at the center.  Hickory is stronger in compression than HHB so that should tell you that a Hickory bow will be slightly smaller in dimensions.  You cannot compare Hickory to Yew as the compression strength of the Hickory is much higher and that is what will determine the final dimensions of your bow

[Badger]

    I don't think I would go over 1 1/4 wide for an 80# hickory elb, it would likley jar your teeth pretty bad. Steve

[sagitarius boemoru]

I dont have solid hickory, but I make them out of very dense ash all the time. I have given last sunday one 204 cm long and it did not have any handshock with arrows which were likely too short and light 28" pine 10mm and barelly 40 grams. The bow was 95#/31 1/2" and overbuilt with mass of 860 gram, about on par with italian yew bow of the same parameteres and lenght my friend Alan Edwards has. But If I wanted to give it 3X heat treat, shorten it by 4" etc... I might likely get 650 gram, which would be something entirelly diferent.

[Rod]

A thick, square sectioned hickory longbow sure sounds like a recipe for handshock to me.
And as Marc says, hickory does not chrysal too readily unless it is very seriously overstressed in compression and I would expect a hickory self bow to be quite slender as compared to a same draw weight long bow in Yew, Ash or Elm.

Rod.

(Shooting an old home made Hickory self bow at the NFAS 3D Nationals this coming weekend, but a PV, not an LB).