Bone Bows?

[bushman]

Has anyone on here tried their hands at making a bow from bones? If you have, how did it turn out and what all did you do?
Bushman

[uwe]

I can only give you an literature tip: "Native American Bows" by T.M. Hamilton, ISBN No.0- 943414-00-8. There is a little in the capitel of Elkhorn Bows.
Regards Uwe

[KenH]

If you mean bow limbs made of bone, like the fictional World of Warcraft "Bone Bows",  then I would say no.  IMHO bone, as such, is too stiff and brittle.  It doesn't bend - it breaks.

Horn, antler, even ivory - in thin plates - is used in making Asian style horn & sinew composite bows.  But that is not bone; it has completely different properties, including the flexibility necessary for a bow.  Bone itself is seldom used, even in small pieces, in such constructions.

[youngbowyer33]

lol WoW

[paganwannbe]

OK since we are talking of bone bows could you make a bone arrowhead or is that to brittle  to be used for that?

[Scowler]

Bone makes as good arrowhead. 

[Pat B]

There is a good build along in the "HOW To" section about making bone arrowheads.

[kiwijim]

Jim Ham makes a buffalo rib bow in his book "Bow and Arrows`of the`Native Americans. While is shot OK, he didn't rate it too highly.

[Voodoo]

This is the only way I know of.... antler is much too brittle to use in limbs

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[Justin Snyder]

There is some question about the use of antler and rib bows. The performance is mediocre at best and they were usually extremely well decorated. They may have been ornamental bows to be used in spiritual ceremonies.

[PatM]

The use of Antler at least is well documented and there are several known examples of them made by Charles Grayson. It is not too brittle if the ratio of sinew to antler is correct.
 There was also an article in PA by Matyaz Tomse describing the construction of a rib bow. He had success with the technique and was quite impressed with the bow.
 Part of the reason Hamm had such bad results was because of the profile of the short bow he made. A severely double curved bow less than 40 inches long is going to stack like a pallet of bricks.

[kiwijim]

Hi Pat,
I agree with what you say about Jims bow. When I first saw the photo, I wondered if it was a museum collection bow strung backward  - then I read the text and realised it wasn't.
However, Jim still made a good bow, out of uncompromising materials, at a time when if you wanted to know something about this kind of bow you had to rely on extremely sparse information. The current consolidation of information simply did not exist. The same goes with reading about Laubins attempts with an antler bow. he had nothing to base his attempts on but rumours and some old artifacts.
But, the question is; has anyone recently made a bone bow with a long (25" plus) drawlength?
Bone, espeacially leg bone must be extremely resistant to compression. It may make a tolerable substitute to horn?

regards
James

[KenH]

Jim - I would guess that if bone were a reasonable substitute for horn, this whole conversation wouldn't be taking place, because we'd have seen lots of examples.  Think about the microscope nature of horn and bone.  Horn is essentially fused hair - it has very long strands of "grain".  Bone does not.  It has a shorter, more granular nature.  When dry, bone snaps, but horn keeps on bending.