Author Topic: In Progress Medieval-style Crossbow  (Read 72391 times)

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Offline Dane

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Re: In Progress Medieval-style Crossbow
« Reply #105 on: June 04, 2011, 10:46:51 am »
George, thanks. I expect each string to get easier and neater to make with experience.

Which leads to your posting, Craig. Serving the eye with just pressure of each thread would not be enough. Remember, this is all new to me, so other methods will be tried in the future. The buildalong I am following for this project was written by someone who has been building crossbows professionally for some time. His reasoning is that each knot keeps the thread in place, otherwise, pressure and friction each time the bow is spanned and shot will eventually push the threads apart and the eye will wear out that much more quickly. Once one thread breaks, the entire skein should be retired for safety's sake. The bow is made of metal, not as forgiving as wood, bone, or antler, and the draw weight being very high factors in, too, I siuspect.

I looked up coxcombing in The Ashley Book of Knots, which is a definiative book on the subject of knots. Mostly they had nautical applications, and this technique of serving eyes was called "ringbolt hitching." There are many, many ways to do this, depending on material and application of the eye. Eye splicing too has many methods and reasons behind them. In the end, the serving methods are used to keep the eye from wearing out faster.

In the end, first hand experience counts most, and just shooting the weapon and observing how long the string lasts and where it wears the most is the best way to judge all this.

Dane

PS Coxcomb is a very old word, used by Shakespear, and one definition is a fobbish and pretentious person, a poppenjay. Seems to me a good term to keep in mind as an insult. lol.
Greenfield, Western Massachusetts

Offline bigcountry

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Re: In Progress Medieval-style Crossbow
« Reply #106 on: June 04, 2011, 07:15:25 pm »
Awesome thread.  Still watching for updates everyday.  I would love to fire off one.  How will you keep the arrow centered near the end?  I see how its going to be helld at the nock end. 

Westminster, MD

Offline Dane

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Re: In Progress Medieval-style Crossbow
« Reply #107 on: June 04, 2011, 08:10:03 pm »
Thanks, Bigcountry.

On page two, toward the bottom, is a photo of the quarrel rest, not yet installed, which is how I will do that. It is made of bone, and slides into a dovetailed slot at the nose of the tiller. I will file a notch into the rest for the bolt / quarrles, and it also can be adjusted slightly to the left and right as I shoot in the weapon. It will look a bit like a blackpowder rifle rear sight, but for crossbows, you use the tip of the bolt as the front sight, like with a regular bow.

Photos tomorrow, but the tickler is installed now, as is the tickler spring, and I am making a big spanning device to help me string the bow in conjunction with a bastard string, which I also made today out of 1/8" steel cable. I'll post photos of all that tomorrow. The device is hideously ugly, a nightmare even Rube Goldberg would hate, but only I will be seeing it (and you guys, of course lol).

Dane
Greenfield, Western Massachusetts

Offline jpitts

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Re: In Progress Medieval-style Crossbow
« Reply #108 on: June 05, 2011, 02:21:50 am »
Just love this hread Dane. I think coxcomb is terrific. I love discovering ancient techniques and uses and their names. It's kinda like how many times do you see a Habadashery these days.  ::)
Jimmy / Dallas, Georgia

Offline Dane

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Re: In Progress Medieval-style Crossbow
« Reply #109 on: June 05, 2011, 08:02:30 am »
Thanks, glad you are enjoying this little journy. Indeed, I think all of us share a love for ancient technolgies, and we are definately a backward-looking bunch. My wife got an i-pad, and I joked that while she is messing around with modern stuff, I'm moving back toward the stone age.

If you can find a haberdashery, I'll try and find a cobbler. We will have about the same luck, I think :)

Dane
Greenfield, Western Massachusetts

Offline Del the cat

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Re: In Progress Medieval-style Crossbow
« Reply #110 on: June 05, 2011, 09:42:47 am »
Hey that's coming on nicely. Make sure you round off the front edge of that binding hole plenty so as not to chaffe.
Del
Health warning, these posts may contain traces of nut.

Offline CraigMBeckett

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Re: In Progress Medieval-style Crossbow
« Reply #111 on: June 05, 2011, 10:52:41 am »
George, thanks. I expect each string to get easier and neater to make with experience.

Which leads to your posting, Craig. Serving the eye with just pressure of each thread would not be enough. Remember, this is all new to me, so other methods will be tried in the future. The buildalong I am following for this project was written by someone who has been building crossbows professionally for some time. His reasoning is that each knot keeps the thread in place, otherwise, pressure and friction each time the bow is spanned and shot will eventually push the threads apart and the eye will wear out that much more quickly. Once one thread breaks, the entire skein should be retired for safety's sake. The bow is made of metal, not as forgiving as wood, bone, or antler, and the draw weight being very high factors in, too, I siuspect.

I looked up coxcombing in The Ashley Book of Knots, which is a definiative book on the subject of knots. Mostly they had nautical applications, and this technique of serving eyes was called "ringbolt hitching." There are many, many ways to do this, depending on material and application of the eye. Eye splicing too has many methods and reasons behind them. In the end, the serving methods are used to keep the eye from wearing out faster.

In the end, first hand experience counts most, and just shooting the weapon and observing how long the string lasts and where it wears the most is the best way to judge all this.

Dane

PS Coxcomb is a very old word, used by Shakespear, and one definition is a fobbish and pretentious person, a poppenjay. Seems to me a good term to keep in mind as an insult. lol.

Will be interesting to hear how it goes.

I have "The Crossbow" by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey and have looked at his instructions and drawings on the construction of strings and as I thought he did not use the "coxcomb" method. But then again older methods are not always the best. I wish you luck with your endevour.

Coxcomb also spelt cockscomb is from the Middle English for the crest or comb of a cockerel, as you suggest it also was used to mean a dandy or someone who is overly concerned with his dress and looks.

Craig.

Offline ErictheViking

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Re: In Progress Medieval-style Crossbow
« Reply #112 on: June 05, 2011, 03:03:25 pm »
Dane this is just awesome! great pics and attention to detail on your posts.
"He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart"  C.S. Lewis

Offline Dane

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Re: In Progress Medieval-style Crossbow
« Reply #113 on: June 05, 2011, 09:59:16 pm »
Del, thank  you! You have a lot of experience in these things, so I appreciate any input and advice. You were the reason I decided to redo the tiller and mill the nut hole before the glue up.

Craig, I have the same book, but dont really trust him enough to follow a lot of his advice. Just check out what he has to say about thumb rings. Horrible stuff. His information on catapults are laughable Victorian fantasies, as wel. I may try his method of serving a string one day, though.

Eric, thank you.

I got my horrible looking spanning stand done, but we were dog sitting and the pooches got a bit needy today. Itching to get the string on the prod and serve it, then bind the prod and restring it. I also made some bolts today. Next time I take photos, I will include them.

Dane
Greenfield, Western Massachusetts

Offline CraigMBeckett

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Re: In Progress Medieval-style Crossbow
« Reply #114 on: June 07, 2011, 01:11:12 am »

Dane,

Quote
Craig, I have the same book, but dont really trust him enough to follow a lot of his advice. Just check out what he has to say about thumb rings. Horrible stuff. His information on catapults are laughable Victorian fantasies, as wel. I may try his method of serving a string one day, though.

Not sure I agree with you fully there, and yes on thumb rings he had no idea, he apparently wore them backwards. His stuff on catapults is somewhat lacking but his stuff on crossbows, the main point of the book, is pretty good and as he had a number of extant medieval and reformation models to play around with is worth taking note of.

As for serving a crossbow string, I would be inclined to make the string in the same manner as people make endless strings today, that is I would use an endless string a jig that would allow me to properly and smoothly serve the area of the loops before they are actually formed into loops.

Craig.

Offline Dane

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Re: In Progress Medieval-style Crossbow
« Reply #115 on: June 07, 2011, 12:21:04 pm »
Craig, I may have been a bit harsh in my assessment, and meant no offense to you, but what most bothers me about his work is that he portrays himself as an authority, and yet he was writing about thumb rings in this way. One time only trying to use a thumb ring in the matter he illustrates proves to me that he never actually tried using that device, and made assumptions about what that little tab thingie is, or he obtained the incorrect information from some other party or source.

Thus, other areas of the work are suspect to me. I do wish to say there is a wealth of useful information in his work as well, but I will always read him with a bit of suspicion.

There must be more than one method to making a crossbow string, and I expect to try other methods over time. For now, I’m happy with what I did produce, and as I said, experience is the best way to learn. I also came into this project with my eyes wide open that mistakes will be made, craftsmanship will be less that ideal in some areas, and so on.

I’ve also found over the last couple of days just how difficult it is to pull back a 12.5”tip-to-tip, 190 lb. bow to get the string on it. My Rube Goldberg device worked wonderfully (essentially a 4’ long x 9” x 9” column from an aborted Roman catapult stand, a 4’ lever, leather strap, and hook), but I could only get the bastard string pulled back not much more than 1”. I tried just my own arms and gloved hands, but came up short as well.

I then remembered I have an extra loom just sort of laying about (really). It has been taking up space for the last decade, and will never be used again. Part of the loom is a very nice ratchet and pawl that keeps saying “use me.” I also have a large amount of ash boards, a thickness planer, some pulleys, lag bolts and carriage bolts, and the ability to create strong joints (mortise and tenon, saddle, etc).

A kind of machine I can both span and string heavy, short steel and aluminum prods (something like our conventional tiller trees), as well as secure and span and string / unstring already complete crossbows would come in handy. I am asking myself right now what a medieval arbalest maker’s shop would have been equipped with, and if they had something similar besides overworked apprentices to achieve certain tasks. And, the heavier you make your weapon, the more you need the mechanical advantage of a machine of some sort gives you over just unaided muscle power.

These projects do demand an additional set of skills and familiarity with mediums I find frustrating and enjoyable to learn and master, as well, which adds to both the challenge and my ability to solve problems.

Plan B, btw, is that I ordered an additional prod, but this time in the 85-110 lb. weight. That I know I can handle with my weak 21st century muscles :), as I finish designing and then building the above described machine. It would benefit me as the future becomes the present, as I am certain that I have more arbalests to make and replicate, as well as the weird and little-known variants to this kind of weapons technology. The Roman arcuballista is one, those nifty Chinese repeating crossbows look like so much fun, the ancient Greek gastrophetes, tension catapults of various kinds, the vastly powerful siege crossbows, early all wood crossbows, and we have so many examples of surviving crossbows, bolts and accessories in various collections and museums, an array of spanning devices like the cranquin, belt hooks, belt pulleys, goats foot, etc, one could spend a lifetime and barely scratch the surface of this sub-set of historic archery.

Enough pontificating for now lol.

Dane
Greenfield, Western Massachusetts

Offline CraigMBeckett

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Re: In Progress Medieval-style Crossbow
« Reply #116 on: June 10, 2011, 10:39:49 pm »
Dane,

Quote
Craig, I may have been a bit harsh in my assessment, and meant no offense to you, but what most bothers me about his work is that he portrays himself as an authority, and yet he was writing about thumb rings in this way. One time only trying to use a thumb ring in the matter he illustrates proves to me that he never actually tried using that device, and made assumptions about what that little tab thingie is, or he obtained the incorrect information from some other party or source.

Mate no offense was taken, why would I be offended at your thoughts on someone I have no connection with nd who is long dead. Having said that I'm afraid I have to correct you here, he did actually shoot his turkish/asiatic  bows and I believe gained the then world (western world) record for distance/flight while using the thumb ring wrongly. He apparently continued to use thumb rings this way throughout his life.

As for initially spanning your bow, can you make a simple device similar to the presses used by compound archers, it would only need to be a couple of blocks that bear on the outside of the limbs and a lever or screw that presses on the centre of the bow, this would be much safer that using a string to do the initial spanning. The bow could not be attached to the stock if this method is used.

Craig.

Offline Dane

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Re: In Progress Medieval-style Crossbow
« Reply #117 on: June 13, 2011, 01:23:35 pm »
Thanks, Craig. I do belive you about the thumb ring! Oh my gosh, but it seemed to work for him, I guess. He must have been a very unusual person.

I've been working the kinks out of a crossbow press design, so that is the delay in this thread. I am making it from white ash, and have designed it so I can span / unspan a mounted bow prod as well as a prod not on the bow if necessary. I'm canabalising a ratchet mechanism from an old portable loom, and it should more than do the trick. I hope to have that built in the next few weeks. Right now, I am back to finishing a medieval style trestle table for the outside deck. I am about a year overdue on that project, which my wife most pointedly remind me about last week. :)

Dane
Greenfield, Western Massachusetts

Offline Dane

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Re: In Progress Medieval-style Crossbow
« Reply #118 on: June 16, 2011, 01:44:42 pm »
I feel a bit guilty as I haven’t posted anything in a while. However, the beat goes on and the project continues. The delay this time is having to finish up some long-ago promises, including a medieval-style trestle table for our deck (final sanding and then finishing now, hurrah), and the need for some monster muscles or a mechanical aid.

I’m relatively strong, but pulling back a short little 175 – 190 lb. steel bow to string it is way beyond my capabilities, as well as Hans and Fran, Dolf Ludgren, and Chief AJ combined. :) So, I need a bow press of sorts, something like the wheelie guys’ dealers use to change strings, etc.

I came up with a plan for a press that combines a hardwood frame (2”x2” up to 3”x3” stock) with a series of pegs similar to one method that the Asiatic composite folks sometimes use to span those enormously powerful bows. Think of this contraption as a reverse tillering tree. The idea is that I will slip the crossbow into this with the prod (bow) resting beneath the two (padded) square pegs at the bottom of the press. This is similar to how the early crossbows were spanned / drawn, with the guy standing on the prod with both feet on either side of the tiller, next to the binding cords and pulling the string up to hook on the rolling nut.

I am cannibalizing an old floor loom for the ratchet and pawl mechanism. That is indicated on this sketch by the yellow ring, as I didn’t want to bother trying to draw that in any kind of detail. The 1” holes on each side of the frame for this thing will aid in spanning the bow. A pulley will be secured beneath the top cross member, and a rope with a hook will come down and attach to the bastard string (already made from 1/8” steel wire and bolted to the prod ends with C-clamps).

I simply (he says) secure the crossbow in this torture rack, crank on the ratchet mechanism, and the prod tips move up. When it is at the draw length I need to string it or unstring it, I slip in the 1” hardwood pegs, do my thing, and then reverse to unspan the prod. Neat thing is I don’t need an assistant to help me do the stringing even with a light (say, 80 lb.) prod, let alone a heavier 200 lb. to 400+ lb. prods I plan for future projects. The more robust construction reflects my interest in the heavier war-weight arbalests.

On the reverse side of the press is a block for spanning prods NOT attached to a crossbow tiller, just like a tillering tree. This will be necessary to string the prod for serving a bow string, something that can’t easily be done with the prod already bound to the tiller.

Probably this thing is overbuilt, and overly complicated, but I have enough hickory and ash boards, and I’d rather have an overbuilt safe machine instead of something made from pine 2x4s that may give me untold grief. It will be fun to put together, too, and I am pretty sure I am going to be the first kid on my block to have one.

One suggestion I got from the Arbalist Guild crowd (an online place similar to Primitive Archer, and full of really cool folks) and I think Craig here on PA is the make a simple press using marine boat trailer rollers and some sort of jack, but I honestly can’t figure out how I would do that. This thing I think will do the trick, and it will be furniture quality, as well. I will be making either saddle or half-lap joints (going to cheat a bit and use a band saw to help make the joints, but chisels are still necessary) reinforced with bolts at all joints, so it should be strong enough. I hope so, anyway.

If anyone has different ideas, please do share. I guess in the end, I can use this for very, very short heretics if I decide to “go inquisition” (a riff on Pulp Fiction, one of my favorite films). Short heretics almost never admit the truth and that makes burning them at the stake such an ordeal, so the rack will be nice to get confessions more easily.

Dane

Greenfield, Western Massachusetts

Offline CraigMBeckett

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Re: In Progress Medieval-style Crossbow
« Reply #119 on: June 17, 2011, 10:00:40 am »
Dane,

A simple press that comes to mind would consist of a rigid beam about the length of the prod, to which are attached 2 blocks whose height above the rigid beam is slightly more than the desired brace height and whose position is such that when the prod is braced sufficiently to allow stringing or un-stringing do not interfere with the string nocks. The prod is placed so it lies across the blocks and a pair of strong G or C clamps are placed either side of the bow stock or if unmounted in positions that would be either side of the stock and used to draw the prod towards the rigid beam.

The rigid beam could be made of wood just make it thick enough to resist the bending forces, bolt stuff together if necessary. If the clamps prove difficult to turn then use shifting spanners (wrenches) or stilsons etc.

Craig.