Whitewood and square section? where did "wide and thin" come from? lots of pics

[half eye]

Hey fellas,
     Ya know I usually make short Eastern woodland styled bows, and that they are usually plain as in no backing, heat treat, or only seldom some steam straightening. I was looking at my bows yesterday and it dawned on me that not one of my whitewood bows would qualify as wide and thin. All of them are rectangular in section.
     I grabbed 5 bows and did the measurements. 4 are bows I made and the one is the bow that Don Burchett sent me. There is a list of the bows and the particulars. I have pics of unbraced, braced, and full draw for you to look at.

52" Ojibwa, ironwood, 58#@26 (55#@25") 1-1/16" wide and .602" thick, no set
39" Eastern woodland, black locust scrap, 40#@20", 1-1/8" wide and .495"thick, 1" of set
42-1/2" Ojibwa, slippery elm scrap, 44#@21", 15/16 wide and .530 thick, 5/8 " set
49" ocean spray, eastern woodland, 57#@25", 1-1/4" wide and .611" thick, 1/2" of Reflex
57-1/2 Mollegabet, Ironwood, 54#@26" 1-1/4@fades and 1-1/16"@levers, .650" and .502" respectively.
     Anyway, I wonder where the idea of whitewood needing to be wide  (and thin) to make good bows came from, since my experience says that the Native American whitewood bows were not built that way but rather closer to rectangular or square in section.
    This square section bows are very snappy, take little set, and seem to be good bows in all respects. Any opinions welcome.
rich

[half eye]

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[PatM]

It came from people wanting handles, longer draws, higher weight and better performance.

[Tyke]

Those are awesome half eye

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[half eye]

sorry I screwed up the full draws....here are all of 'em.

[DavidV]

Thanks for posting these Rich. I was going through some threads from a while back on short bows and noticed the same thing, took down the measurements and 2 bows I'm working on are now narrow and square.... maybe not quite as short though.

[half eye]

Thanks Tyke, and David I be really interested in how your turns out compared to the expectations you have.
Thank you Pat M.
rich

[burchett.donald]

  Rich,
          I've read the white wood bow needs to be 2'' wide in TBB 1 page 150-151 and heard it said so many times. It states that narrow limbs are to much for white woods and odds are it will follow the string considerably and robs cast...Don't want to pick a fight but this is "so untrue"...The narrow rectangular cross section short bows can be drawn to decent draw lengths and have excellent cast with hardly any string follow...You have the proof leaning on your shed...I have shot them and made one recently that actually retained some reflex. The Elm you sent me is a rocket launcher shot many times and hasn't moved in set from day one, slightly wider than 1 inch at its widest part which is the handle. Glad you brought this up!
                                                               Don

[IdahoMatt]

Nice Rich.  Always love your bows.  They all look great.  I love to see you challenging the norm. 

[half eye]

T hanks Don, Idaho   Wasn't trying to stir the pot either. But for the square section bows to be as widely occuring it just occured to me that wide was not the only way to approach whitewood.

I think at this point that a wide and thin limb (the compression and tension surfaces) are very close together and as such dont give much room for error.....meaning hinges, compression failures or lots of set. It just seems to me that with a deeper thickness limb there is more "meat" between the compression and tension surfaces and the neutral line.....that's because the square sectiobn bows are forgiving to make, give really good results and allow a bow maker more latitude for mistakes in the making.

I dont believe that I'm challenging anything Just really suprised that with hundreds (maybe thousands) of Native american bows made of square section white woods, I seriously want to know the reasoning for the wide/thin position......and this forum is the place to kick stuff around, got a lot of people smarter than me....want to see what they got to say.
rich

[bradsmith2010]

looking at a lot of museum bows in some of Jim Hamms books,, there are quite a few that are wide and thin, I dont see a larger amount of square  section bows,,, I am sure they shoot great and depending on the stave I had to work with some would turn out square,, but I would choose those for the lighter bows,,
in my experience ,, the wider bow will hold more weight,,or draw further without taking a set,,, on the lighter or medium bows probably not that much difference, once over 50 I think you will see a dramatic difference,,

[scp]

Most impressive short bows. I seriously doubt I can make them that short without getting much more set. Still IMHO we need to have chronograph results to be objective.