violating a back

[Jack Napier]

It's important to remember that the "growth rings can't be violated" dogma is a tradition of (civilized) Anglo-Saxon archery and that's why it's so popular on web forums such as this one. "Primitive" stone age bowyers were not aware of this "law" and thus "violated" growth rings frequently and violently. It would be impossible to build a true duplicate of an Ishi bow or a Cheyenne horsebow if you didn't violate the back of the bow, because that's exactly what they did. Honestly, after violating growth rings time and time again, and producing unbacked bows just won't break, I'm inclined to say that the primitives got it right yet again, and that this is nothing more than an Anglo-Saxon superstition.

[Stick Bender]

Dogma or not it would make no sense to me to short cut a bow design by using a violated back of a bow with out atleast backing it , the odds can be against you even with a solid continuous ring on the back , especialy with high stressed self bow designs .

[bubby]

The 2 examples you used with a horse bow and ishi's bow were generally sinew backed and and violating a ring isn't that big a deal. Now a plain sawn board unless you chase a ring is violated. Most of the examples in museums of selfbows i have seen had a pretty clean back

[bubby]

And a browth ring CAN be violated

[PatM]

The idea  of  deliberately violating a back just to make a 'true duplicate" is ludicrous.

[Jack Napier]

The idea  of  deliberately violating a back just to make a 'true duplicate" is ludicrous.

Well, you have to violate the back of the bow if you want to produce the true form. For example, Indian bows had a rectangular cross section which turned out to be superior to the English longbow's D-shaped cross section. Most North American bows had a flat back, there's no way to produce that without violating growth rings on the back of the bow. That's why I cringe when I see people on here with their "Native American" bows with round backs and smooth edges. Look at any Plains Indian bow from the 1800s, all flat and sharp as lumber. You'll never get real performance out of a rounded bow.

[PatM]

You need to read some more books.  Native bows came in every shape and form and over a much longer period of time than 'the 1800s"

[Jack Napier]

The 2 examples you used with a horse bow and ishi's bow were generally sinew backed and and violating a ring isn't that big a deal. Now a plain sawn board unless you chase a ring is violated. Most of the examples in museums of selfbows i have seen had a pretty clean back

I cast my doubts that a simple backing of sinew or rawhide is enough to prevent a splinter from lifting on a bow if the stakes are as high as the believers say they are, when growth rings get "violated". To say these bows were generally backed is misleading; some were, others weren't.

Here's your "sawn lumber":

[Jack Napier]

You need to read some more books.  Native bows came in every shape and form and over a much longer period of time than 'the 1800s"

Depends on where we're talking about. South American bows are very different from North American bows, which are much more influenced by East Asian styles. In South America you see lots of round, longbow-like specimens. But in North America and in the Arctic especially, rectangular cross sections with flat surfaces predominate. This was also the morphology of the wooden cores of Manchurian, Korean, Mongolian and Chinese bows.

[PatM]

Let's have a look at some of your bows and hear about their performance.

[PEARL DRUMS]

Good read

[Jack Napier]

Let's have a look at some of your bows and hear about their performance.

We should put your bows to the test against my bows, since there's never actually been a study of any kind that demonstrates that violated bows are any less durable than plain unviolated back bows. Science has shown that the former do have superior performance, however, and they do distribute more stress over a greater area than unviolated bows, meaning that they should be more durable, as well.

[PEARL DRUMS]

Don't bite, Pat. Make him switch lures at least 5 or 6 more times.

[Jack Napier]

Lol:

[Mo_coon-catcher]

If think it would depend on the species of would your working with. If the wood has a distinctive early growth ring then the violated area just made the soft crumbly early growth have to take the strain, which it doesn't do too well. These would be woods like osage and black locust. If the wood doesn't have that weak crumbly layer then it wouldn't be that big of deal if the damage is cleaned up and smoothed. These would be stuff like hickory, yew, and juniper. There are more than those listed but gives an idea of the structure of the wood. I'd still rather not violate the rings if it can be helped, but wth some woods it isn't a big deal. The only one I've played with and allowed to be violated was a couple of sapwood backed black walnut.

Kyle