Elm sapling bow (bows)

[Hawkdancer]

Aksel,
That is a nice stave.  You do all your work it's just the hatchet, knife, spokeshave, and scraper?  !
Also, my apologies for the misspelling of your name in my other post, spell check messed it up!
Hawkdancer

[Aksel]

Hi, yes thats the tools I'm using, plus saw to cut the tree down and sandpaper. No worries for mis-spelling my name 

[DaveMac]

Great looking bow, and great looking axe. Would like a Granfors Bruk myself but price tag just too rich for me.

[Bayou Ben]

How's the performance on these sapling bows compared to a stave of similar design?  I'm wondering if the crowned back helps with reduced weight

[Aksel]

really interesting question I would like to know the answer to as well. I have no way of telling the speed on these bows, but they shot good and with little handshock in my opinion.

[Bayou Ben]

No worries.  Just wondering if you shot them side by side if you could tell the difference.  It looks to be so light. 
How long do you season the saplings before working?  If you can't tell, I want to try one out.  It's just like my childhood vision of a wooden bow.  Find a tree about the size of a bow, cut it down, and make a bow.  Awesome. 

[Aksel]

I have a fairly large store of material so never need to speed dry wood anymore. These are dried for a few years.

Looking forward to see your sapling bow 

[ksnow]

Very neat work, Aksel. It's nice to see the start to finish on your sapling bow. Great work with just the hand tools.

Kyle

[Greg DeJanes]

Hawkdancer,

Yes but the only woods I can find that were used in Europe to make these stone age bows is yew and wych elm . I'll keep looking to find more on this. I like to keep the bow wood as accurate as possible when looking to make a close replica.

Thanks,
Greg

[Aksel]

think there are oak and hazel bows as well

[ksnow]

Elm was by far the most common wood during the mesolithic period. As the neolithic age came, yew started to move north and replaced elm as the primary wood. As Aksel said, the are a few oak and hazel examples.

Kyle

[Springbuck]

How's the performance on these sapling bows compared to a stave of similar design?  I'm wondering if the crowned back helps with reduced weight

Ben, the TBB says they do, or can, or something.  The line, I think from the chapter "Bow Woods" in Vol 3 or 4 is:"Longbows made from small diameter staves seem to perform best."   If a bow can TAKE a crowned back (Iand osage, hickory, elm and some other CAN) the belly will be fine.

However, I think they are great, but it's not so much that it'll revolutionize archery or anything, maybe not even so much as that you'd notice.  A bow like Aksel made is a good choice for a small stave like that, a good solid performer.  Likewise, a less crowned flatbow with skinny tips is a good choice for a slightly larger diameter elm, and a bendy-handle/parallel-sided middle bow is a good choice for a shorter, small diameter stave.

I love the stuff.  And essentially the same goes for ash and other white woods.  They do fine with toasted bellies,too.

[ntvbowyer1969]

On that sapling is there a crown? I would figure on saplings with the small diameter there would be a significant crown. If so would it affect the performance on wood such as elm. Is there better wood that will not lose performance with such crowns?

[Springbuck]

In the original post he mentions the sapling was only 2" or less diameter, so it would have to have a crown.

The current discussion is about exactly that, and I find elm bows from small diameter saplings like that to perform just fine.

[Aksel]

 yes there is a crown, but elm and yew can handle it very well. That is probably a clue as to why the stoneage bowyers preferred them, since they used saplings for bows.

I had a look in TBB 1 yesterday and Tim Baker write in Bow design and Performance:


High crowned limbs are actually narrower limbs with dead weight at their sides

but

- with a wide belly to resist compression, a high crowned bow will have minimal set. But it's narrow back will be dangerously overworked. Small diameter trees should make only low-weight bows, or longer bows. Of course there are shades of exception. Some woods are stronger in tension than others. To the degree this is true such woods can stand up to high crown strain. Two woods which handle tension well are Hickory and Elm.