MR replica (pics)

[ChrisD]

Of course, denser woods give a lot thinner bows. I think I mentioned it, but I've got another norwegian yew longbow which is a lot smaller and still 40 punds heavier than this one. I once handeled a Stratton 120# flightbow, which looked like a 60# bow. It was really heavy in weight though. Yew usually gives a larger bow for a given weight than other woods. Ipe for example...
A nice experiment would be to make two replicas of the smalles MR-bow, one from dense yew and one from less dense yew. If nothing else, it would give an interesting new set of data for the interpretation of the MR draw weights. As it is now, we only seem to have the upper limit setteled to be from 200 to 120#. - so there's really no good evidence to back up any statement on what the lower range of draw weights was like.

The more you twist a string, the more stress you put on each fiber, which results in more elastisity with the stronger stuff and more risk with e.g. linnen. So I usually twist them no more than necessary for them to hold together while also making sure the cross section stays reasonably round. This is a 3x5 ply ff+ string. That one is overly safe The less you twist the less strands you can get away with, so with flightbows I twist them even less.

And just as a general comment: When it comes to constructive comments and spots on the tiller...   ...a picture is really not enough to give detailed advice. To do that you need an overview of things like local density of the wood, knots, amount of sapwood/heartwood, the shape of the cross section, the shape of the natural growth and most basicly - the width of each section of the bow.  What pictures are good for are considering the gereral shape of the tiller compared to the width-profile of the bow, and of course for considering symmetry.

I nicely made bow and an interesting discussion. I entirely agree with your sentiments on how to go about assessing facsimiles of bows and I have argued for this in many environments. If you could get enough large billets of wood from the same two sources - one of the densest wood and one of the least dense, than you could make replicas of the smallest and largest MR bow from each. I'd like to see how closely (or not) the big bow from least dense wood matches with the small bow of most dense. We can already guess how the opposite would work out.

C

[Kviljo]

Ahh, you're on to something there! It would be a great experiment. If the two bows came out with about the same weight, it could add credibility to the hypothesis that the outer dimensions of the originals reflect the density of the wood more than the draw weight.

[bow-toxo]

Jaro—The beginning of the medieval period is the fall of Rome whenever you date that. .As the Nydam bows are such close relatives of the MR ones, and are very close to the time the Saxons brought their longbows to England, I think they are worth considering and comparing.

Davepim--- A singlelooped string as used in the Middle Ages  with self sidenocks is ideal for speed in preparing to shoot, and for taking down, with the pressure of the thumbtip pressing the V of the loop to the nock. Very little effort. They were cut in opposite sids on the MR bows, most of the Nydam bows, the Viking bows, and the Alemannic bows. With horn nocks, round because of standardisation and because that is the only shape that can be easily made to fit a bowtip, the loop, again standardised,  must fit closely in order to be secure. I can understand why Victorian nocks came to be.

Rod---I  don’t respond to every post with enthusiasm. Only those few that impress me.
I agree with you that the ff  two strand peg board string is a disappointment and I see no excuse for one on an otherwise flawless replica bow of that low draw weight. On the horn nocks, flush wouldn’t be an authentic reproduction. Medieval guild craftsmen were discouraged from innovations which was considered unfair advantage.

Kviljo—I am really astonished that your yew bow of true NR dimensions would have a low draw weight I hadn’t believed possible. Live and learn.  Strings were tightly twisted in the belief that the tighter and harder the twist, the better it would cast the arrow. I stick with the tradition.

                                                                            Cheers,                                                                   
                                                                              Erik

[Yeomanbowman]

A note of caution about drawing too many conclusions about draw weight from even to seemingly identical density of wood bows.  For example, if 2 staves were split from 1 bent log one would be reflexed the other deflexed.  The reflexed stave bow would be heavier at the same dimensions.  The way a bow is tillered also has an effect because if it is held too long on the tiller at various points it will increase set and reduce draw weight. 
BTW I am certainly not saying this is what has happened with kviljo's bow.

I think far more than one or two bows is needed to give a faithful picture.

[Jaro]

"Jaro—The beginning of the medieval period is the fall of Rome whenever you date that. .As the Nydam bows are such close relatives of the MR ones, and are very close to the time the Saxons brought their longbows to England, I think they are worth considering and comparing."

"The beginning of the medieval period is the fall of Rome whenever you date that." - That would only bear relevance if the "medieval period" was homogenous body with similar level of technology and sociopolitical clima all through it, which is not. It is for good reason why era from fall of Rome till some 10. century is called "dark ages" - and it is not until end of it when modern feudalism developped from originall chieftan democracies and spread universaly through evrope. It is pretty nice bad comparition fallacy to assume that my argument is irrelevant since the date in question is so close to "medieval". Frankly if I was interested in this type of debate, I would respond  that MR bows arent "medieval", they are modern, since medieval age ends with the discovery of New world - a thing which you can read in each well meant yet badly written history book. I hope you catch my drift.


"As the Nydam bows are such close relatives of the MR ones, and are very close to the time the Saxons brought their longbows to England, I think they are worth considering and comparing."
1300 years of development of both the weapon and the armour and order of magnitude leap in metalurgy divides them, the only comparing of the Nydam bows and MR bows worth of doing is that of their qualities relatively to tactics and armour of the era they have been used in. And I would bet my shoes that again we will eventually get to very simple definition - that they were adequate to job they were designed to do, at the time they were.

Frankly, even technology on those two examples of bows is the same only as far as what is possible to make from small diameter yew tree with basic bowmaking principles in mind - since MR bows were manufactured in the clime best described as industrialised.

[ChrisD]

A note of caution about drawing too many conclusions about draw weight from even to seemingly identical density of wood bows.  For example, if 2 staves were split from 1 bent log one would be reflexed the other deflexed.  The reflexed stave bow would be heavier at the same dimensions.  The way a bow is tillered also has an effect because if it is held too long on the tiller at various points it will increase set and reduce draw weight. 
BTW I am certainly not saying this is what has happened with kviljo's bow.

I think far more than one or two bows is needed to give a faithful picture.

Agree absolutely with all of that - the difficulty is getting enough of the stuff together. As an absolute minimum, you would be looking at replicates of three - so you end up making 12 bows as a bare minimum and even that wouldn't really be enough. It ends up being a lot of yew to be hunting around for!

C

[bow-toxo]

"Jaro—The beginning of the medieval period is the fall of Rome whenever you date that. .As the Nydam bows are such close relatives of the MR ones, and are very close to the time the Saxons brought their longbows to England, I think they are worth considering and comparing."

"The beginning of the medieval period is the fall of Rome whenever you date that." - That would only bear relevance if the "medieval period" was homogenous body with similar level of technology and sociopolitical clima all through it, which is not. It is for good reason why era from fall of Rome till some 10. century is called "dark ages" - and it is not until end of it when modern feudalism developped from originall chieftan democracies and spread universaly through evrope. It is pretty nice bad comparition fallacy to assume that my argument is irrelevant since the date in question is so close to "medieval". Frankly if I was interested in this type of debate, I would respond  that MR bows arent "medieval", they are modern, since medieval age ends with the discovery of New world - a thing which you can read in each well meant yet badly written history book. I hope you catch my drift.


"As the Nydam bows are such close relatives of the MR ones, and are very close to the time the Saxons brought their longbows to England, I think they are worth considering and comparing."
1300 years of development of both the weapon and the armour and order of magnitude leap in metalurgy divides them, the only comparing of the Nydam bows and MR bows worth of doing is that of their qualities relatively to tactics and armour of the era they have been used in. And I would bet my shoes that again we will eventually get to very simple definition - that they were adequate to job they were designed to do, at the time they were.

Frankly, even technology on those two examples of bows is the same only as far as what is possible to make from small diameter yew tree with basic bowmaking principles in mind - since MR bows were manufactured in the clime best described as industrialised.

I didn't assume your argument was irrevelant . I suggested that the Middle Ages, being between the Greek/Roman period of classical culture
and the rebirth [Renaissance}of it, does not have an exact cut off point.. I agree that the MR bows and arrows are Renaissance and not mediaeval. I consider the bows similar because;---- they are longbows. they are both the right length for a 30" draw. they aree both tapered from a maximum width and thickness at the handgrip to slender tips, they are both designed to bend evenly throughout their length, they both have side nocKs, they both have a simililar variety of cross sections, they are both mostly of yew wood. Even with the average greater thickness of, and the horn nock pieces on the MR bows, I could imagine them coming out of the same workshop and I think they are worth considering and comparing.

[Jaro]

"I suggested that the Middle Ages, being between the Greek/Roman period of classical culture and the rebirth [Renaissance}of it, does not have an exact cut off point"

That is exactly what you have not sugested, but nice backpedaling.

"I could imagine them coming out of the same workshop and I think they are worth considering and comparing."

I could not because  with regard to what these bows have in common, much more they have not - for example the backs of MR bows are worked down, while those on Nydam bows are not, the level of worksmanship on Nydam bows is extremelly uneven in terms of skill, on MR bows quite contrary to that, Nydam bows have diferent tapers which suggest they were tilered much like modern sporting longbow, the placement of nock grooves is not the end of staves etc...

These bows are only worth comparing in regards to their respective historical context, but not next to each other.

J.

[adb]

I agree.

[Kviljo]

Jaro, you're not saying that the nydam bows aren't the ancestors of the mr-bows? If someone should set up a typology of bows from the past, these two would definitely be on the same lineage...

It all depends on how narrowly we define the types, absolutely, but compared to the world wide spectrum of bows, I don't see that there could be any doubt.


By the way, Nydam bow nr. 1440 is made from a rather large trunk. - so not all the nydams were made from narrow staves

[alanesq]

Very nice to see a Mary Rose replica bow with the correct nocks fitted :-)

great job !

[nickf]

I spoke to steve stretton about the drawweights. He made a replica of the smaller bow, wich drew 140#, and was made of less dense yew than the original. A friend of mine made a replica, but much narrower and smaller, from dutch yew. Draws a nice 120#@32".

I'm certain the mary rose bows drew 140-200#.

And why not? I finally got to shoot 130# pleasantly. But I shoot very little, have only done warbowshooting for a few months, and I'm a 16year old. those guys shot their whole life, no doubt they could draw over 150# at my age, and 180# wouldn't be too incommon for a grown up man.

your bow looks really nice though!

Nick

[radius]

Do you think a Medieval archer, who was depending on his life with the bow he carried, would have carried a 60 or 70# bow into battle?

Of course he would have.

[adb]

I doubt it!

[Rod]

And just as a general comment: When it comes to constructive comments and spots on the tiller...   ...a picture is really not enough to give detailed advice. To do that you need an overview of things like local density of the wood, knots, amount of sapwood/heartwood, the shape of the cross section, the shape of the natural growth and most basicly - the width of each section of the bow.  What pictures are good for are considering the gereral shape of the tiller compared to the width-profile of the bow, and of course for considering symmetry.

I would tend to disagree about commenting on tiller from a side view although of course within certain limits.
Absence of knowledge as regard width variation being one such.

However such width variation to accomodate flaws is probably more common in character bows such as snaky flatbows than in english longbow staves since the stave selection criteria are generally higher given a source of well got up staves of the first quality.

A friend of mine has a couple of what are called in some circles "peasant" bows (by Chris Boyton), intended to represent a bow made from a stave that might not pass quality inspection as a livery bow stave, which have some interesting features to accomodate knots.

I should perhaps expand on my "low spots" comment. I would normally expect to see the line of longditudinal character in the back followed in a lesser degree in a durable hunting of fighting weight longbow.
Over the years I have seen and handled quite a lot of bows by reputable makers and whilst the taper can follow any deviation on back and belly, it is both quicker and safer to "split the difference" in establishing the line through the belly.
This is the context of my comment, which I perhaps should have made clear in the first instance.

Finally, I think it would be interesting and informative to see a new topic on mediaeval cow horn nocks, showing and discussing the form, taper and fit.  A superficial recollection of seeing a photo of the MR nock leads me to think of it as being flush or almost flush.

My opinion FWIW is that war bow nocks might be minimally worked as compared to later "trademark" styles on sporting bows.
Quite literally natural in shape, drilled and fitted with minimal waisting taper, if any.

Would someone care to kick off such a dedicated new topic on proper war bow horn nocks.
It would be nice to have some specific archivable stuff that doesn't need to have a lot of editing out of extraneous matter.

Rod.

Not officially back yet, just rained off for the day and doing some chores.