Flatbows found on the Mary Rose?

[youngbowyer]

Hi,

I was wondering if any flatbows were found on the Mary Rose and if there were could someone give me some dimensions.
(or any infortmation about the flatbows that the welsh used right before the "english" warbow came along. Because i cut some black locust today about 8 inches in diamter but it doesnt have enough heartwood for an english warbow design and i i like to keep my bows
looking as much as bows found on the Mary Rose and just plain English Warbows.

Thanks,Tom.

[Pat B]

Tom, if handled properly you could leave a few layers of sapwood on the locust and almost get the look of a war bow. At 8" in diameter I'd think you had a few war bows in that locust log...maybe without the sapwood left on.  If you are not certain about the sapwood add a rawhide backing to it.

[markinengland]

There were some presumably whitewood bows found on the Mary Rose that weren't of yew. The "experts" keep very quiet about these though and I have never seen any information. by the time of the wreck of the Mary Rose tropical woods called "Brazil" wood was also in use. As far as I can tell this is what we now call Pernambuca, used for the making of violin bows.

I attended a lecture on the bows found on the Mary Rose. During the question session I asked about these bows. Reluctantly they two experts admitted that not all the bows were yew but I could not get them to provide any further detail. Interest and research has been concentrated on the yew bows.

A friend of mine has made a square section Ash warbow of about 90lbs, heat treated belly that seemed to work quite well so maybe the whitewood bows weren't exactly flatbows after all.

The talk about the Welsh bows presumed to be Wych Elm predates the Mary Rose in 1545 predates talk of the welsh bows in connection with the Welsh Wars around 1130 so they are seperated by 400 years of archery development and history.

[Yeomanbowman]

That's really interesting Mark.  I suspect they (MR Trust) want to keep the data tight so as not to pre-empt a book that will be released, hopefully soonish.  As you will know, Ascham mentions bows of this material.

[adb]

I've been to the Mary Rose Museum and spoken with the staff regarding the bows recovered from it, and there is certainly no mention of any bows made from any wood except yew. All those on display are, of course, yew. I'm wondering why it would be kept 'secret' to have recovered bows of other material?

[markinengland]

I can't see any reason to keep it under wraps, but it did seem it was admitted to at the London lecture with some reluctance. Various books talk about the use of warbows that are not yew, though yew does seem to have been seen as the best. I think it is Ascham who makes reference to bows of Brazil wood, and it's a bit too late to keep him quiet!

The current PA magazine has a good article by Marc St Louis on an elm warbow. Might be worth getting this issues if you're particulalry interested. 100lb at something like 30 inches puts it into warbow territory, and it is a D section D tiller bow as well.

[JW_Halverson]

I think it is Ascham who makes reference to bows of Brazil wood, and it's a bit too late to keep him quiet!

Oh yeah?  Heard anything new from him lately? 

I envy those of you that have been able to see the museum, go to the lectures, or get close to those wonderful artifacts.  Artifacts such as those in  extraordinary condition make history REAL and go a long way to dispelling myths that seem to get passed on as fact. 

[bow-toxo]

Hi,

I was wondering if any flatbows were found on the Mary Rose and if there were could someone give me some dimensions.
(or any infortmation about the flatbows that the welsh used right before the "english" warbow came along. Because i cut some black locust today about 8 inches in diamter but it doesnt have enough heartwood for an english warbow design and i i like to keep my bows
looking as much as bows found on the Mary Rose and just plain English Warbows.

Thanks,Tom.

  Some of the MR bows were of rectangular section, not really flatbows, and have been described as being longer than most of the bows. Where does your comment about Welsh flat bows come from ? It is news to me that there is any non-fiction information about them other than that they were made of “forest elm”. That wouldn’t include black locust.

                                                 Erik

[Jaro]

Mark -I dont know who put up that lecture but none MR bow is reported of other wood than yew. I think that nobody at the moment has better ties to MR trust than EWBS or people like Hugh Soar and nobody respectable in the buissnes thinks anymore than all the bows are something else than yew. The information about one bow being something else is somehow outdated.

Erik - none of published crossesctions can be with clear mind described as "rectangular". Its pretty clear from account of the technology, that the bowyers started with "chipped" - that is squared and tappered stave. The bows differ in how much of the wood has been taken off the square during the shaping process, but even the big ones have round belly. I make this type of bow relativelly often and if you start with tapered squared stave and round the back corners and then take off the facette of belly wood on each side away and then just work very quickly from edge of the facete to another rounding the stave along with scraper, small plane or spokeshave, the small flat areas on sides of the stave emerge by themselves. That off course is not rectangular. There is few odd shapes like prominent "galeon" with ridge running down mid off the belly, but they are far and few and I would be interested in seeing if the bows in question have such a profile for the whole of their lenght, or just where there was not enough wood to work round.

Tom - flat belly does not flatbow make as we all know. Neither does it look like welsh were using "flatbows". Frankly, if you take ash or elm sappling, hatchet or knife, strip the bark and just trim the sides and belly by chopping you will end up with longbow, rather than flatbow.  I would think in terms of technology rather than fashion.
Now, if you have black locust, you might or might not be sucessfull in making heavy longbow of it as it does not likes the round belly much. It would be beneficial to make the bow longer (around 80") and from piece of wood with crowned back and then after working teh tapers  round the belly somehow less than back.  That would give you "lentil" profile, somehow closer to viking bows than MR, but more relaxed in terms of compression.

Jaro

[adb]

The larger 'square' profile yew bows at the MRM where referred to as slab-sided bows, and as Jaro mentioned, they still had a rounded belly. I believe Steve Stratton made a yew warbow of this type, with a 160# draw weight. It's posted on this forum... 'MR Replica but just a little longer'

[markinengland]

Jaro,

The lecture I mention was given by Matthew Strickland and Robert Hardy, and they did confirm that not all the MT bows were yew (and it was more than one bow!). They both seem failry well informed about the MR finds. I've got no axe to gring one way or the other. If I remember correctly there are written references to the fact that some of the MR bows may not have been yew, and certainly references to none Yew warbows in use.
 
A bow of 100lbs plus is certainly possible with UK whitewoods now, and would have been then.

  No fight wanted or intended.

[youngbowyer]

Hi,

I was wondering if any flatbows were found on the Mary Rose and if there were could someone give me some dimensions.
(or any infortmation about the flatbows that the welsh used right before the "english" warbow came along. Because i cut some black locust today about 8 inches in diamter but it doesnt have enough heartwood for an english warbow design and i i like to keep my bows
looking as much as bows found on the Mary Rose and just plain English Warbows.

Thanks,Tom.

  Some of the MR bows were of rectangular section, not really flatbows, and have been described as being longer than most of the bows. Where does your comment about Welsh flat bows come from ? It is news to me that there is any non-fiction information about them other than that they were made of “forest elm”. That wouldn’t include black locust.

                                                 Erik

Black locust is the only material i have availiable at the moment and as it is not good in compression i wwas wondering if any flatbows were found on the mary rose so i could kepp my bow to those dimesnions.

[Jaro]

The problem is that the pool of information from "The warbow" is already slightly outdated. Hovewer, I can ask either Andy Eckerton, or Mark Stretton with whom I m in one archery group - but if there indeed was confirmed non-yew bow on Mary Rose this information would be "big" and public already while ago.
Mind, you even if it wont be oficially published, "we" would know. The research of wood on the bows has gone so far, that DNA test has been done and the kindred living speciemens of the yew tree, have been located in alpine valley (Not that far from Celestios place I m told). To find out whatever one bow is or is not yew is fairly simple test.  The confusion might exist because at least 3 "grades" of yew exists, of which the best italian is the most numerous, then there are bows which seems to be of slightly different worksmanship and supposed to be reclaimed from armoury storage and also probably - a favorite hypothesis of Alan Edwards  the "Black bow" is somebodys loved weapon brought fom home, which can be easy true, taking in consideration fact that it is coarse yew with abundant character and varnish which does have nothing to do with that of the rest. (Probably english yew)

Well, there is no point to act as if heavy longbow cannot be made out of whitewood, I m doing it for the last 8 years. I have now made ash longbow for Mark which is 140# - and I actually had problems to get the weight down from over 160# which it had at first brace on tiler. I make 125# white wood bows routinely.  But what is worth of considering, that whitewood bow is not something you would want to bring into wet field conditions, much less ship. See, they just dont shoot. They loose as much as 1/3 of their performance once they get wet and there is nothing which prevents them to suck water. (Modern polyurethane plastic finish, but even that is not total)
Now, that doesnt matter, if you only have to shoot once in a week to fullfill the leter of the law and you ll keep the bow to dry hung over your fireplace. That doesnt work in trenches.
Yew on the other hand isnt affected by moisture.

Mark, I m not looking for a fight, but if anybody has to get good info, it is better to become EWBS associate member as nobody has better pool of knowledge now.  I mean, we are arguing here pool of knowledge of 2003 or some.

Jaro

[Jaro]

Erik, you cannot "keep the bow to MR dimensions" and make it flatbow.
Also MR dimensions and tapers wont likely work with anything else but yew - if you lay out width tapers for other wood, youll get flatter bow, all else being equall.
What you can do is make the crossection as I m suggesting and make whole profile flattish, perhaps as much as 2:1 width:depth ratio.
Howewer lots of people makes it completelly square as to think that if the belly is flat, it will resist compression better, but that isnt true on deep profiled bow as the edges are strained more than the mid of the profile. Ergo it pays of to moderatelly round everything. What has by far bigger influence on belly holding up is the distance of belly from neutrall plane and that can be manipulated exactly by making the profile such as I m describing.

Jaro

[markinengland]

Jaro,

It is a FACT that shortly after the publishing of "The Great Warbow" the authors of the book Matthew Strickland and Robert Hardy gave a lecture in London, that I attended and that when I questioned them they confirmed that not all the bows were yew, that a few were other woods. This was said in front of a large audience in 2005 presumably because it was true, true then, true now and true of the facts when the Mary Rose went down. That it was 5 years ago means nothing!

If we respect the authors of the book, their knowlege and honesty it is not entirely relevant whether a member of the EWBS is aware of this or not. I don't know if any current EWBS members were present at the lecture. I have no reason to make this up myself. You very obviously do not believe me - you feel that if this was true it would be widely known which means I am not well enough qualified to know this, or I must be oddly mistaken and stupid and have got my poor little brain confused, or I am not telling the truth and am making this up.

I'm not an EWBS member, but I was there, this happened and I am reporting it honestly and accurately.

Truth does not depend on how many people know it.

I understand that many if not all the MR bows were in the stewardship of Rober Hardy for quite some years prior to them going to the MR museum, so he had had quite a few years to study them at his leisure in his home by 2005. If he says that some were not yew, then he may just know what he is talking about? I also have been lead to understand that not all the MR bows are in the MR museum.

As I couldn't get Robert or Matthew to say any more about the non-yew bows I can't say for sure whether they were whitewood bows or possibly something more exotic.

I have never before heard of yew bows being immune to moisture and so much time and effort is put into seasoning yew by many bowyers.