East meets West ?

[agd68]

Just curious. Has anyone out there made a  western style bow with the Asian horn bow technique . Would the horn give any advantage to a Western style bow,ie longbow or RD style ?

[tattoo dave]

I have some horn and sinew sittin around, and I was thinking about trying that out. I was just thinking about trying a straight profile bow cause I've never worked with horn or sinew before. I'll let you all know how it turns out.

Tattoo Dave

[MWirwicki]

Well, if you included a sinew backing as I'm assuming you would, it would definately get you a longer draw length.  See my BOM for September/October, coral snake skinned bow.

[mullet]

Robustus has. Some of his glass bows reflect that style.

[PatM]

He means the other way around. Horn/sinew for the Western bow not glass on an Asian bow.

[Pat B]

James has done them that way too. 
  If you design the bow to take advantage of the compression strength of the horn plus the tension strength of the sinew it should shoot similar to the Asiatic bows. If it is too long or has too much mass the horn and sinew become liabilities. I think a Molle style bow would be a good candidate for horn/sinew and I believe a few have been presented right here on PA.
 There are a few Native American Plains style bows that were a combo of sinew/wood/horn or sinew/horn or just plain ole' sinew/wood bows.
  Over the last few years a few commercial bowyers have put horn bellies on their boo backed bows and maybe even glass backed bows. For me, you need a short, highly stressed bow before horn and/or sinew comes into the picture.
 

[agd68]

Thanks for the input guys. Tatto Dave if you ever get around to making one I hope you do a tutorial on it, I would love to see it.

[tronman]

http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,25453.msg342079.html#msg342079. Here is an example of something you might be intersted in

[Justin Snyder]

If you are asking about horn on a "long" bow, I think it is a bad idea. Sinew and horn are best on short bows. The horn takes the extra compression and the sinew provides the extra elasticity. Long bows don't bend as tight of a radius so wood takes the compression without the extra weight, and sinew isn't needed on those longer arcs.
You never saw the Asians make a horn and sinew Yumi bow did you?

[agd68]

Thanks tronman. Justine, I should have been more specific in that I meant lonbow profile not so much length. In my fixation I completely forgot that the Comanche made short reflexed hornbows. I guess they answered my question already.

[Matt S.]

If I remember correctly (it's Friday afternoon, the brain's a little fried) Tim Baker wrote about this in TBB 4. I think he came to the conclusion that a properly made straight limbed composite could shoot as fast as the heavily recurved/reflexed composites. The key was to only have the horn and sinew in the inner limbs. The outer limbs would be static. I guess it's the same idea as the Mollegabet, long narrow static outer limbs are extremely light and thus give the advantage of long bows (string angle, stored energy, long draw, smooth and accurate) with minimum mass. I think Steve (badger) had a lot to do with this bow as well, maybe he can give a little insight?