Tri-Lam Bow. Why?

[bubby]

The real reason is that they don't want people showing that other designs work better and destroying the longbow myth.

Ha!!!!!

[adb]

The real reason is that they don't want people showing that other designs work better and destroying the longbow myth.

LOL! I can't dispute that! However, I think the BLBS is looking to preserve a very specific type of bow, which is what they call an ELB.

I think the EWBS is similar. They have some very specific criteria to limit the type of bow they're using, to preserve a specific type of archery.

But, I fear this thread is straying dangerously off topic!

[Holten101]

The real reason is that they don't want people showing that other designs work better and destroying the longbow myth.

Love you pat:-)))

On topic: Bamboo flooring works well as core. I dont subscribe to the idea that core wood should be dense or compression strong...never seen a tri-lam collaps due to core failure (extension or compression). I also dont think there is anything gained using 3 instead of 2 lams if its a simple glue up, maybe with some reflex added. Hell while were at it....I dont think there is anything gained making lam bows when you can make a self bow (can we call it a "selfie"?);-)

Cheers

[Gordon]

The only reason I make a tri-lam is to use less belly wood - good clean yew slats are hard to come by.

[Del the cat]

The real reason is that they don't want people showing that other designs work better and destroying the longbow myth.

You have two statements there.
1. Other designs work better.
Yes, in a modern context, but not for killing armoured foe at 200 yards. This is why the longbow evolved into the Victorian style target bow and the modern laminate longbow. Ultimately it was redesigned by Clarence N Hickman becoming more rectangular in section, the American longbow. http://www.archeryhalloffame.com/Hickman.html  He then went on to design the modern take down target recurve. He did that because he has lost some fingers in a rocketry accident and couldn't pull the necessary draw weights of the time. He needed a more efficient bow to enable him to compete.

2. There is no myth that the longbow / Warbow performed it's task admirably. The only slight myth is that it was all about the bow... it was just as much about poor French organisation.

It is ironic that in my youth most of the "how to make a 'longbow' " literature I could read was of American origin and based on the American version of the English longbow using woods like Osage that no timber merchant in the UK had ever heard of!
The rise of the internet and forums like this has ensured that the huge variety of bow types are there to be enjoyed.
To show I have no Longbow bias, I usually shoot a Yew Neolithic style bow
Del

[toomanyknots]

The only reason I make a tri-lam is to use less belly wood - good clean yew slats are hard to come by.

That's a good reason too. When belly wood is expensive (like ipe) it can save money substantially. I was forced to buy some 1" thick ipe recently opposed to the 3/4" I prefer and resawed a good amount of it into 1/2" or so belly laminates which will hopefully make some nice lighter weight trilams.

[Marc St Louis]

I was just wondering something Marc... have you ever built a classic tri-lam ELB? I've searched your website, and this forum, and I can't find one. Not one. Not reflexed, or anything else... just a straight up tri-lam ELB. Deep rounded belly, follows the 5/8 rule more or less, at least 72" long, slight elliptical tiller... you know.

I was also wondering something else... do you think it's possible for one person to be an expert on all aspects of bow building? Even if it's a design or type of bow they've never made?

I don't offer any advice about heat treating, horsebows, sinew backing, or a whole raft of other subjects because I've never done it. Is it appropriate to offer advice on something I have zero first hand experience with?

I guess you just haven't searched hard enough then

Bamboo backed Ash core and Ipe belly pulling about 90# @ 31" built about 3 years ago.  It lost very little of the glued in reflex.



There's another I built several years before that but those pictures might be somewhat harder to come by and I don't have the bow anymore.  It was Ash backed with BC core and Bubinga belly and pulled about 55# @ 29".  It lost all of the glued in reflex and took a bit of set, about what you would expect from a bow.

No, one cannot know everything and I have never claimed to but I do know a fair bit about a large number of different styles of bows, including static recurves  .  Remember I have been at this for a lot longer than you have and this is not the first PA board.

[Marc St Louis]

The only reason I make a tri-lam is to use less belly wood - good clean yew slats are hard to come by.

That's the only reason I would make another

[PatM]

The real reason is that they don't want people showing that other designs work better and destroying the longbow myth.

You have two statements there.
1. Other designs work better.
Yes, in a modern context, but not for killing armoured foe at 200 yards. This is why the longbow evolved into the Victorian style target bow and the modern laminate longbow. Ultimately it was redesigned by Clarence N Hickman becoming more rectangular in section, the American longbow. http://www.archeryhalloffame.com/Hickman.html  He then went on to design the modern take down target recurve. He did that because he has lost some fingers in a rocketry accident and couldn't pull the necessary draw weights of the time. He needed a more efficient bow to enable him to compete.

2. There is no myth that the longbow / Warbow performed it's task admirably. The only slight myth is that it was all about the bow... it was just as much about poor French organisation.

It is ironic that in my youth most of the "how to make a 'longbow' " literature I could read was of American origin and based on the American version of the English longbow using woods like Osage that no timber merchant in the UK had ever heard of!
The rise of the internet and forums like this has ensured that the huge variety of bow types are there to be enjoyed.
To show I have no Longbow bias, I usually shoot a Yew Neolithic style bow
Del

That's the part that's debateable.. Can a more complex selfbow be built that has better long range cast with heavy arrows be built that doesn't adhere to the 5/8 rule and string not touching the limbs at any point when strung?
 I think so.

[toomanyknots]

The real reason is that they don't want people showing that other designs work better and destroying the longbow myth.

You have two statements there.
1. Other designs work better.
Yes, in a modern context, but not for killing armoured foe at 200 yards. This is why the longbow evolved into the Victorian style target bow and the modern laminate longbow. Ultimately it was redesigned by Clarence N Hickman becoming more rectangular in section, the American longbow. http://www.archeryhalloffame.com/Hickman.html  He then went on to design the modern take down target recurve. He did that because he has lost some fingers in a rocketry accident and couldn't pull the necessary draw weights of the time. He needed a more efficient bow to enable him to compete.

2. There is no myth that the longbow / Warbow performed it's task admirably. The only slight myth is that it was all about the bow... it was just as much about poor French organisation.

It is ironic that in my youth most of the "how to make a 'longbow' " literature I could read was of American origin and based on the American version of the English longbow using woods like Osage that no timber merchant in the UK had ever heard of!
The rise of the internet and forums like this has ensured that the huge variety of bow types are there to be enjoyed.
To show I have no Longbow bias, I usually shoot a Yew Neolithic style bow
Del

That's the part that's debateable.. Can a more complex selfbow be built that has better long range cast with heavy arrows be built that doesn't adhere to the 5/8 rule and string not touching the limbs at any point when strung?
 I think so.

Pat, do you mean like a flatbow? The flatbow would have to be a heavy draw weight, which means it would need to be close to as long as a warbow to distribute the stress. Maybe a smidge shorter would work due to the flat profile, but it couldn't reasonably be much shorter with a 100 lbs and over draw weight. And the wider the limbs get, the more shock you get at those lengths and weights with a flatbow design. I've made some pretty high draw weight flatbows out of hackberry. Hackberry takes better to handshock though being a lighter wood. Maybe yew is the same way. I would think supplying armies with flatbows would be inefficient though because of the design taking more wood, and maybe even more time to tiller. The presence of a non-working handle alone would cause more stress to the belly, limiting the life and efficiency of the bow off rip. I think the string not touching the limb shouldn't really be that huge of a deal though. I think you do get a nice string angle advantage which smooths out the draw if you flip your elb tips just a bit. I wouldn't really see it being too much time to just boil a big batch of limb tips and flip em on some forms, I wouldn't see that being that all time consuming. It really only takes 10 minutes or so for it to cool and keep the bend so you can take it out of the form (as long as you don't bend it for a good while, I wait 24 hours). So you could do a big batch with just a couple forms? I get it though they don't want people shooting some fiberglass recurve or something though, .

[Del the cat]

Of course it can!
You can't really compare a self bow with a laminate using boo and exotics, but, at the end of the day, it's the skill of the bowyer that counts.
It's just that a warbow is relatively more efficient when throwing heavy arrows than it is when throwing target ones.
I think you need to spell out what the 'myth' is, else I can't debate it... mind... I'm not sure I want to anyway, the history speaks for itself.

IMO The biggest Myth is that Warbows have a D profile... I don't think any of the MR Bows have what most people would think of as a D section.
Next!
Del

@ Toomany... nice post

[PatM]

I meant purely a selfbow that has been tweaked to get the max performance. The myth is that the longbow is the ultimate bow for the type of warfare it was used in but the truth is that it was really the only one.
 Now if the French had bothered to gather all their Laburnum and make heavy recurved flatbows, the picture might have been entirely different. 
 It is not much more difficult to make recurved  selfbows of extremely high draw weight in shorter lengths. Those are the bows that the WBS don't want showing up.

[Del the cat]

I wouldn't know .. I shun "societies" where possible.
Anyhow do such bows have the long draw length? (It's not all about draw weight). And did they exist at the time?
Del

[toomanyknots]

It is not much more difficult to make recurved  selfbows of extremely high draw weight in shorter lengths.

I think they are. Especially when the tips don't line up on a recurve, and the string wants to come off the recurve. With a longbow, if the tips don't line up and the bow wants to twist, you can scrape one side/weaken one side of the bow until it corrects itself. Tools at the time were probably easier to work on a longbow with a round or round-ish cross section opposed to a flatbow. I think scrapers are easier to use nowadays on a longbow verses a flatbow. Supposedly though, to my uneducated understanding, the manchu used high draw weight recurves just like you are talking about in war, effectively enough to conquer China! Although they would horn bow construction.

[adb]

The real reason is that they don't want people showing that other designs work better and destroying the longbow myth.

You have two statements there.
1. Other designs work better.
Yes, in a modern context, but not for killing armoured foe at 200 yards. This is why the longbow evolved into the Victorian style target bow and the modern laminate longbow. Ultimately it was redesigned by Clarence N Hickman becoming more rectangular in section, the American longbow. http://www.archeryhalloffame.com/Hickman.html  He then went on to design the modern take down target recurve. He did that because he has lost some fingers in a rocketry accident and couldn't pull the necessary draw weights of the time. He needed a more efficient bow to enable him to compete.

2. There is no myth that the longbow / Warbow performed it's task admirably. The only slight myth is that it was all about the bow... it was just as much about poor French organisation.

It is ironic that in my youth most of the "how to make a 'longbow' " literature I could read was of American origin and based on the American version of the English longbow using woods like Osage that no timber merchant in the UK had ever heard of!
The rise of the internet and forums like this has ensured that the huge variety of bow types are there to be enjoyed.
To show I have no Longbow bias, I usually shoot a Yew Neolithic style bow
Del

That's the part that's debateable.. Can a more complex selfbow be built that has better long range cast with heavy arrows be built that doesn't adhere to the 5/8 rule and string not touching the limbs at any point when strung?
 I think so.

Pat, do you mean like a flatbow? The flatbow would have to be a heavy draw weight, which means it would need to be close to as long as a warbow to distribute the stress. Maybe a smidge shorter would work due to the flat profile, but it couldn't reasonably be much shorter with a 100 lbs and over draw weight. And the wider the limbs get, the more shock you get at those lengths and weights with a flatbow design. I've made some pretty high draw weight flatbows out of hackberry. Hackberry takes better to handshock though being a lighter wood. Maybe yew is the same way. I would think supplying armies with flatbows would be inefficient though because of the design taking more wood, and maybe even more time to tiller. The presence of a non-working handle alone would cause more stress to the belly, limiting the life and efficiency of the bow off rip. I think the string not touching the limb shouldn't really be that huge of a deal though. I think you do get a nice string angle advantage which smooths out the draw if you flip your elb tips just a bit. I wouldn't really see it being too much time to just boil a big batch of limb tips and flip em on some forms, I wouldn't see that being that all time consuming. It really only takes 10 minutes or so for it to cool and keep the bend so you can take it out of the form (as long as you don't bend it for a good while, I wait 24 hours). So you could do a big batch with just a couple forms? I get it though they don't want people shooting some fiberglass recurve or something though, .

Well said, Mr Knots.