Best Warbow arrow instructions

[Buck67]

Although I don't shoot anything nearly heavy enough to qualify as a Warbow, 50 pounds seems to be my limit.  I am fascinated by the prospect of building some "proper" arrows for a Warbow.  Where would be the best place to get the specs and drawings of a true medieval long bow arrow?

[WillS]

http://www.theenglishwarbowsociety.com/tudor-livery-arrow.html

That's the Society spec for the Livery arrow.  The Livery arrow is an exact replication of the arrows found onboard the Mary Rose.  The head comes from a find at Portchester Castle from the same period, and the fletchings are the most efficient shape and size when restricted to the 7.5" length that was determined via the whipping on the MR arrows.

Essentially, if you had to pigeon-hole a "medieval" arrow into one set of dimensions/materials, I think it would be roughly as follows:

Half inch tapered shaft of poplar, ash or birch - half inch at the shoulder of the arrowhead, with either a straight taper ("bobtailed") or late taper ("torpedo") to 3/8" at the nock end.
1mm thick cow horn insert at the nock end, inserted against the grain and reinforcing 2" of the shaft.
1/8" wide nock
7.5" fletchings cut in a straight triangle, or with the edge trailing "as nature intended", and cut around 1/2" high.  Some arrows are fletched with 5/8", some with 3/4"
The fletchings should ideally be bound on with silk (or very fine linen if you have to) at between 4 and 6 turns per inch.

The head is the most variable element - you've got short stubby swaged Tudor bodkins for the later period, or Type 10 bodkins or lozenge-shaped plate cutters for slightly earlier (14thC onwards) periods.  Avoid the fancy Hollywood hunting heads, with swept out barbs or swallowtails, and avoid the long needle-shaped bodkins as they were for a much earlier period.

That's a really basic, rough idea - each type of arrow has it's own specific details and dimensions, but if you were to make an arrow using the above guidelines, it would be quite clearly accepted as a "medieval war arrow."

[Buck67]

Thanks for your information.

[adb]

Great advice from WillS. The only downside about a Livery spec arrow... it'll fly like a dog from a 50# bow. It'll fly fine, just not very far.

[WillS]

Adam's quite right of course - Warbow arrows are designed for warbows.  The nice thing about them though is that you can get an almost identical lookalike using much smaller shafts.  You can get 11/32 shafts looking like military arrows, with the same fletchings and similar, lighter heads that will spine and shoot perfectly from a 50# bow.

[Heffalump]

Why not make yourself up half a dozen Standards as a compromise Buck? They'll fly a lot better out of your 50# bow 

http://www.theenglishwarbowsociety.com/standard-arrow.html

Cheers,

John 

[Buck67]

Heffalump, thanks for the info on the Standard arrow.  I had no idea such a thing existed.

[WillS]

Standards will still be a bit much for 50# I think.  If you make up some "Standards" using 11/32 shafts you can get some proper accuracy.  Not much point making a set of expensive arrows if you can't hit things with them. 

It might also be worth noting that in terms of "war arrows" the ewbs standards are a bit inaccurate - they should still be half inch, but they've been slightly bastardised to get maximum flight results.  Mark Stretton for instance still makes his standards half inch thick, with a half inch type 10 head.  He just uses lighter woods like poplar and limewood rather than ash.  The 3/8" diameter is the minimum size, but most people make them that size for distance.

I may be speaking out of turn, so I apologise if it seems presumptuous, but I assume you want to shoot them at targets?  If so, with a 50# bow a 3/8" ash arrow will just go off to the left and drop quickly.  Takes a fairly chunky bow to get them working nicely.  Of course, if you just want a nice looking set of medieval war arrows that are historically accurate to use for shooting into the air then I'd stick to half inch, and choose a period of interest to determine head type.

There haven't actually been any discoveries yet of an arrow that's less than half inch diameter (the Westminster Abbey arrow is barrelled up to half inch)

[Buck67]

Will, I got started building"Historic" arrows when I got a copy of Jim Hamm's Encyclopedia of Native American Bows, Arrows and Quivers.  Some of the "War" arrows require a 3/8" hardwood shaft.  I shoot them once to make sure I did it right and then I try to trade them for pictures of dead presidents.  Some of the Pottawatomie, Iroquois and Choctaw arrows in the book are very similar to the Standard and War arrows as far as size of the shaft.  Others are lighter and were obviously meant for hunting.  For most of my shooting I use a Hickory self bow that is about 42#.  My target arrows with this bow are 5/16" Poplar and seem to work fine.  My 55# bow is a fiberglass center shot recurve that ought to shoot the Standard arrows OK.

It appears that shooting the English Longbow/War Bow is a young man's game and I really don't need to mess up my shoulder trying to shoot anything over 50#.

[WillS]

You're never too old to make big holes in things

My point was that there aren't any medieval arrows found that are 3/8".  The ewbs standard is a sort of hybrid flight arrow / replica thing.  It's fine for a "close enough" arrow, but I wasn't sure if you wanted a true "medieval" arrow or not.  Personally I think the "real deal" always should be half inch.

I still use 3/8" a lot, because I'm not shooting heavy enough bows yet to always need half inch arrows.  I just recently finished a new set of arrows based on the ewbs standard and I kept them 3/8".  They'll be shot from a 95# bow as roving arrows. 

I'm sure you already know this, but the native American arrows weren't designed for use against plate armour - medieval English arrows were all half inch thick to carry the large heavy heads needed for that exact use.  The 3/8" ones are a modern flight equivalent of a medieval arrow.  According to Mark, it's only a very recent change - the standard arrow was always half an inch, until a few people got too obsessed with distance records and started making their standard arrows at the absolute minimum allowed - which happened to be 3/8".

Either way - whether you go for the medieval half inch, or the more recent 3/8" approximation, they'll still look like medieval arrows

Post pics if you make them - Iove seeing new arrows!

[Davepim]

I find that 3/8" shafts fly well from a 70lb bow, if the wood is light, eg. poplar. The one thing that has to be said about the standard arrow spec is that the fletching is very high at 3/4". In practice, this height is usually above the grease line when fletching with natural goose feathers, whereas, if you keep to 1/2" height as for the EWBS livery arrow, this is usually spot on for the grease line of the feather, and the arrow flies better as a result!

Dave

[outcaste]

Of course you could always split the difference and make a 'Westminster' arrow.  This would be based on an actual medieval arrow with a diameter between the old BLBS standard arrow and MR average livery arrow. It is also arguably lighter than both.

You can find more info on it here:  http://warbowwales.com/#/warbow-arrows/4557916533

Alistair

[Frank Thornton]

Thanks for the link Alistair...first time I've seen a close up of the Westminster arrow. I've made a lot of 3/8" shafts and they fly well out of bows from 55-100 lbs although go a lot heavier and you may need to up the shaft to 1/2". Build what you fancy though, as the best part of all this is finding out what works well for you and what ends up in your wood burner!

[WillS]

Hi Frank - what wood do you use for your 3/8" shafts when shooting them from a 55lb bow? 

Personally I've found that 3/8" ash shafts just don't work with bows under about 75#.  My first set of "proper" arrows were 3/8" English ash, and I was shooting a 70# bow and they just went to the left as a stiff arrow will, and I was struggling to reach 100 yards, unless aiming miles above the target.

I've just noticed that Richard Head does 3/8" poplar - might have to give them a go! 

[Frank Thornton]

Hi Wills...Alder, nice to work with, very light and makes nice shafts. I should mention that the 55# bow I use is a Bamboo selfie (Alan Fleming) which has a cast amd punch of a much heavier Yew bow. In fact (off topic I know) Alan is planning on making a heavy Boo bow that will blow all the high Altitude Yew into the boonies