Harry Drake record yew bow

[redhawk55]

Is there any pic of Harry Drake's yew bow available?
No results when searching by google and........................
Michael

[Badger]

  I would love to see that bow, Harry Drake always gave credit to the fantastic piece of yew he used for that. I think it was a matter of getting the design for the stave just right. I wish I knew more details about the actual shot, draw length, poundage , details on arrow etc.

[avcase]

Was there such a bow shot for official distance?  I read through a huge stack of letters Harry wrote to Bert Grayson over a 20 year period. In them, Harry does mention a short yew self bow that he crafted for the newly formed primitive divisions.  He was very proud of it and had high expectations for it, but it blew up when drawn back at its debut at one of the flight competitions. I can go back and look. I think there was a picture or two of it.

The highlight of Drake's primitive bow building was with his horn-sinew-wood composites in the 1990's. I believe they were not much more than 75-80lb draw. Dan Perry shot one of them in the mid-500 yard range and Don Brown shot the other past 600 yards.  Don still holds the overall modern primitive bow record with that bow.

Alan

[Badger]

  Allen, I believe in a conversation with Dan Perry one time he was talking about a yew bow made by Harry Drake that had held some record. It may have fallen under the old flight rules, I don't know much about it. I remember Dan saying that Harry credited to wood. Thats about all I knew about it.

[PatM]

Dan Perry said that the bow was 60 inches long  and pulled 80 plus pounds. It was very narrow(one inch) and deep with static tips like all flight bows of the time.
 The bow rapidly degraded in performance and was sold off as a hunting bow.
   The Homer Prouty bow that alan showed on Paleoplanet is likely not too far off what the bow looked like.
 The weight of the arrow used indicates it was probably a shorter arrow and I wouldn't be surprised if a short overdraw was used.
   Here is Dan's quote: 
 When I was trying to pick Harry Drake's brain, (not much success. He was pretty tight lipped about any hows or whys) he told me of a yew self bow he shot just over 540 yards, maybe 541. He said it had very short sharp angled recurves like this one, was 60 inches long, 87 Pound draw, and had limbs about 1 inch wide, rectangular in limb cross section. It was made from high elevation, Earl Ulrich yew

 

[Badger]

    I have a bow right now, that is about 58" long with the short tight statics that I am getting very good speeds out of, up to 300 fps at about 54#. I have yet to get a clean shot out of it though. I have been shooting it with 200 grain arrows and about 250 fps, it should be good for well over 400 yards but I am getting just a little over 300 with it.

   Interesting topic is limb cross section. Thick limbs tend to be more efficient but degrade more quickly than wide flat limbs. I am leaning now toward a wide flat but very short working area tapering to a thick longer static area like the Mollagabet styles. The short static curves really seem to shine with the light arrows.

[PatM]

Why not just stick a little overdraw on and use a lighter, shorter arrow? That will  likely tell us a lot about those records that have blurry details.
 I have a short static that I'm working on that is designed along the principles of using what has already been proven to work.

[Badger]

  We can't use overdraws and minimum arrow length is 23".

[PatM]

I'm fully aware of that. I meant  to see if that's the part that let those records be so superior. Surely  Harry wasn't using a full length or even 23" arrow weighing 140 grains.

[Badger]

      I would love to dry and duplicate that shot. I don't know of anyone who has enough info on it to make that possible.

[PatM]

I think you just need to reverse engineer it. At least we have some info and the gaps could be filled in after at least executing the known factors.
 Looking at Drakes early laminated static flight bows  with their aluminum overdraw rests gives other hints as to what sort of draw versus arrow length was typical in that era.

[Badger]

  I would probably go for a 21" arrow with a 26" draw. At 21" I can get good stiffness and low weight from a relatively dense piece of wood. About 15 years ago I built an ipe shorty at about 100# maybe a tad more. I mounted it on a crossbow and shot an 18" purple heart arrow. I never got an exact measure on it but I am pretty sure it exceeded 500 yards.

[PatM]

Ipe  with backing?  I honestly think a strong guy could just hand shoot a crossbow prod type bow and exceed the records.
 Draw weights for hand held bows back then seemed to max out at under 100 pounds for whatever reason.
  Hill's 170 pound  record being the exception but its distance was mediocre.

[redhawk55]

Thanx a lot for your replies.
This seems to be a very similiar bow: http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/30411/t/Impressive-1930-s-flight-bow.html#.VmQM8abXJ-g
It is made by the above mentioned Homer Prouty, outstanding!!!!  Yew without the sapwood, no backing. Can't believe that.
As usually, it is all about a more than perfect piece of wood and a much more perfect tiller- job.
Let's go for a try.,
Michael

[Del the cat]

Woo, nice bend on those hooks
The cutaway for the  arrow pass looks a tad experimental, like it's evolved to do the job which is to be expected I s'pose.
Del