This bow has a short story over a long time. Two years ago I found a dead straight grained board of Easter Red Cedar that was 8 feet long, 8 inches wide, and quarter sawn. I made a Meare-Heath replica with it and had more than enough to make a longbow. The Meare-Heath is a 90% finished project. I was worried that it wouldn't hold together being as ERC has a low tension to compression ratio, so I backed it with linen then set it aside. Life, work, all that jazz got in the way until a few weeks ago. I picked up the ERC longbow, planed off the linen, ripped down some quarter sawn white oak and glued it all up. Here is the result.
I was originally going to have self nocks, but when I had a small split at one of the nocks in the oak, decided to put antler tips. The wood tips would have extended a couple inches in the fashion of the bows found in Scandinavia and Ireland (possible "Viking" bows). The antler was put on to replicate the deflexed tips. I kept the outer 3rd or so of each limb stiffer, but still bending.
Now onto the important stuff:
Draw: 59 lbs. at 28 in., was going for 50-60 lbs, when the tiller came out good at 59 I called it good.
Length (NtoN): 67 in.
Width at arrow pass: 1 in.
Width at mid limb: 7/8 in.
Width at nocks: 9/16 in.
Thickness at arrow pass: 3/4 in.
Thickness at mid limg: 5/8 in.
Thickness at nocks: 9/16 in.
Thickness of backing: 1/8 in.
I don't have a way to measure arrow speed, but it's faster than any other longbow I've made.
