Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: lonbow on December 20, 2022, 02:48:43 pm
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This is the latest bow I have made. It's a so called "continental longbow", which is a historical design that was produced in France and Swizerland and until the 1800s. This kind of bow was made out of laburnum, which is a small tree native to the southern part of the Alps. Its wood is extremely elastic and stressable which makes it one of the best, if not the best bow wood native to Europe.
For this bow, I used two laburnum billets that are spliced together in a reflex position. This bow is slightly heat treated. Its length is 65.5 " ntn and draws 42 lbs @ 27 ". It has a reflex of 4 3/4 inches and its maximum width is 1 3/16 inches. The physical weight without the leather grip is 14.5 oz. I'm really happy how it shoots. It's a really fast and nonetheless foregiving shooter.
I also want to mention that the bow is made out of natural materials only. the splice is glued with sturgeon glue and the roe deer antler tips are glued on with hide glue. The grip material is made out of vegetable tanned leather that I glued on the bow with casein glue. The entire bow is sealed with linenseed oil and several coats of shellac. The only non natural material I used is the 10 strand FF-string, as it´s made for a customer.
I hope you like it. Constructive feedback is always welcome.
lonbow
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some more...
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and more...
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...
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I will add a full draw picture tomorrow.
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Nice bow and finish work. That wood looks very dense, similar to osage or black locust.
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Beautiful bow! Love the reflex and the antler tip overlays. Great job!
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Great job on that bow. I really like the profile. Beautifully done.
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Wow, really nice!
Yes, got to love the profile!
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Nicely done for sure. It’s got some nice curves. Like those tips.
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Wow that is really nice. Those tips are great.
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You made something fantastic there lonbow! Love everything about it. I'm deeply impressed.
you definitly should show us more of your bows.
cheers
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Beautiful bow, nice work, looks cold where you are (S)
Pappy
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Beauty of a bow, nice work
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Thank you very much for your friendly comments. I'm really glad you like it :)
The density of laburnum is somewhere between 0.73 and 0.85. So the densest pieces are comparable to Osage. This piece was somewhere in between. I have noticed that laburnum sapwood and heartwood have somewhat different properties. The sapwood is stronger in tension then the heartwood. Bows that are only made out of heartwood need to be a bit wider.
I did a few shots through the chrono. I reached an average speed of 182 fps with 10.3 gpp arrows. About 1 s anchor time.
Here's the full draw picture I made today. I'm afraid it's not perfectly perpendicular.
cheers and Merry Christmas! (S)
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Fantastic work. I really like your interpretation of a continental longbow, beautiful.
It looks like a conventional rounded belly cross section, like an ELB? I think examples of Swiss bows from Lausanne Abbey had a changing cross section along the length of the limbs. Pretty complicated stylistically, not sure how much improvement if any, it gives, though. There was a Swiss bowyer, Blaise Fontenaz (not sure about spelling) making replicas of these bows.
Not a great deal of information easily found about these bows, especially in English.
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Beautiful bow! One of my all time favorites. You should flight shoot it.
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Gorgeous bow :)
Del
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That's a beautiful bow!
I found a 4" trunk of laburnum when I was in Seattle. I've been thinking about what to do with it for the last four months.
It was the look of the heartwood that made me decide to snag it. Once I did some research I found that it is a very reputable bow wood.
The company I was working for called it "golden chain tree", which is probably standard for ornamental plantings to be labeled with.
I read somewhere that the sapwood isn't worth keeping on it. I'm glad to see otherwise. The contrast is great.
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Very nicely done! Tiller looks great. You forsook the picture perfect post tiller for the tiller the stave needed. Impressive! Jawge
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Hope you had a Merry Christmas!
Thank you all for this positive feedback! I really feel glad you like it!
There are certainly several variations of this bow style. I've seen bows that are between 63 and 74 inches long. Some bows have less and some have more setback in the grip. The length and the degree of the re curves can also vary. As you said, the most striking feature of some bows is the pentagonal cross section of the limbs with decorative grooves. I think that both the rounded and pentagonal style shoot about the same.
I would love to flight shoot this bow, but I unfortunately can't because I made it for a customer. But I'm generally really interested in starting flight shooting (SH) :)
The sapwood of laburnum or the golden chain tree can be extremely tough, but it can also be brittle, as it's not very rot resistant. The best sapwood I've seen is of a yellowish colour and white grayish sapwood seems also to be very good. But I've seen two laburnum bows with grey brownish sapwood that were broken straight across the back. So I would definitely remove the sapwood in those cases and make the bow a bit wider for safety. The heartwood is also good in tension, but not as good as intact sapwood.
lonbow
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Thats a lot of reflex on that finished bow. Looks awesome. I'm bet the customer is pretty pleaed with that one.
Mike
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Wow! Love the bow along with the bit of information added. That would be hard to send off.