Post by FlyinCedar on Mar 15, 2006 12:33:46 GMT -5
The answer is....NO.....Primitive and traditional bows are much more than that. Although a good straight stick with a string of flax or other plant fibers will work in a pinch, there is actually much thought that goes into making a bow.
Lets clear a couple of things up first...there is a difference between traditional and primitive.
Primitive refers to bows made entirely of one piece of wood, such as a stave cut from a tree, possibly sinew or rawhide backed. They are made with all natural materials. The exception would be the string not being made of hand-spun plant fibers, as these are not always available, and most people use a B-50 string, and still comsider it primitive. Whether you count the string as primitive or not, the point is, the bow IS all natural materials.
Traditional bows are generally laminated recurves and longbows. These bows may be all wood with another type of backing, such as fiberglass or bamboo. Some may consider bamboo primitive....I don't because you need a good epoxy to adhere it, as hide glue will not work very well, therefore the glue, which is now part of the bow, is not natural.
I will not go into a step by step on bowmaking right now, that will come at a later time, with plenty of pictures. My goal is to make sure we all understand how complex it can actually be. We will discus various considerations in making a primitive bow.
Your first job, and second most important, is to select the right piece of wood...we will get into the most important later.
Most traditional and primitive archers know, that Osage and Yew reign supreme in bowmaking. If you haven't made a few bows, I would not recommend using one of these types of wood...they are iron tough, but will not accept many mistakes on your part. I would instead suggest a type of wood such as Hickory, which is very tough, and will allow you to be less than perfect. If you cannot find a good Hickory that you are able to cut down, visit your local hardwoods store, where you should be able to pick up a nice Hickory board...Some may call this cheating, cause you didn't cut and air dry the wood. Instead, it was cut at random from a log and kiln dried quickly..Consider this though...Kiln drying is still drying the wood with air. Also, it is not like this piece of wood was magically made some where...It was once a part of a mighty tree. Someone violated the heck out of it, and threw it on stack with other violated pieces of that tree. By purchasing this piece of wood and using it make a bow, you are simply restoring in to its natural glory, and elevating it to the highest level that wood can achieve...a bow for taking the game animals that God put here for us. In this discussion, we will discuss mostly bowmaking with Osage, as there are a lot more things to look for, and not enough time right now to get into making whitewood bows. Some common names for Osage are:
Bodare
Bodark
Bodock
Bois d'arc
Bow wood
Hedge
Hedge apple
Horse apple
Naranjo chino
One thing you must look for when selecting an Osage tree to cut, or a stave to work down, is twist in the wood. Any more than extremely slight twist will make a useless bow. If cutting a tree, you can look at the bark before ever cutting...If the bark spirals in areas around the tree, the wood inside is twisted, and you should select another tree, or another section of that tree. If you are starting with a stave cut by someone else, any twist will be apparent.
Here is a very large example of an Osage Orange...also known as Hedgeapple tree...as you can see, it is very twisted. Straight Osage is hard to come by, but it does exist if ya look hard enough. Most Osage tree you find will not be this big.....
Another thing you must look for is the growth ring thickness. Osage trees are made up of growth rings of early wood, which is the light colored rings, which are porous and brittle, and latewood, which is dark yellow to orange in color, and is extremely strong. You want the latewood as thick as possible, with early wood as thin as posible...this is easier said than done, and you just need to make sure you get nice and thick latewood rings.
Here is a hand drawn (not by me) example of early wood and latewood rings...the early wood is represented by white, the latewood by black. This is what you would get after you have removed the bark and sapwood, and cut the stave down to starting dimensions, around 2" X 1 1/2". The one on the left will make a bow of about any weight, while he one on the right may only make a lightweight bow, due to the thinner, thus weaker latewood rings.
Once you have selected your piece of wood and worked it down to your prefered starting dimension with a bandsaw, hatchet, or drawknife, you need to work it down to one ring on the back( the side facing away from you as you would be shooting) The back of the bow, if not applying a backing such as sinew, rawhide, or bamboo, must be one continuous ring/layer. You must follow the profile of this ring no matter what it does...whether it dips, rises, or goes side to side, it must be followed. All of these undulations of the wood are ok, as long as it does not twist. Your bow can snake back and forth as much as the the wood wants, as long as you design it so the string falls down the centerline of the bow, from tip to tip. A bow like this will shoot no different than a perfectly straight one. Be sure not to violate the ring you want to use for the back, as Osage will not tolerate this without a backing, and may cause failure and injury...if it holds up long enough to shoot.
As you look at the picture above, I would use the second ring from the top(which is the back of the bow), because it is nice and thick, and I don't have to remove tons of wood to get to it. It will also leave me plenty of room to work on the belly side. A drawknife will work well for this, just be careful not to violate that ring.
Once you have the bow worked to a back, you then start working the belly side down to get it to bend, and working on shaping your handle.
After you have the limbs bending about 5-6", which is called floor tillered, you can start to actually tiller the bow.
I said I would get to the most important part later, and now is later. Tillering is by far the most important aspect of bowmaking. Tillering means that both limbs bend equally throughout their length. Without a proper tiller, you will not have a good shooting bow, and run the risk of it breaking while shooting. You must succesfully tiller the bow BEFORE trying to take it to your draw weight.
Tillering is explained simply, but takes some real practice to get good at ....basically, you want to remove wood where the limb doesn't bend enough, and leave it alone where it bends too much....we will get into this more with the build-along.
Once tillering is complete, the bow is ready to be dropped to your desired draw weight, finished, and shot.
Osage is by far the best wood for bowbuilding, but be warned, it will test your patience and character to its limits...it can be very frustrating to work with due to its extreme toughness.
Hopefully, this has given you an idea of what goes into making a primitive bow. I know it was not all explained in great detail, but this was only meant to be an overview.... We will get the rest, I promise.
Please do not use this post alone to try your hand at bowmaking...there are many more things that need to be accounted for, and more steps to follow when making a bow.
So, as you can see, there is much more involved than a string on a stick. From the ancient English longbowmen, to the American Indians, and current bowyers, a lot of time and patience has been put forth to master the science of bowmaking. I am forever grateful to those who came before me, that I may learn from them and keep the fire alive with my passion for primitive and traditional archery.
Lets clear a couple of things up first...there is a difference between traditional and primitive.
Primitive refers to bows made entirely of one piece of wood, such as a stave cut from a tree, possibly sinew or rawhide backed. They are made with all natural materials. The exception would be the string not being made of hand-spun plant fibers, as these are not always available, and most people use a B-50 string, and still comsider it primitive. Whether you count the string as primitive or not, the point is, the bow IS all natural materials.
Traditional bows are generally laminated recurves and longbows. These bows may be all wood with another type of backing, such as fiberglass or bamboo. Some may consider bamboo primitive....I don't because you need a good epoxy to adhere it, as hide glue will not work very well, therefore the glue, which is now part of the bow, is not natural.
I will not go into a step by step on bowmaking right now, that will come at a later time, with plenty of pictures. My goal is to make sure we all understand how complex it can actually be. We will discus various considerations in making a primitive bow.
Your first job, and second most important, is to select the right piece of wood...we will get into the most important later.
Most traditional and primitive archers know, that Osage and Yew reign supreme in bowmaking. If you haven't made a few bows, I would not recommend using one of these types of wood...they are iron tough, but will not accept many mistakes on your part. I would instead suggest a type of wood such as Hickory, which is very tough, and will allow you to be less than perfect. If you cannot find a good Hickory that you are able to cut down, visit your local hardwoods store, where you should be able to pick up a nice Hickory board...Some may call this cheating, cause you didn't cut and air dry the wood. Instead, it was cut at random from a log and kiln dried quickly..Consider this though...Kiln drying is still drying the wood with air. Also, it is not like this piece of wood was magically made some where...It was once a part of a mighty tree. Someone violated the heck out of it, and threw it on stack with other violated pieces of that tree. By purchasing this piece of wood and using it make a bow, you are simply restoring in to its natural glory, and elevating it to the highest level that wood can achieve...a bow for taking the game animals that God put here for us. In this discussion, we will discuss mostly bowmaking with Osage, as there are a lot more things to look for, and not enough time right now to get into making whitewood bows. Some common names for Osage are:
Bodare
Bodark
Bodock
Bois d'arc
Bow wood
Hedge
Hedge apple
Horse apple
Naranjo chino
One thing you must look for when selecting an Osage tree to cut, or a stave to work down, is twist in the wood. Any more than extremely slight twist will make a useless bow. If cutting a tree, you can look at the bark before ever cutting...If the bark spirals in areas around the tree, the wood inside is twisted, and you should select another tree, or another section of that tree. If you are starting with a stave cut by someone else, any twist will be apparent.
Here is a very large example of an Osage Orange...also known as Hedgeapple tree...as you can see, it is very twisted. Straight Osage is hard to come by, but it does exist if ya look hard enough. Most Osage tree you find will not be this big.....
Another thing you must look for is the growth ring thickness. Osage trees are made up of growth rings of early wood, which is the light colored rings, which are porous and brittle, and latewood, which is dark yellow to orange in color, and is extremely strong. You want the latewood as thick as possible, with early wood as thin as posible...this is easier said than done, and you just need to make sure you get nice and thick latewood rings.
Here is a hand drawn (not by me) example of early wood and latewood rings...the early wood is represented by white, the latewood by black. This is what you would get after you have removed the bark and sapwood, and cut the stave down to starting dimensions, around 2" X 1 1/2". The one on the left will make a bow of about any weight, while he one on the right may only make a lightweight bow, due to the thinner, thus weaker latewood rings.
Once you have selected your piece of wood and worked it down to your prefered starting dimension with a bandsaw, hatchet, or drawknife, you need to work it down to one ring on the back( the side facing away from you as you would be shooting) The back of the bow, if not applying a backing such as sinew, rawhide, or bamboo, must be one continuous ring/layer. You must follow the profile of this ring no matter what it does...whether it dips, rises, or goes side to side, it must be followed. All of these undulations of the wood are ok, as long as it does not twist. Your bow can snake back and forth as much as the the wood wants, as long as you design it so the string falls down the centerline of the bow, from tip to tip. A bow like this will shoot no different than a perfectly straight one. Be sure not to violate the ring you want to use for the back, as Osage will not tolerate this without a backing, and may cause failure and injury...if it holds up long enough to shoot.
As you look at the picture above, I would use the second ring from the top(which is the back of the bow), because it is nice and thick, and I don't have to remove tons of wood to get to it. It will also leave me plenty of room to work on the belly side. A drawknife will work well for this, just be careful not to violate that ring.
Once you have the bow worked to a back, you then start working the belly side down to get it to bend, and working on shaping your handle.
After you have the limbs bending about 5-6", which is called floor tillered, you can start to actually tiller the bow.
I said I would get to the most important part later, and now is later. Tillering is by far the most important aspect of bowmaking. Tillering means that both limbs bend equally throughout their length. Without a proper tiller, you will not have a good shooting bow, and run the risk of it breaking while shooting. You must succesfully tiller the bow BEFORE trying to take it to your draw weight.
Tillering is explained simply, but takes some real practice to get good at ....basically, you want to remove wood where the limb doesn't bend enough, and leave it alone where it bends too much....we will get into this more with the build-along.
Once tillering is complete, the bow is ready to be dropped to your desired draw weight, finished, and shot.
Osage is by far the best wood for bowbuilding, but be warned, it will test your patience and character to its limits...it can be very frustrating to work with due to its extreme toughness.
Hopefully, this has given you an idea of what goes into making a primitive bow. I know it was not all explained in great detail, but this was only meant to be an overview.... We will get the rest, I promise.
Please do not use this post alone to try your hand at bowmaking...there are many more things that need to be accounted for, and more steps to follow when making a bow.
So, as you can see, there is much more involved than a string on a stick. From the ancient English longbowmen, to the American Indians, and current bowyers, a lot of time and patience has been put forth to master the science of bowmaking. I am forever grateful to those who came before me, that I may learn from them and keep the fire alive with my passion for primitive and traditional archery.
