Bamboo crossbow
I want to make a Ming crossbow with a bamboo leaf spring prod. I have a good idea of the construction, but I was wondering if anybody could help me with the dimensions nock to nock length, amount of bamboo slats, draw length, arrow length etc. I found a few pictures and they seem to have fairly long prods with long draws but I don't know how accurate they are? I want the draw weight to be around 200#
Thanks for your help.
Thanks for your help.
There's a complete set of dimensioned drawings in the Ming Dynasty encyclopedia Wu Bei Zhi by Mao Yuanyi. Do you have anyone around who can deal with the Chinese explanations?
No unfortunately I don't know anyone who knows Chinese. Is this one of the drawings you were talking about?
Mmm. Not sure. This one seems to be different. It claims to have three trigger settings for three different release powers (1 bamboo, 2 bamboo and 3 bamboo). I can't really work out how this one works. This drawing is not dimensioned.
OK thanks anyways. I guess what I'm looking for is just a rough approximation of the length of the prod and I should be able to figure the rest out. From the drawings I've seen of soldiers holding crossbows I'm guessing that the prod is about 4.5 - 5 feet with a draw length about half that. Does that sound right?
Hang in there: I'll look for some stuff on another computer at home. I once did a lot of translation for a US highschool group who were building one of these things as a class project. I'll see if I can find it: it would definitely have the data you are looking for.
While searching the forum I found this link
http://198.170.108.27/images/ming_xbow/ming_xbow.htm
It answers most of my questions, I guess I should of looked around more first. :oops: The prod is actually very short, much shorter than I thought.
http://198.170.108.27/images/ming_xbow/ming_xbow.htm
It answers most of my questions, I guess I should of looked around more first. :oops: The prod is actually very short, much shorter than I thought.
Hey! Did I write that? Cool! I knew I'd done something useful somewhere... :lol:
Stephen, if it's not too much trouble I would like to know the length of the quarrels. I finished building the prod and I'm starting on the stock but I'm not sure of it's length. If I knew the length of the quarrel I would be able to build the stock around it.
Thanks again
Thanks again
I finally finished the crossbow a few weeks ago and thought I should post some pictures.
Two more