manchu style bow with hickory belly lamination...

would be interesting to see some pics of your earlier , all wood tartar style bows aswell!!!

Technically I probably should not call them Tartar bows, although they look and feel similar to the Tartar horn bows.

I made a few horn bows but horn was difficult to get in reliable quantities back in the 90's. The Tartar horn bow I made didn't shoot much better than a good sinew back osage recurve, but I still liked the compactness of the curves and long stringing time.

I opted for a construction method that depended upon a cheap reliable wood source. A guy made an interesting artical in Primitve Archer about horn bows without horn so I made a few. They seemed to work pretty well and the materials are common and inexpensive.

I haven't chronographed them but they seem to really throw a heavy arrow well. It doesn't seem to gain all that much by reducing arrow weight, but still some gain is possible. The pre-sinewed deflex in the limbs makes it possible to leave them strung for longer periods. I left one 60" Tartar style bow strung for a week without any signs of damage or weakening of the draw. I still have the bow and it shoots viciously.

Basically you just take the basic horn bow design, replace the horn lamination with wood, and deflex the limb before sinewing. Before sinew backing the bow should be bent enough to give a brace height of 3-4 inches (without being strung).

If you have made a horn bow already then you already have the skills and tools to make one.

Horn bows are great but the horn supply is problematic, at least for me.

Here are some pics of one completwe Tartar bow and a Manchu bow core.
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Here is a picture of laminated siyah blanks.

The strung bow is of osage and Birch root siyahs maninated on. I made the core about ten years ago and finally got arround to sinewing it this fall.

I still have to cover the sinew with either Birch bark or Moose rawhide. And I plan on adding wooden string bridges. It is about 61 inches long. This is my favorite pattern, although they tend towards being to heavy in pull for easy shooting.

They are much easier to make than a horn bow, requiring fewer steps and less time. Durability is great. I have never had one break yet.

The only criticism I have of using Osage is that it tends to develope longitudinal cracks on the belly, yet they still hold together and function well. Future samples will have a hickory belly, which seems less prone to longitudinal belly cracks.

You can make a wide variety of profiles and asian style designs this way. I've made two 48 inch ones patterned ofter Turkish bows, these Tartar bows, and even a 72 inch Manchu like bow.

That's pretty neat :) Very cool actually!

Did the osage crack after sinewing? Osage is way better than hickory in compression. It shouldn't be too hard to prevent the cracks. Letting it dry out slower is usually the way to go. Perhaps you could use the same method as Adam K. does with the horn on his bows? Covering the belly with glue soaked fabric should help it stay in one piece.

Hermit; That's a really nice strung bow. This type is the answer to those who find it too difficult to make a horn bow. It is also good for working out designs. Nice work. -j-

The finished bow did get longitudinal cracks on the belly, because it is made of Osage. All my Osage bows of this design do that. None of them have broken or weakened though, even after long heavy use.

The hickory doesn't seem to do that.

I formerly used Osage almost exclusively because at the time I lived in Iowa. There stove pipe straight osage is so common it is almost considered a weed. So I had no difficulty getting unlimited supplies for free.

Up here in Alaska Osage is a mail order product not sold locally even in hard wood stores for obvious reasons. Hickory on the other hand is very easy to find at the hardwood lumber store, and cheap too.

Very nice hermit king..........I am so amazed at the craftmanship of you guys on here.

Does the cold of the season effect your work? I have been in contact with some bowyers who could not finish bows down here in MI because of the temperature, just wondering how that is effecting you in Alaska.

Cheers,

Joe

The thing I like about laminating the siyahs is that you can use strips of differing wood colors. Like walnut and Cherry, Osage and bright white Birch. The other advantage is that you can steam bend the slats before gluing into virtually any curve or profile imaginable.

My experience is that you can make the 48 inch Turkish style this way, but I found that at lower draw weight there was a law of diminishing returns. At low poundage they shoot slower than straight wooden bows. Once you make one at about 60 plus pounds the effeciency starts improving and the weight of the siyahs doesn't seem to slow the velocity down at all.

I prefer to make bows at least 55 inches long, 60 inches being my preference. Then lower poundage bows operate a little better. The again I tend to shoot on the heavy side. Sluggish arrows really bore me.

Looks good.

... I do not think these can be used to test horn bow designs, these
are different bows that just look like horn bows...

I would not use Hickory in belly since is known to take huge set, if you do not live in desert... But you have enough recurve to counter that, so it is probably not a problem then.

Some performance ideas for next one:
Have you considered making deflex z-spliced grip and make also the limb reflexed? I think this would be more efficient because of perry princible.
NOTE: The handle turns to heavy & heavy looking and it will not look like qing bow anymore.

Make the tips from light wood(spruce, pine) in the center and heavier wood in back+belly.

Great job!

I can relate to your problems of getting horn. For a while now I've been wanting to try to make a Qing bow but comparing the pieces of horn I bought, none are as long as those on the antique I want to replicate. These guys had a much larger pool of material to chose from than we have now, and most horn suppliers focus on relatively short pieces for smaller bow designs.

The strung bow looks really nice, it reminds of some Qing strength-testing bows.

On bamboo bellies, that's actually a historical construction in the Qing. They are rather rare, but seen on occasion. The rest is similar.

Your ear construction is interesting, it's not the way they did it in the past but if it works it seems like a pretty convenient way to do it.

-Peter

I have made bows of this kind using the traditional spliced siyah, but finding naturally bent pieces of wood the exact profile I wanted was time consuming.

Jeffery Schmidt suggested laminated steam bent strips so I tried it. I later graduated to using a single 1/2 inch strip laminated over the bent tip of the 1/2 inch core. The resulting lap joint gives an inch thick static tip in what ever profile you want.

It seems form some of the archeological samples shown here and elsewhere, that earlier horn bows like the Magyar bow sometimes used a lap joined siyah. Later it seems like others preferred siyahs of naturally bent grain.

I've made one 48 inch bow w/solid hickory core and it seems to be holding up fine. Taking a set seems to only be a problem with hickory when it is not adequately dried out. I live in a very low humidity area so I have not observed any weakening with the hickory one.

Hermit; This is an excellent design. With cold weather and low humidity, this bow may have the perfect performance for you. Besides, most all of us would be unable to draw a hormbow which would be strong enough to out perform this "laminated backed bow"

Coincidental that you mention Jeff Schmidt. A friend gave me his old disc on Building the Asiatic composite bow. Did you have something to do with that production? You appear to be working on the set. -j-

Really nice looking bow. Good work Hermetking, Iwouldn't mind to try making something like that. Can't quite figure out how you have attached the siyas to the limbs? Was wondering if you could show a close up? I'd appreciate it.

Hey Jack, you asked about me being on the set of Jeff's video.

No, that's not me. Your probably thinking of McPherson, John is his name, I think. I've let my beard grow a little bushy because I've been to buzy to shave. I roll out of bed, fall into my boots and run to my sled every day. I don't groom well while running to work.

Back in the 90's I wanted a horn bow so bad that I bought his video after I failed in constructing one several times. He really knew what he was doing. The video gives a good idea of the basic construction concepts, but the editing could have used some work.

I used to call him up every few weeks and ask him for advise on bow construction. He was a real nice guy, charitable and helpful. I lost touch with him around 1994-95.

Hey dragonman, the way I join the ears to the rest of the limb is either with a "V" splice joint just like the other bows people show here at the this sight. The only difference is that the belly lamination is wood rather than horn. For that method just look at the photos of how they do it here and replace the horn with wood.

Another method is a lap joint, which I don't have apicture of now, but in the spring I'll try to post more photos. Right now I have a poor set up for photos and have to borrow my sons laptop camera. The color and lighting is really lousy and makes it hard to see important details.

The lap joint is a good method because it can be used with a solid one peice slat for the limbs, rather than a two slat lamination, saving construction time. Just steam bend a full length strip of wood (1/2 inch by 1 1/2 inch by length) to the profile you are planning. Next bend 1/2 inch thick strips that match the inside curve of the recurved ends and glue it on with a simple lap joint. Once the glue dries you then carve the ends into the siyahs and fade out.

To me it seems like an easier, cheaper and faster construction method for siyahs, and I don't understand why the old bowyers didn't often use the method. I like the lap joined siyah because the grain of the bending limb continues right through the siyah and up to the nocks. Perhaps it was dictated by a shortage of cheap timber, so they used multiple peices to make a bow.

Hermitking wrote:

To me it seems like an easier, cheaper and faster construction method for siyahs, and I don't understand why the old bowyers didn't often use the method.

Good point.. why didn't they. The process of steam-bending was well known at least to the Chinese, when you look at the horse-hoove chairs they produced. But for some reason, we see innovations not going from one trade to another, at least in China, perhaps because some methods were considered trade secrets and kept within the guild. Differences between guild were so large that they often even had different rulers.

One example is that the "carriage spring" concept was used on crossbows from early times onward, but nowhere in Chinese history has someone come up with the idea of using it to make a spring for a wagon.

Hermitking wrote:

I like the lap joined siyah because the grain of the bending limb continues right through the siyah and up to the nocks. Perhaps it was dictated by a shortage of cheap timber, so they used multiple peices to make a bow.

I can't think of any better reason myself, but I don't think a shortage of timber was an issue.

Bows were an elite item in most of Asia and were thus of high priority. In China for example they Manchu bow was the main weapon of a 300.000 strong elite that ruled over some 400 million people. The stuff they dragged from all corners of the empire and beyond to cater to their elite is almost unimaginable. Especially in the early-mid Qing Manchu officers were paid considerable amounts in silver to buy their own equipment, and the thick layers of damascened gold adorning the sabers of the high class shows us they had some cash to spare once the necessities were done for. Their bows were also constructed in the same manner, with v-splices.

Then again it could be that the construction emerged in a situation of shortage of wood, and the tradition was kept the same regardless of the availability of materials. In that case, your theory might be a valid one after-all.

-Peter

Hermit's construction is that of Hunnic type bows, one technology previous to those of the Manchus and others.

Another reason against traditional use of laminated siyahs may be the concern of delamination in wet environs. The sinew and horn laminations and Vsplices were all covered to some extent with Birch bark or skins impregnated with water proofing agents. The siyahs on the other hand were often left uncovered(perhaps to reduce weight) and were thus more vulnerable to becoming unglued in the wet situations.

Using curved roots and branches for siyahs would make siyahs more water resistent and would be plentiful in any woodlot. Another feature I have noticed about tree roots in parrticular is that the wood of the root is far more dense and strong than the rest of the tree, at least with the trees I work with.

Finally I suspect there was something sentimental about retaining the natural curve of a real organic root. I've noticed that the more urban people are the more they crave objects that are still in a somewhat natural state, to balance out the geometric uniformity and manmade organizing style of urban life. Japanese gardens remind me of this impulse. Victorian england with it's parks and greenhouses as a relief from the congested poluted city life also comes to mind. To an urban chinese that lives a well cultured life, objects of, "undefiled," natural substance may have helped them cope with the intense organizing spirit of imperialism, and maintain a connection with the natural order.

I think that archery in general hung on so long in Asia and places like England precisely because it seemed more in conformity with nature than the thunder of muskets and gunsmoke.

Jack, I noticed also that the lap jointed ear was used on certian types of earlier bows in this forums diagrams. Were the Magyars also using this?

I suspect that it was the most obvious and natural way to stiffen a reflexed limb tip, thus was probably used more commonly in the earlier developement of siyahs/ears. It seems to suggest to me that the "v" splices came along after a more sophisticated selection of tools and skills came along. It doesn't take real sophisticated tools to produce a lap splice, where as the "v" splices require at the very least a fine toothed saw.

Hermit; About 200 BCE the Hunns of Central Asia developed a bow which was revolutionary to the existing Scythian bow. This technology spread to all the peoples of the area and they took it with then as they migrated west. Variations on this design were in use for maybe 1400 years.

Its disadvantage was the number of pieces. For instance the Khotan bow has 29 pieces not including sinew and covering. Bark was used as a bow covering since about 1800 0r 1500 BCE. at least maybe earlier.

Single piece siyahs were simpler and more to the point. The grip needs to be solid and bulky, the limb needs to be thin and wide and the siyah wants to be bent with a triangular base and a rectangular tip. So putting the core together makes sense if you know about V-splicing. V-splicing is counterintuitive. It looks scary to make the soul of a hornbow in small pieces. Besides, what looks simple to us took thousands of years to work out. You do not know what you do not know!

It is very satisfying to experiment with ancient technologies.

This thread is a great example of the value that ATARN has. It just brings together quite a few people who are knowledgeable and passionate about what they are doing. Knowledgeable of the equipment and the people who used them for everyday needs...........I have allot to learn but really enjoy it all.

Lap joint:
we can make all kinds of laminates with planers, cirular saws and bandsaws wery quickly.

If you have to do everything by hand the not only the relative amount of
time changes. It changes a lot differently in different tasks.

...

With bandsaw and belt sander it is possible to make good pyramidical flatbow in an hour. But making sinew backing still takes several hours to glue and several more to process the sinew. This is not much for stone
age man that used flint for making the bow.

So the relative complexities for task will change a lot when using tools that were no available for previous generations.

Manchu bows with bamboo cores had different and stiffer wood used in the siyah. Using "v" splices made it possible to choose the materials for the different parts of the core best suited to the action that they were intended for and the weight that was efficient. Earlier bows probably had the belly side of the siyah built up with laminations after the core had been heat bent. This usually was accompanied by side laminations of antler or bone.

I have to look it up, but the earliest reference to tip reinforcements that I have found is in a Wenwu article in 1990 about a site called P'ing-yang. They are associated with early iron tools. I might be able to get into the library I know of with a copy in the next few days. If they are bow tip reinforcements of the type we have been discussing, I will let you know.

As to why the construction changed around the time of the Mongols (+ or - a couple of centuries), we are not dealing with teams of scientists planning a new manufacturing methodology. Individual craftsmen used the same methods as their teachers (usually fathers) until they saw a better way that either suited their needs or their customers. The most likely scenario is that the technique of building came with the new shape and it was adopted together with the new design. It would be really interesting to know if the Turkish and Mongol Khanates had policies of improving their weapons manufacture as the Ancient Greeks in Sicily did. They might have sent bowyers from place to place to demonstrate the required methods. It seems unlikely, but their might be evidence somewhere.

In art and archaeology, we see snapshots at various points in time, not a continuous movie of the development particular objects. Sometimes things in one area continue unchanged while other places keep up with the latest trends. I am sure someone will dig up a bow with features of one type and construction methods of another. This is the problem of lots of individual bowyers belonging to separate cultures: you may have three different styles within 30 kilometres of each other. In the big settled empires like Rome and China, things became more standardised.