Essential books to have while making horn bows?

Adam Karpowicz's book and the Traditional Bowyers' Bible 1-3.

The book from Chengdu is useful too, but I am not sure if it is still available. Thomas Duvernay's DVDs and the older one on composite bow making from America, How to Construct the Asiatic Composite Bow by Schmidt and McPherson are also useful.

I would rely on Adam and Thomas if there was a conflict.

I found a reference to a book by Mcleod here on atarn that seems quite useful for making the angular egyptian bows: "Composite Bows from the Tomb of Tutankhamun" (1960)

What is the title of the book that you are refering to, Bede? Perhaps the library or antiquarian bookshop will be able to find it.

Reginal Laubin wrote a pretty good book including information on constructing American Indian horn and antler bows. You must forgive an error or two.

Hamilton has a section by Bill Holmes describing ten museum pieces. He made a later list of some 40 or 50 american hornbows. Grayson also contributes.

Jack, my copy of Hamilton's book has the whole appendix on making sheep horn bows by Bill Holmes, I think it's the second edition of the book. Is the appendix present in your book too?
I haven't had a chance to go through Laubin completely yet so I can't really compare here.
Some Edward McEven's pitures of an old Koren composite are in the Hamilton's book as well, also some two interesting composites (somewhere south of Ural?), one with a wooden belly, now probably nonexistent or lost, are mentioned.

I would also recommend "T?rk Ok?uluğu" by Dr. ?nsal Y?cel, unfortunatley for most of us it's only in Turkish.

Japp's video "All tied up in bowmaking", displaying the Japanese rope and wedges technique, is also useful, some use the techinque with hornbows.

Holger Richter's book "Die Hornbogen Armbrust" is a great source of information for anyone interested in making comopsite laths for crossbows.

Ash; My copy of Hamilton is the second edition, 1989. In the table of contents there is: Appendix IV Description of Ten Horn Bows in the U.S. National Museum.

But Holmes also gave out a list some years ago of all the known NA Sheep and Elk horn bows. I have met with him several times at conferences including one last year. He probably does not forget me because one year he was giving a talk on those bows and his reproductions. He told me he had made four of them total. One he broke, one he gave away, one a friend (?) had broken and the last one was in good condition and he had it with him.

I asked him if I could photograph it and he kindly agreed. Then I asked him if it could be strung and he did so. After several minutes it slowly worked itself into an asymmetric shape, became worse and worse and he could just barely get the string off in time to save it.

Ten minutes later he gave his presentation and I believe he was visibly shaken, as anyone would be. I brought my reproduction with me and it had sat strung on a display table most of the day. No reference was made of it.

He is a fine and honorable person; professor emeritus of art history.

Jack, I'm not very much knowledgeable in the subject, my question was rather directed by couriousity whose advice on making a replica would you recommend more, Laubin's or Hamilton's.

Now, when you have disclosed the story, I would be very much courious to see pictures of your reproduction(s) 8) .

Try looking this up:
Investigative Report on Bow and Arrow Manufacture in Chengtu by T'an Tan-Chiung

Ash; Laubin is more hands on and Holmes is more scholarly. To my recollection, Laubin is the only one to make antler bows and publish. Apparently he was quite prodigious.

So the answer is both.

Here is one of my horn/sinew bows. #59 @ about 22 or so. 89 1/2 cm LOA, Mouflon horn. This is a good demo bow because it would be nearly impossible to break. A grand shooter.

Sorry to divert the thread.

Didn't Charles Grayson make some antler and sinew bows as well? Weren't there any shown in the Hamilton's book or one of the Bowyer's Bible? I can't remember now.

Your bow and arrows appear to be very well made indeed, Jack.
Thanks for showing.

Antler bows? Does antler have similar properties to horn then?

Jack, I really like that bow. I'm currently falling for Plains Indians bows, hope to have a go at building one soon, just shopping around for materials and looking at bows made by other bowyers/antiques now. They look easier to construct than Asian bows, would you say this is true?
I'd be interested in seeing more of your bows too, if you have photos to hand (thank you!)

Sorry to divert the thread. If it's any help, I've got the following books:
- Adam Karpowicz's book
- Jim Hamm, Bows and Arrows of the Native Americans
- Spotted Eagle, Making Indian Bows and Arrows

TTBB 1 - 4 is on my wish list

(I've also got translations of the Korean Muye Dobo Tongji, and the Mamluk Munyat-ul-Ghuzat and Kitab fi-Ilm an-Nushab).

Daryush, when dealing with antler I think we are facing with a problem of getting straight and big enough pieces of it, of course, maybe there is a source which I'm not aware of.
I you are looking for something to make a North American horn composite replica of, then I think that Merino sheep horns would be easiest to get here, at least I got a pair and they seem to be very promising.
I'll open a new topic on sheep horn to not divert from the subject in this thread.

I like Jim Hamm's little book a lot, but as far as I'm concerned his composite bows incorporating wooden cores are not true replicas.

Dr Grayson made several bows using antler. He recommended using caribou (reindeer) antler because it was easier to cut out long pieces. Elk antlers required more work unless they were very large. I may have a picture of one somewhere. I remember drawing one that seemed smooth over its 26 inch draw.

In the Collection there is a prehistoric antler with a strip partially cut out. A groove had been scraped out of the surface of the antler with a stone tool.

Elk is the correct material for a NA antler bow. It has a deep spongy interior which must be scooped out and filled with sinew after shaping. Some elk antlers are so big that they did not need splicing at the grip.

It is this material which gave rise to the myths about NAs (Native Americans) using whale jaw bone, long horn cattle and etc for their bows. It is an unlikely material but was what was used for their most prestigious bows.

Caribou does not generally occur in the range of plains Indians. Someone from Canada knowledgeable on these bows might comment. I have not seen an authentic NA caribou antler bow.

Caribou is not an authentic material for Plains bows as far as I know. Grayson suggested it for ease of construction.

He used flat elk antler slats for his bows joined at the grip.

Horn is nail, antler is bone.

Antler bows are very thin strips with very thick layers of sinew to allow them bending.

Ahh, once again, I came across some rather useful stuff on the .org-site :oops: :mrgreen:

http://www.atarn.org/bibliog.htm

That's right about the antler. I remember those bows were built with a thick sinew layer and the neutral axis was in the sinew and away from the glue line to the antler. Most of the energy storage was concentrated in the sinew. The keratin in horn seems much more compressible.

Indians would practice putting as many arrows as possible in the air before the first hit the ground. Five was an average number, six very good and seven the best possible. So say the stories. This was said possible with a horn bow.

Arrows were held point up in the bow hand and flicked into position. You judge for yourself.

Jack,
I thought those stories started in the Eastern Woodlands. They would have been using self bows there.

George Catlin managed to capture this image

[external image]

http://www.xmission.com/~drudy/mtman/ht ... ter20.html

There you are; Mandans on the Missouri, Indians of the great plains.

Very few chroniclers of Am. Indians are beyond reproach including Catlin. You can see some classic Scythian curves entering into his bow shapes, the quiver arrangement. But he made an important contribution by being there and recording. But he reworked in his studios in the East. His etchings are further removed from the subject, and not necessarily by him.

Then there is Karl Bodmer, a Swiss. What he painted was gospel. He painted an elk horn bow or two, quivers and etc. People of the First Man.

Yes I agree Catlin exaggerated the amount of curvature in the classic double-curved bow of the plains Indians . Interesting that he includes a bow being strung. Catlin's books are wonderful reading .

I also have "People of the First Man " and excellent book . Bodmer is certainly more accurate in his detail .

We are fortunate both artists were on hand at that time , a scant 50 years later and a whole way of life had ended .

Charles Russell came along at the end of the buffalo culture , his paintings include bows and quivers . Since he had Indian friends I have read he would consult with them so as to get details correct .

Notice how the Indian on the left is bracing his bow. This is a technique used in South America too.

As others have noted, Catlin reworked his illustrations. His letter in the link points out the bows were typical Plains bows of no more than three feet long. He also refers to their horse archery methods.

My point was not that Plains Indians did not shoot this way, but that I thought it originated in the East among tribes who lived in the forests using longer flat bows. The Plains Indians took to the horse rather late in their history and it is possible that their sports still had ancient roots. Perhaps I am wrong and I am only misremembering Longfellow. Even in Australia we had that poem drummed into us at school.

Has anyone calculated the best angle and arrow speed to give the greatest time of flight?

In regards to the "Game of the Arrow" ... archers were talking on another forum about the best way to get the most arrows in the air before the first hits the ground is to place the arrows on the right hand side of the handle for a right handed archer and use an arrow that has two shallow arrow nocks at right angles to each other so you can nock an arrow on the string without looking.

Various historical sources mention the speed of which North American Indians were able to discharge arrows ...perhaps putting the arrow on the right hand side of the bow for a right handed archer was fairly common and perhaps the thumb release is a natural evolution of this shooting method.

Second figure from the right looks remarkably like this:


Which is supposed to be a native of Formosa (Taiwan)!