hornbow crash

hi Uli,
could you post a picture of this bow?Unstrung and strung.There could be various reasons for the asymetrical bend of this bow.

Hi Redhawk

Thanks for your reply, I send the pictures:

hi Uli,

I?m almost sure that the worst accident has happened:the wooden core has broken.The whole extent of a repair depends on its construction,but it should be possible.
Sorry for these bad news,but these things happen.Do you know the age of this bow?Sometimes I?ve the impression that hornbows after about one year go into a kind of crisis.A chemist told me that this is due to some chemical processes happening inside a hornbow(glue!).I can?t remember exactly.

:shock: now that you mention it it seems quite obvious :cry:

Dont know the exact age of the bow (got it from a friend) but Im sure its more than one year. I can imagine the type of repair work to be done :roll:

Two more (silly) questions:
I used mongolian arrows of 32 inch max draw lenght with this bow - you think this was too much ?
You think this means all layers are gonna break with further (like only 25lbs at 30inch) usage ? (horn is very bendable no?)

Uli

The words to understand you that the right and wrong is not often seen . Relying on the picture , I have one small idea 。
Seeing on from the picture , the winding not appearance of the arm of bow . I suggest , and loosen the bowstring a bit . Then , with the big one side of cord help , making small one side same . Then bake with the fire . Then wait for the 6--7 sky . Should be no problem .

My English is not good , embarrassedly !

This is the cultural relic of my nation , hopes you can carefully the protection it , has thanked you ! ! !
不是非常看的懂你的话。凭借着图片，我有一个小主意
从图片上看，弓的胳膊弯曲的不样。我建议，将弓弦放松一点。然后，用绳子帮助大的一边，使小的一边同样。然后用火烤。然后等待6--7天。应该没问题了。
我英语不好，不好意思！
这是我的国家的文物，希望你能好好的保护它，谢谢了！！！

My suggestion is never shoot this bow again. The core is broaken! Normally it caused by bad gluing job, horn or sinew are not well attached, leaving pockets in between. Then after shooting for some while!! Shit happaned. No way you can do anything about trying to repair. If the sinew is bad,peel it off then replace it,or the horn is bad, reglue it or remove and replace it. As for the broaken core!! I'm sorry there is nothing you can do!! It is not repair,it is building a new one.

Jang,yuhua

hi again,
Yokhua,I never give up a bow,even if it is broken badly.In this case I would deconstruct the bow and use the different parts of it to rebuilt a new one even the effort is the same as to make a new one.
I?ve stored siyahs,limbs and hornstrips from crashed bows and sometimes I can use them for other bows.

Uli; Do you know the maker's name of this bow? This is important to me.

Here is how the Mongolians repair such a bow. Whether or not you repair this bow depends on whether you want an origional, untouched artifact of Mongolia, which it still is; or if you want a shooting hornbow, which it can still be.

Some years ago, a famous woman archer of Mongolia, Munkhstesteg, came to Ft. Dodge with the bow that she had won 6 national championships with. This bow had three repairs for this exact problem, besides another repair for a lopsided siyah. She shot the bow for 5 days and drew it fully! It was slightly uneven in bend, I would have been afraid to shoot it. But it did not break. I examined her bow closely. She let me measure it, etc.

At each of three weak places, the bow had a horn patch on the belly, 3 to 5 inches in length, the full width of the bow, lozenge shaped, and tapered on all edges. Then the entire bow was wrapped in large, monofilament fishing line from one end to the other. Many people here have seen Mongolian bows wrapped this way. Let us say that it is traditional.

String or sinew wrapping is the MOST common way to repair a horn bow, worldwide. Check it out.

I have a hornbow that I made that has two repairs of horn patches over weak places and the bow is balanced and shootable. In my case, I wrapped the patched area only with heavy thread and painted the repair.

So you decide for yourself to preserve the origionality or the shootability. Jack.

Hi Jack,

Thanks alot for your advice ! Yes a friend of mine from Mongolia also has his bow wrapped in fishing line this way (though not broken yet). I think I will have an "originally repaired" shootable bow :wink: I ll be back reporting the results (maybe this is how to become 6-time winner of Nadaam archery)

I will ask the one who let me this bow when he went back to Mongolia, if he knows who made it, and post it to this forum.

regards, Uli

Uli, in the latest issue (Summer 2005) of primitive archer, you will find an interesting article by C.E. Grayson, all about composite bows and its pre-stressed structures and failures. Next there are two interesting pictures of repaired hornbows the same way as mentioned by Jack F. in his prior comment. Here the pictures with the horn patches and monofilament fishing lines. Good luck!

Reto

Hi folks,

Finally I fond the time to repair this bow, we used horn of the european red deer as a patch, after having scraped out the bone spongiosa.. but I guess I would work with a piece of wood, too. the horn bends only mininally (see pics). The bow shoots well and got stronger with the patch.

tell me what you think.

;-) Uli

this is the patch we used
your comments ?

I made such patches before with horn or wood. I find it is better to taper the ends of the patch for better distribution of stress. Sinew gives a stronger wrap than the fishing line (nylon).

Adam

I agree with the comments above (except for Arrowhead.)

A patch and fishing filament binding will preserve the bow for some time. Should the bow fail, I expect that Ju Yuan Hao could repair it. The only thing is that the horn is from Mouflon and Ju Yuan Hao can't get that.

Well done, Uli!
It doesn?t look pretty but the bow now bends evenly and is back in working order.

I have an old Korean bow that has many little bamboo splints on the belly side bound on with string. As Jack said, this is a common form of repair.

A friend of mine had a Qing Dynasty bow in which had a problem in the core in one limb. He made a splint for it and bound it with leather lace. The bow was in use for years after that and can still be braced. When I first met him many years ago, he was still using it as his regular target bow.