long cow horn form TX,USA

c'mon, cut it :D

These cattle come from Africa. The horn comes apart between the layers when cut. I have bought them for as little as $10 each but is difficult or impossible to make a good bow from them.

Isn't that an authentic longhorn? Watusi cattle are the African variety and they have been crossed with longhorns and created "longtusi".
That one just looks like a longhorn to me.
Everyone seems to mention longhorn cattle being useless as a source for horn but Dryad bows make horn bellied bows of some sort of cattle horn.
I think it is supposed to be Watusi horn.
The general trend seems to indicate that hot weather animals produce poorer quality of horn.

jack farrell, ha , you are in Texas,

maybe there are some force in the horn inside, i cut the buffalo horn form wide side to tine side , it is a twist buffalo horn and thickness very differ each side, the horn shrink after cut like the word u close to o, after long time soaking and sunlight, the line of layers also break a few .

how did you cut the twist horn?i imagine in the growth line on horn we can see it on horn ,on the line make more small hole till to cut down, if it too easy comes apart between the layers and layers is very fine, maybe it is good things, in my dream use the twist horn,twist wood , make a helix hornbow,the big problem is how stirng the twist bow :lol:

i need more detailed bout this horn, long and thickness of the horn and layers, elasticity?

Jiao; I cut four strips from the horn following the twist using an electric band saw. The horn bent to pretty straight with heat. Two strips, maybe 2cm each with opposite bends were glued to each limb. The only problem was that there were separations in many places between horn layers. The horn is surprisingly thin.

Some cattle horns look very good. But maybe they should be from a cold place. I would also like to find such horns. My feeling is that these long horn cattle are not so good.

There is a long horn water buffalo with similar horns. Has anyone tried these?

Patrick Menzies：
Dryad bows make horn bellied bows of some sort of cattle horn，

plese post pic or his bow link

jack farrell
The only problem was that there were separations in many places between horn layers. The horn is surprisingly thin.

if i understand your means right, this horn can separations many fine page like the book and we can got each fine "horn page" form each layers horn? at least this horn can use for ornament bows.

some horn is too long too beautiful
http://www.longhorntours.com/Promo_Phot ... 2=Longhorn

http://image.baidu.com/i?ct=503316480&z ... &W640&H424

Jiao; You are correct that the horn will separate like pages of a book. But the separation is not perfect. I found it difficult to get a large separation.

The horns are used whole for hanging on a wall with the skull. The skins are more popular used as rugs and for upholstering chairs and sofas.

The live longhorn cattle are mostly used for field decoration. Crazy, huh?

You can see the horn bellied bows in the Natural collection on the Dryad site. www.dryadbows.com

The dryads are not true horn bows. The horn on the belly is simply used as any other wood laminate as it is not stressed as much as in a proper horn bow. The one I've seen myself had a horn belly of only 1-2mm thickness, and the bow did not have reflex at all. In other words, the horn is not being stressed enough to make it effective. A thin layer of ipe, or any other stiff hard wood would probably be better than horn in such a setup. But it does look nice... :)

I think we have seen some very nice grey-horn-cattle (I'm not remembering the name correctly) Magyar bows here on the forum, but they were all well designed and not of too heavy weight as far as I remember. And - arrest me if I'm wrong - I think there was some splitting-trouble with the heavier weights.

These horns, or any other large horn would probably work nicely in any 30-40 pound well made horn bow.

Or, they could be split into 1cm laminates and glued together again with the horn layers going from back to belly, as in the medieval european horn crossbows.