Ancient bows from Mongolia from an exhibition in Bonn Pt. 3

Great pics, thanks.

Cem

Haha, I can't get enough of this bow. Would love to see how it would look when it's strung. (My insistent guess is that this is very similar to the Chinese/Ming Kaiyuan bow because of its long kasan and short working limbs.)

I would love good pics of the siyahs from the back side. The shape and placement of the ridge will speak much to its place on the bow making chronology.

The string has so many strands that silk or fiber soaked in a hardener might be a possibility. Sinew would be so edible to critters.

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Jack, here?s the front of the upper siyah. because of backlight it is not of very good quality, but one can clearly see a flat back ridge
...and even the outlines of the V-splice ;-)

The string to me looked like sinew fibers, but in the catalogue text it is stated that it would be silk. However, in the appendix with material analyses no analyse is given for the string. The fibers are quite coarse, is this possible with silk?

JJ

Jurgen; Really these are very good pics and precious material.

I would describe the siyah above the bend as sub triangular. There indeed is a flat ridge. I do not see the V splice, only a stain from glue or saliva from the sinew of the back having being eaten off.

I look at the lower string knot where it was cut off facing us. The fluffed up end makes a kind of tassel. There appears to be twice as many fibers as I see in my sinew strings.

These posts I made on the three bows are merely observations as I have not seen the bows in person.

Jack, there?s even a slot at the end of the splice just like in Korean Gakgungs....

Try to post a detailled view of it.

JJ

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I think there?s no doubt about the splice....

JJ

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Checked the upper string loop photo and I think you are right, Jack. The fibers look too soft to be sinew;-)

Jurgen; I see what may be a saw cut and some other suggestions of a V splice but I am not sure about this. The cut seems a little too high up to allow a sufficient splice, which should be prominent in your photo. Nevertheless, this bow is in the correct period for a V splice. It also shares the triangular tips with the Ss bow (without the horn inserts) and Rashid ed din illustrations, but it is more developed and belongs to a different "school" of bowmaking. Now they import silk in a raw form from China to Mongolia.

Just where is the stepped pattern from the illustration? above the grip?

Can anyone describe the string knot shown intact on the lower loop?

Great pictures! Would you say the width of limbs at mid point of the bending part is 6-7cm? And the thickness about 1.5cm? Less than that?

It could be a V-splice for the siyahs. How about the grip joinery in these bows? was it a vertical scarf?

Adam

Jack, I see the splice quite clearly in the picture above. There is a dark triangle directly at the cut, which can?t be by accident.

Adam, the bow is not that wide, perhaps about 5 cm, and under 2 cm thick, I would say.

JJ

I made a calculation (the formula is in my book) to assess the draw weight of this bow, by comparing it to a bow I made of somewhat similar shape. Assuming this bow is 140cm long ntn, 5cm wide x 1.5cm thick, it would be 100lb @ 28in or a little over that. If 1.8cm thick, then the weight would go up to about 150lb. 1.5cm is more probable for a bare bow with no cover.

Adam

I think that the limb thickness is around 1,5 cm . Perhaps even less without the birch bark...

Any photo of the bow of similar shape ;-)?

JJ

Nothing about any of these bows suggest such a high draw weight. The unreinforced tips in particular.

Tips can be pretty small even in very heavy bows - have a look at the Turkish ones. I guess we have to make one of these bows to be sure...

At 1.4cm the bow would be 80+lb. This is all for 28in draw. I suspect these bows, being rather long, were drawn further than that.

Adam

Nice picks JJ.Thank you.

But the turk bows seem to have an insert and wrapping. I don't see anything but wood in this siyah.

Patrick, this bow indeed has nock inserts, while the other two don?t have them. I saw them on display, but they are not very visible on the photogaphs because of backlighting. I will try to post a pic anyway. They consist of very narrow strips inserted vertically at the string groove.

JJ

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Sorry for the bad quality...

The material of the insert appeared to me like a sort of dark horn.

BTW, in the catalogue you find an x-ray of the handle and it shows lateral reinforcement, probably of horn, there.

JJ

Fusizoli linked this wonderful bow on his forum. I'll go to Germany in april, and hopefuly able to visit the exhibition.

I got a pic (Bibarcfalva, Transilvania) from a friend, it shows a hungarian archer, painted in the early 1400's.

Adam Karpowicz wrote:

Tips can be pretty small even in very heavy bows - have a look at the Turkish ones. I guess we have to make one of these bows to be sure...

At 1.4cm the bow would be 80+lb. This is all for 28in draw. I suspect these bows, being rather long, were drawn further than that.

Adam

Hi everybody,

I' ve been visiting this forum since quite a long time now and found my first chance to just jump in an help out with a bit of information aacording to draw weight. The much discussed observer of the bows claims to have build an exact copy (down to fractions of a millimeter) of the second bow JJ showed in his posts. He states that before shooting it the draw weight was about 80 lbs on 28 ".
He also build copies of the other bows and claims that the draw weight ranges between 60 and 80 lbs at 28". The short draw length is supported by the length of the arrows found along with the bows. He claims the same to be true for the spine of the arrows that is siutable for bows at about 60-80 lbs.

Regards Kevin

That may answer the question of draw weights. Any chance we can get the dimensions of the bows from this bowyer?

Adam

Due to the fact that he is the author of several publications in this topic he has to be quite secretly about giving measurements or photos in a forum. But in reference to his statement at "fletchers-corner" the complete build along and measurements are given in the catalog of the exhibition http://www.primusverlag.de/titel.php?ar ... 2273684785, that is in german. Maybe somebody else (JJ?) already has got the catalog and can give the measurements.
Interestingly I had a little dispute with the author some time ago about the measurements and the possibility of calculating the draw weight from it. He doubted the the accuracy in this method. As an example he gave the measurements of a mongol bow he just recently build: length 140 cm, thickness in the middle of bending area 14 mm (6 + 5 + 3 mm) and 80 lbs of draw weight. It would be a bad coincidence if he did not mean this bow out of the exhibition. The numbers in brackets (6+5+3 mm) refer to the thickness of sinew, wood and horn. He did not specify which is what. Wood of 5 mm thickness is obvious. On the other hand he did not specify wether the 6 mm is horn or sinew. From the context of the discussion he meant 6 mm sinew and 3 mm horn in his reconstruction. Also this seems quite possible to me, cause I would assume that in this design the bowyers added more sinew to prevent the bow from breaking apart (wrapping around) than in a turkish design, where the sinew would be around 3 mm and the horn 6 mm.
Besides all speculations it is for sure better to get the book along with the measurements to build a copy :)
Besides that I have to give credit again to your method in calculating the draw weight: I took a Avar referece design where I knew the measurements and the draw weight and used the formula given in your book with the measurements he gave. I ended up at 71 lbs at 28" and 80 lbs at 30 ". He indeed was quite impressed implying that he should get a copy of your book ;).
P.S.: The bow after shooting a couple of dozen arrows gave a draw weigt of around 60 lbs at 28". At 9,2 gr/lbs the bow gave an arrow velocity of 162 ft/s with a 28" draw.

Thanks Kevin. The formula is very much simplified, but still allows to compare bows of similar design and of the same draw length. As you say, the differences in the relative amounts of materials can skew the results, plus the reflex during manufacture can be rather arbitrary as chosen by the bowyer. I would not claim the accuracy to be any better than +/-10lb, which is perfectly sufficient for these purposes.

I still believe the bow had to be drawn further than 28" for its length. Perhaps not all arrows were found with the bow.

Adam

I totaly agree, especially if one thinks of the better energy storage per weight ratio. Despite that the picture TZH posted shows a much shorter draw length. But anyway who claims the great accuracy of historical paintings ;), while there are many paintings showing a draw to the ear or neck ... Probably it differs from archer to archer.

Kevin

Rather depressing that a replica of a near mythically performing bow only shoots at OK selfbow speed.
Thinking that the longer arrows were somehow missing seems like a grasping at straws scenario.
Eventually things just are what they are.
Those arows shown don't even look that light despite their barreling. Especially with the largest of those heads.

Yes, that is depressing. However:

1. The specs of the replica are listed on p. 189 as 80lb@28in before shooting and 60lb@28 after shooting. The drop of 20lb sounds suspicious to me and would worry there was a some kind of internal damage taking place.

2. Arrows 30in long are listed on p.244.

3. One bow does not make statistics.

If someone could gain accsss to the collection and measure all bows properly, we could make more replicas.

Adam

Something must be wrong. A two wood bow 150cm n/n 16 (1-2mm sinew) midlimbs is abuot 65 lb and at 26" shoot faster then those bows. A shorter made of wood, horn and sinew should be much stronger and shoot faster at longer draw. It should at last be stronger, speed can be low because of the mass at nocks.
And what use? hunting or warfare? Less then 60 lb for hunting gives problem in open terrain. Arrow speed less then 180fps in warfare gives problem.
Why would they have build bows that does not give any advantage?
If we look at this bow, some scrap I had, with 30 inch it made 200. So a hornbow should be stronger and faster.

Adam Karpowicz wrote:

If someone could gain accsss to the collection and measure all bows properly, we could make more replicas.

Adam

Does that mean that the measurements and documentation of the bows in the exhibition catalogue are not complete or good enough for making a replica?

I just ordered the catalogue, hoping there would be some good material there.


A big thanks to JJ for sharing these brilliant pictures, btw! Wow!

Fenris and all; I know you are just the messenger so this critique is not pointed at you. There is an anonymous author who's reputation as a bow builder we know nothing about who makes a claim about an ancient artifact which is being reported by a second person in translation. This is the exact opposite of peer review.

I can understand the position of a writer but we at ATARN also have a position.

There is another way of testing the strength of a bow. We here have strong reason to believe that typical Asian war bows were noticeably stronger than European wood war bows up until the late Medieval period. It would be counterintuitive that Scythians were shooting bows in the #120 range and by 1200 to 1600 years later the average war bow had fallen by one third in draw strength.

So until further information becomes clear, I remain aghast at the anonymous authors results. But thankyou for bringing this information to light. The struggle is interesting.

I'm not sure that stating the Scythians actually used 120 lb bows is an equally valid peer reviewed argument either.
Certainly this Mongol bow does not LOOK like a particularly heavy draw bow, in fact none of these three bows do.
I know it is tempting to go on about lost arts and how we don't really know how the bows were made, what the glue was constituted of etc. etc. but there is only so much that can be done with the materials and so much one can expect from what is actually sitting right there in that glass case.
I would bet good money that none of these three bows ever drew over 120, nor would any precise replica.

I am not sure what you are trying to imply here Patrick, but nobody said anything about "lost arts" to find the excuses for poor performance. The methods and materials are known well enough. Both Jack and I reproduced the Scythian bow and found it to be heavy. Since this bow was the only one available for reproduction, we can not say if its weight represented the true average. With this in mind, I wrote the range of the bows would start at 80lb and go up. We are dealing with statistics here.

Now, we have problems with the Mongol bow reproduced for the exhibition and I believe these concerns are reasonable. After looking at other bows' measurements, I believe the bow in question was most likely the lightest and I believe this bow would be around 80lb, not 60lb. The other bows would be heavier. I do not believe any of these bows "ever drew over 120lb", but they would come close to that weigth at 30in draw.

Adam

Just pre-empting the inevitable argument that tends to be brought up by enthusiasts of any bow style when performances don't match the legends. ;)

Which specific Scythian bow was it that you used as your model?
That picture posted of 4 or 5 of them looked rather varied in size and thickness even if the basic shapes were remarkably consistent.
I see little reason to doubt that the average bow was pretty heavy back then relative to the 45 pound bows common now but the standard thought almost seems to be that Mongol bows were all 160 pounders capable of piercing armor at a quarter mile.
What makes you feel that the other mongol bows were heavier?
I am still a bit cocerned that the minimal tip reinforcement, particularly in the one with long willow siyahs might hinder that.
Just the side to side stability of those in a heavy warbow seems dubious.
It was pointed out that the bow does actually have tip reinforcement but I don't really see how it was added. I see no sign of it at the very tip nor from the belly side.
Is it just slotted into a kerf only on the back?

What was the purpose with the bows back then?
For a long time they made bows and did refine them for use. My guesse is that anything less 80 was not enough. Any arrow with a mass need some kind of energy, so what did they shoot at?
Reenacting is fine but is still play and with a little macho the bows can be claim +160 lb :) or a modern cityslicker is not capable of shooting more then 60 lb :). Non of that can dictate the historical bows weight.
Willow can make a tip, we have try it. But the string will weare it down so a piece of horn in the nock can be enough.

@Jack Farrell and others

Don't worry I don't feel myself being criticized :), especially since the authors (Joachim Rutschke) opinion does not reflect my own. Unfortunately I do not have access to such artifacts, like old bows etc., neither I have the methods of observing them properly. Due to that limitation I have to rely on the information given on ATARN by authors like you or Adam and others as well. My brief opinion on this is that the average draw weight for a grown man on horseback was about 110 lbs at 28". Less for bows drawn longer; maybe 80-90 lbs for bows drawn to 32 inches. I know that there is proof for tartar bows with significantly more than 120 lbs at 28 " though ?
Anyway, I can tell you that there was a huge dispute at "fletchers-corner" on this issue. Since there a quite a few people over there who normally pull 120 lbs longbows for cloud shooting the fraction of people tending towards heavy bows was quite strong. Anyway the author (Joachim Rutschke) is convinced that shooting from horseback, may only be reasonable with bows ranging from 60 - 80 lbs in average. So this study on the bows found in the Altai may reflect/support his own opinion on that topic.

Kevin

I?ve posted my opinion several times here: hornbows drawing less than 80lbs are not worth the effort and will be outperformed even by selfbows(mass, physical weight).
About J.Rutschke: this is the guy who even don?t know how to make a hornbow.
He, some others and me are the authors of the "REFLEXBOGEN- BUCH". In his chapter "Hornbow- basics" he?s really posting that a hornbow has to be done as follows: 1. make a wooden core plus adding siyahs
2. sinew- back the core!!!!!!!!!!!
3. glue the horn to the wood/sinew- lam!!!!!!!!!!!

He has not at all understand the physics and chemistry of a hornbow.

I got in heavily trouble about that with the publisher, cause he found Rutschke?s hornbow- basics just another bowyer?s opinion.
I really feel ashamed to be one of the authors of this book.

Michael

I?ve posted my opinion several times here: hornbows drawing less than 80lbs are not worth the effort and will be outperformed even by selfbows(mass, physical weight).

right :D

I really feel ashamed to be one of the authors of this book.

nevermind, for me its still a great book 8)

For me too! :D :wink:

Well, well, well ? his way of building a horn bow can never be called traditional and besides that he is facing some strange problems while building the bows. We had discussions about that too. Besides the critical points like stability during the glue up of the horn, or deformation of the wooden core during sinewing, the method may have some merit too. Like for example the fact that each layer is tillered for itself, which may result in an evenly balanced bow, without the need to retiller every time it is strung!? Anyway, to my knowledge no one ever made a comparison between the two (or more) methods in building a horn bow.
But I have a question regarding a reconstruction. Since now we got the exact dimensions of the originals (as written in the catalog (I don't have mine, yet)): Is anybody here in the forum making an attempt to rebuild a copy himself? In any way this would be a very interesting attempt, maybe giving a more realistic draw weight and other characteristics of the original bows. Further on, does anybody have measurements etc. of mongol/proto turkic bows from the 1200 century?

Kevin

for measurements see for example "Shiluustei Sum bow" and "Arcat Del bow" here on ATARNet.

I have a question according to the arrows presented in the catalog of the exhibition. A brief description of the only complete preserved arrow gives the following measurements:
- Length is 77 cm including the arrow point, so ca. 74-75 for the bare shaft
- Material of the shaft is birch, it is about 1 cm at it's thickest point (middle) and 0.8 cm at the thinnest (after nock) --> barreled
- the point weight is about 14 gramms
Given this approximate measurements, what would you assume would be the spine of the arrow, or the draw weight of a fitting bow (drawn to full lenght)?
I am asking cause I can not guess the spine of a barreled arrow, I am just not experienced with it. Given the material (birch), and the fact that the arrow is barreled I would assume it to have a rather high spine suitable for a bow with 80+lbs.

Greetings Kevin

Kevin - barreled shafts' spine is either the same or a few pounds more than the parallel and this one must be quite high (25/64in shaft). The problem is that the spine is a poor predictor of the bow's weight, especially poor in the case of shooting with a thumbring. The shaft must be heavy though and the arrow was probably shot with a heavier bow for the performance to be reasonable.

BTW, one needs very good measurements along the bending part of limbs to make a decent replica of a bow. The catalog of the Bonn exhibit does not give enough to go by. Maybe the Zargalant bow could be the closest with a bit of imagination. We really need someone (one of our German members?) to make contact with the museum.

Adam

As far as I understood JJ already made an attempt to contact the museum to get a closer look at the bows (http://atarn.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1936&start=0). Unfortunately his request was rejected, claiming they have already somebody (J. Rutschke).
Additionally I think the exhibition will only stay in Bonn until the end of april and will move elsewhere afterwards (not sure about this). Maybe then there is a chance to get hands on it.
I any case I think the contact should be made or supported by someone with a good amount of international reputation, experienced in observing old artifacts. I think we have some choice here at atarn :).
For sure I think we should get the data of the bows cause otherwise it might be lost somehow, vanishing in some drawer in the museum. Cause as you already stated the information given in the book is very limited and just refers to one of the 3 bows.

Kevin

Yes, the contact with the museum is definitely worth pursuing once the bows return from the exhibit.

It may be that the replica by Rutschke turns out to be right on in terms of the true draw weight, but there are a few issues: the section of his replica does not match the original, the method of construction was not followed, the siyahs look too thick and the 20lb drop in weight is excessive. On top of that he seemed to use side walls of horn for the belly.

I think one can make another replica of the Zargalant bow based on the profile and the given measurements for the span of the bow etc. The only detail that remains is the exact location of the CT-scanned cross-section of the (bending) limb. Once this is known, then the rest of the limbs' measurements can be deduced. I wonder if Mr.Rutschke could be approached to tell us where exactly that was?

Adam

You are pointing out some interesting details I've also noticed. At "fletchers corner" he is stressing the point that this bow is an exact copy (he even made a comparison with the "fantasy bows on atarn") of the zargalant bow while the data given in the book implies different. Especially the thickness of the several layers as seen in the CT compared to the ones given in the table (you already mentioned that).
On the horn I had a discussion with him. In his opinion there was was no problem in using horn of any shape or position in the orig. Horn (front, back, side). He said just heating and pressing is all that is needed. Indeed I made an experience with a horn-dealer sharing the same opinion. The horn was from the side of a orig. Horn and pressed with too great heat. As a result it was very brittle, with blisters inside an in wide parts unusable.
The drop of draw weight I first blamed on the creeping in a sinew layer too thick an horn to thin (as he told in the forum), later realizing that the layer was not that thick at all while the horn is about 6 mm.
Mr. Rutschke knows much more than the information given in the book, while I think he is holding back some. For example I asked him about the Chagan bow. He only said that there are measurements at the museum an he does not know whether someone will use them in any way. Who knows. There is a question section at fletchers corner on his article I am sure he will tell when asked :).

Kevin

What a nice idea: to build a bow instead of running down a bow and a bowyer you never have seen and never have had the pleasure to meet.
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@all: It is hard scientific work, to investigate a Mongolian bow in short time, to re-build it and then to publish the informations, before the bow will vanish in the depth of history of China, Mr. Selby and Mr. Karpovicz know that. The authors gave this information to you and you hang around here in this thread nothing to do than to defame them, shame on you!!
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@JJ: Do you remember my visit 20 years ago? I gave you some details of bows for your examination paper. The following 20 years I spent my spare time as scientist to build nearly 200 EXPERIMENTAL bows of all categories. I published dates in several papers, for example: we had had intensive discussions of three years on the reconstruction of the hun-bow of Wien-Simmering.
@Adam: We appreciate your work in books and publications and are very pleased about the exact description of Scythian bows. But this here is not your style. Please, Sir, back to the facts and back to science!

You seem annoyed that your opinion is questioned? Yet you are quoted as referring to this site as 'fantasy'?

Double standards.

JR; Greetings; Thankyou for coming to our forum. It is unfortunate that there are hurt feelings but I must say that if one publishes on a popular topic, one must accept the scrutiny of the readers and do so pleasantly and firmly but with facts. One of the problems is the level of secrecy and exclusivity of access which surrounds these Mongolian bows.

What I want is what I provided for many bows in the past which are not published and the information is not generally available to others. I want line drawings of the bows with the most complete dimensions possible of all the component parts. This is the easiest way to skirt copyright provisions and not violate anyone's trust.

There is a long history of secrecy in bowmaking and we at ATARN have not subscribed to keeping any information from other's scrutiny.

So be brave, stand on your long experience, show us what you know, and let us make up our own opinions of the material.

Since I do not know about your work except from the statements you just made, I look forward to knowing about your projects. Why not participate? Thankyou, Jack.

I have to correct the "fantasy bows" that I quoted false.

It was a translation in sense, not literally (!). In a thread about hunbows JR claimed that the numerous build hunbows on atarn have no support in literature. They are indeed composit bows. May look an shoot very well but there are no hunbows.
For all those who speak german I post the original sentence: "Alles andere sieht man zuhauf bei ATARN: Nachempfundene Hunnenbogen ohne R?ckhalt bei Literatur oder nach den Originalfunden. Das sind dann zwar Komposits und sie schie?en sicher auch gut und sehen gut aus, aber Hunnenbogen sind das nicht.:) ".
So I have to again say sorry for the wrong (!) citation that may have distorted what was actually said.

Kevin

P.S.: I am aware of the fact that providing wrong information is definatly worse than providing no information. So sorry to J.R. as well!

@Jack: Thank you!
:)


I have got only information about the Jargalant bow. May be, we can get more information about the other bows in future.
We start with the wooden core.

JR - I am very glad you have joined us at ATARN and we all hope to learn from you about the famous Mongolian bows.

I am not trying to diminish your accomplishments, but I think my questions are reasonable. As an experienced bowyer I am sure you know exactly why I said what I said about the replica. I build all kinds of bows and do not see a reason this style could be beyond my abilities. To be sure, I am not particularly interested in this particular style, but hope (as others do) to have enough information to make one, time permitting. I like to experiment.

Anyway, back to the task: could you be kind to tell us the location of the CT-scan of the bending limb as published in the catalog on page #184? The limb has a slight taper and knowing the place of measurement from the CT-scan, we can infer the dimensions of the rest of limb. This will allow to make a replica of roughly similar draw weight to the original.

Adam

@Adam: Yeah, right. A little bit misunderstanding. Your style of making bows is excellent. I do learn! :) (see attachment)
No, it is the style of discussion here. It is so easy - they only had to ask me.
:roll:
Please, you have to accept that I want to keep the good connections to the museum. Therefore - all information out of the publication and my experience with building the bow.

Well then, do you think your replica is a good bow?

That is good craftsmanship JR. Have you tried a horn version of this bow? I no longer make the bows, since (other than the stability issues) I find I can not shoot them with a thumbring for some reason...

Adam

"no problem in using horn of any shape or position in the orig. Horn (front, back, side). He said just heating and pressing is all that is needed."
I have try all those things. And will not use anything else then the underside on a bow that is made for shoting. Inner curve can do but are mostly not wide enough. But makes nice kids bows.
Sidewalls can be used under kasan if 5 pice bow and under handle. I have seen what happens to a heat pressed sidewall hornslat on a bow with draw weight, I will not do that again.

@Adam: No horn version.
This was just experimental. Laminated yew, bending by heat in the grip section, two layers of sinew. It is a little bit longer than yours and a little bit narrower. Draw weight round about 50 lb/ 28"
Hard work to tiller, hard work to get stability.
It is a very exciting design which you created and we had a long diskussion about this bow.
The draw is strong from beginning up to the end and a very exact hit ratio.
Thumb ring or horse back: no.

@Patrick: Please make your own opinion at the end of my explanations. :)
In the moment there is not much time left, job and so. I will start in the evening with the wooden core. There are some strong distinctions on the Jargalant bow.

JR, we all have one question for you! Why do you still insist on making a hornbow like this?

1. wooden core
2. sinew- back the wooden core
3. glue the horn to the sinew/core- lam

You?re the only hornbowyer ever working like this. I hope you know what you are missing.

Michael

@Redhorse
As far as I understood from his postings JR is willing to give a kind of build-along of the Jargalant bow here at the forum. So I assume his reasons not to comply with the traditions according to glue up of the horn will be given within.

Kevin

I do not insist! There are a lot of information about my craftsmanship posted here out of context. :cry:

As far as I know, there are three methods of building a composite:
1. The ?traditional? way
2. The something other way: wooden core, first sinew layer, then horn
3. wooden core , horn, building sinew layer separately and glue all the layers in one piece

First point: What is traditional? Nobody knows, how the Mongolians made their bows in the 8. Century.
Third point: This is a method to build numbers of commercial bows
Second: Once I started to build a small, narrow selfbow out of plumtree-wood, sinewed it with 2 layers and shot some arrows. I was not satisfied with the power and therefore I glued pieces of horn on the belly. It works! Later on I did some experimental composits by this method. There were some advantages with narrow bows and special woods (plumtree, cherrytree, bamboo) in the tillering process. It depends on the dimensions of the wooden core (thickness, wideness) and the sort of wood. There were disadvantages with wide and weak cores. So I advised this in my paper in the ?Reflexbogenbuch? for beginners. The traditional way was written down in a later chapter by Micha Wolf for Osman bows ( page 252).
I prefer this method, if I had to build new bows with unknown bending characteristics because the tillering-process is better under control. Try it and you will be surprised, I promiss. I do not prefer this method, if I have to build wide bows of 60 mm or if I have to sinew the sides (flanks).
So I practice all these methods.

Last not least: "Tradition does not mean to look after the ash, but to keep the flame alive." If the ancient people would not have tried other ways, the Samurai and the Mongolians would have the bent stick instead of the highly developed yumi or the composite bow!

In your defense many guys on here are telling someone who has trouble with his horn belly popping off to just try to glue it back on to the sinewed core.
I guess the performance of your bow would have me saying it's a good question why the bothered switching to composites if they don't even perform as well as a wooden bow.
On a sidenote regarding the Karpowicz style bow, is it really any different than the Hickman patent bow except for the shrunken handle length?
http://webzoom.freewebs.com/mayflowerar ... %20Bow.pdf

I dont have as much experience as you but just some thoughts..

the "traditional" way that has been practiced until today in china, korea, mongolia and turkey is always sinew = last step or ?

all the composites are extremely reflexed during manufacture:
isn't composite making like the modern engineering principle of pre- tension and tension-backing (in static construction for example)

with horn after sinew I imagine a loss of the advantage of reflexing the bow during manufacture.. nowadays the bow will work

Interesting point. In fact the opposite may be true. According to what Adam said in another thread the reflex added by contraction of sinew may contribute only little to the overall performance of the bow (correct me if wrong). More important is the step in glueing the horn reflexed on the bow (pretension). Since the horn shows significantly less kreeping than sinew does this reflex may contribute much more to the preload of the bow (like in a korean bow). For this advantage the sinewed bow has to be allowed to reflex mor during drying, adding reflex that can be fixed by glueing the horn afterwards.
As a negative effect, this may decrease the stability of the bow an it may knock over (as described for korean bows by Grayson).

Kevin

All materials in the composite are typical organics and do not behave in a predictable manner of the modern laminations. Most importantly they are not completely elastic and greatly affected by time (to creep under pressure), by moisture and by temperature. This may be a blessing or a curse - a clever bowyer can learn to manipulate them for the best performance, someone else may ruin the bow without even knowing it. This is why I would rather slavishly follow the original methods.

For example sinew: when the sinew/glue combination dries, it builds up internal "tension" or strain within itself. It is because the shrinkage during drying on the core of bow is restricted. If the core is flexible enough, the strains may be relieved when the bow pulls itself into reflex. Or if the support for the layer is rigid, then the strains are not relieved as much. What happens exactly and how exactly the performance or the draw weight is affected is difficult to predict without experimentation.

Kevin is correct in pointing out the reflex during glue-up. The ancients used a notch or a hole in a bench to bend wood - then one usually has a sharper bent at one end (for the siyah or grip splice) with the rest of the lath curved to some degree, whether deliberately or not. In fact the Koreans make the bamboo curved, also Turks and Manchu as well bent their cores (according to the Chengdu article). The horns were then glued onto the curved core and at the end, after sinew, the bows' tips were touching or crossed. It may be that Mongol bows were made with the laths straight, but since there is more evidence the other bows were made curved, then why do it? It is like deliberately adding deflex to a bow. The glued-in reflex surely adds to the performance of bows.

And the horn itself: when pressed flat at high enough teperature it will stay that way forever. Was it done in old bows? In some of them yes, but what was the temperature? Was it low enough so that the horns reversed back to reflex once heated to glue on the curved core? Probably. Then the horns will work harder in a bow to boost the performance again. Horn taken from the side walls has its grain partly diagonal on the bow, which will reduce its modulus by maybe 20% (just a guess - cross grain is half the modulus). The bow will loose a few pounds.

I undestand now what you meant JR that I should know better than argue against modern engineering. The truth is I do not know and there is no enginner as yet who knows. I'd rather stick to the proven methods, especially so in doing important research such as this.

Adam

I am very happy to finally see you here, JR! I'm certain that you will enjoy the good scientific atmosphere here, once the somewhat heated welcome has settled a little :)

When the exhibition catalogue appears in my mail box any day now I will read it with much interest! If there are not complete reconstructional information on the bows in it, I certainly hope that you will publish something like this some time. Wouldn't it be great to see more reconstructions of these bows - to add to the interpretation of them?


Your method of first tillering the core and sinew before applying the horn seems to be a legit way of getting a proper tiller on designs that one does not know the limb taper of. I have used a similar method to understand the tiller of the norwegian two-wood bows in my masters thesis. My limited experience with horn bows tell me that there are some important technical advantages and historical evidence pointing to the "traditional" way of gluing the horn to the core before applying sinew.

1: The sinew layer of all preserved horn bows that I have seen, also cover the edges and at least a little of the horn belly - indicating that the sinew layer have been applied towards the end of the construction.

2: The Korean and Chinese traditions which have been documented while they were and still are alive, point in the same methodological direction. Traditions like these should not be undervalued as analogies in archaeology.

3: A core that is still oversized while glueing the horn, acts as a stable platform and gives the bowyer good control of the design and the stability of the bow.

4: Ancient bowyers have all been part of a craftmanship tradition of making only a very few types of bows, which have given them a very detailed and exact knowledge of the dimentions and construction of the bows. Tillering by dimention adjustments have most likely been far less necessary for them, compared to our modern way and interest in making all of the worlds types of bows in a very short time.

The traditional way has proved its merits for centuries.
Any other way of making hornbows is a totally misunderstanding of hornbowery.
Hornbow- making is a chemical process( above all a polymerisation)
Sinew- backing the core/horn- lam makes the reflex.

Sinew- backing the core makes a reflex too, but then adding the horn is reversing the whole process.

That?s why I have to call your hornbows sinew-backed bows with a horn- decoration. Believe me, a hornbow made like this would be more efficient without the horn( just adding physical weight).
I found it heavily careless to post your method as a hornbow- basic in a book, which is really expensive.

We?ve had this discussion several times and you seem not to understand or you?re not willing to admit an error.

Good luck with your hornbows

Is there any additional opinion about JR?s hornbow- basics?

Michael

I would like to switch the focus of this discussion a moment.

Imagine for a minute that a museum in Germany got access to a previously unknown violin which was one of the oldest in the world and also of very unusual design. Then, by some unknown process, they decided to let one violin maker of their choosing investigate this violin while at the same time collecting admission fees to see said instrument.

Now, other violin makers, musicians and historians are wanting to know the specifics of this instrument but the information has not been forthcoming.

What would they do? If it was me, I would want to know what could be done to make the information more public. Of course, the first reaction of the museum would be that the instrument makers and musicians should be grateful and humble that they are given any information at all at the same time that the museum continues to collect entry fees.

I think that various symphonies and musician unions would begin to put pressure on the museum to be more forthcoming and allow a number of different makers and players to investigate and discuss freely what they see. This would in no way inhibit the museum from getting their share. Controversy sometimes helps. Maybe the institution is publicly funded. Maybe there are donors who would not like the current process. Maybe publications who need support from the musicians would apply pressure. Maybe some negative public relations or influential pressure would be brought to bear. Maybe the museum does not know the level of interest in the violin nor consider it their mission to educate the people they are serving.

I would ask Steven to indulge me to allow this story to remain as a legitimate democratic means of obtaining information on instrument making.

Actually it is easy, if we don not like to make the "thing" the old way, well made it from glas and laminited wood and gelcoat. Use computers and other stuff for cutting and so on.
I did read some Swed build a house from stoneage. They did use tractor to make the polehole, crane lifting the loggs and more. Because they was not strong enough to do it by hand. At the same time I was building a shelter for my machines the same way and did it alone by hand, simply inch by inch with a rope I lift the loggs. With two or more man the loggs could been much heavier then what they did use in the house.
Many times we modern people do not see the easy way because we are so used to machines.
Everyone should build a hornbow whit only a knife :) it can be done but it takes some time. What it gives is understanding for how the process makes the design. Well done and no tillering is needed, just brace and shoot :)
I have a picture of a bow without horn, just wood and sinew :( the horn was glue in later.
http://198.170.107.188/phpBB2/files/inner13_245.jpg

Kviljo wrote:

I am very happy to finally see you here, JR! I'm certain that you will enjoy the good scientific atmosphere here, once the somewhat heated welcome has settled a little :)
Your method of first tillering the core and sinew before applying the horn seems to be a legit way of getting a proper tiller on designs that one does not know the limb taper of. I have used a similar method to understand the tiller of the norwegian two-wood bows in my masters thesis. My limited experience with horn bows tell me that there are some important technical advantages and historical evidence pointing to the "traditional" way of gluing the horn to the core before applying sinew....

@Kviljo: Thank you! :) I am not convinced of the good scientific atmosphere here, but this is not your mistake. :wink:
I like your words "to understand the tiller". That is what I mean. Most of the people here want a fast, a strong, an efficient bow. And what about the beginners? I have written my chapter for beginners in 2008, I have to point it again. And I have to point to the fact that I have written that there are other methods of doing this (p. 215 middle), giving a lot of literature. Mr. Redhorse should read it again.
Today, when building a new type of bow I prefere "the other way": once, for the first time with this bow " to understand this bow". As an experienced bowyer I can later, for the second bow of this type, do it the traditional way, I agree to the advantages.
If a very experienced bowyer like Adam want to do it the traditional way by using best materials to get best performance and efficacy then he should do so and I am convinced, he can do. Not me, I need some forerun.

@Adam: No problem with your opinion, especially the first passage: That's it! And the rest: I have not built as many composits like you, but have done these experiences too. :)

Patrick Menzies wrote:

I guess the performance of your bow would have me saying it's a good question why the bothered switching to composites if they don't even perform as well as a wooden bow.

Something tells me you've never tried shooting with a heavy composite bow. It's quite a nice experience. You should try it.

JR. sorry for mi honesty ,you jumping like rabit around the true . :lol: Some questions. Whi novice - like you - in horbows -was " prime reconstructor" for museum ? Whi novice like you- (and everybody who gluet his first wood lamela vith piece of horn) writ "book" about hornows - ?

This is somthing very simmilar like Redhawk :?

[quote="Justin Ma"][quote="Patrick Menzies"]I guess the performance of your bow would have me saying it's a good question why the bothered switching to composites if they don't even perform as well as a wooden bow.[/quote]

Something tells me you've never tried shooting with a heavy composite bow. It's quite a nice experience. You should try it.[/quote]

So I hear but we're talking about a precise replica of a supposed representative bow of the composite warbow type.
I keep hearing the praise but still looking for results.
All heavy bows are quite spectacular in a way.
Tell me about your "nice experience" and how it was better thasn anything else.

Patrick Menzies wrote:

So I hear but we're talking about a precise replica of a supposed representative bow of the composite warbow type.
I keep hearing the praise but still looking for results.
All heavy bows are quite spectacular in a way.
Tell me about your "nice experience" and how it was better thasn anything else.

Well, you're welcome to come to the Bay Area and I'll let you shoot with my 70# Grozer Biocomposite Turkish-short. That way you can judge for yourself how you like the speed and lack of hand shock of a bow which is almost like a horn bow (except that it's processed and glued differently).

Thanks but no thanks. :roll:
I want to know about the real thing, not some modern facsimile.
70 pounds is heavy? Please. :lol:

Hi Patrick,

http://www.atarn.org/islamic/Performanc ... h_bows.htm

This is an article Adam wrote, check footnote 18 for performance vs. yew longbows.

Patrick Menzies wrote:

Thanks but no thanks. :roll:
I want to know about the real thing, not some modern facsimile.
70 pounds is heavy? Please. :lol:

I strength train with a 110#@30" Kassai Bear (pulling to 30", 160x pulls/session, 3x sessions/week), so I can see how 70# would not be considered heavy by some. However, 70# does reach the threshold for which composites should be able to outperform self bows (in theory).

To put us all on the same page w.r.t. self bow performance numbers, would you mind sharing references and/or links to the self bow performance numbers you are familiar with?

Oh, Dusan the chief of the rabbits has chimed in...........
.........joking?

Justin, just have a look at the PALEOPLANET FLIGHT SHOOTING SECTION, selfbows drawing less than 50lbs do 200- 240f/sec, design, clever and solid use of the raw materials, geometry and the bow/arrow- interaction is the key not mixing up different principles and materials.
Badger(Steve Gardner) has recently shot about 264f/s with a short sinew- backed plum, so the 300f/s are even thinkable now.
No need for mega- drawweights. But I really accept and appreciate the guys having fun with high drawweights, I like challenges too, but not that one, I?m dreaming of breaking the 300f/s with a 49lbs selfbow!
Michael

300 fps is no the problem :) make an arrow light enough is the problem :)
My fastest is 254 fps, hornbow and carbon arrow. Dont remember mass but a standard arrow maybe 350-400 grains.
But this is nonsens :) who would go combat with a 50 lb stickbow that gives only a few shoots before it break down? Different tools for different tasks.
How many days can a stick bow be braced before it lose weight?
Can you imagen Khan say, stop fighting my bow must rest :)

Patrick Menzies wrote:

So I hear but we're talking about a precise replica of a supposed representative bow of the composite warbow type.
I keep hearing the praise but still looking for results.
All heavy bows are quite spectacular in a way.
Tell me about your "nice experience" and how it was better thasn anything else.

I see you critizicing a lot with strong tones of scepticism about composite bows and their merits. Could you instead find it in you to take a more productive turn and propose a thesis of your own that we can then investigate? Come on, what is it that you want to say?

Looking forward to you getting down to your point so we can discuss it like gentlemen.

-Peter

redhawk wrote:

Justin, just have a look at the PALEOPLANET FLIGHT SHOOTING SECTION, selfbows drawing less than 50lbs do 200- 240f/sec, design, clever and solid use of the raw materials, geometry and the bow/arrow- interaction is the key not mixing up different principles and materials.
Badger(Steve Gardner) has recently shot about 264f/s with a short sinew- backed plum, so the 300f/s are even thinkable now.
No need for mega- drawweights. But I really accept and appreciate the guys having fun with high drawweights, I like challenges too, but not that one, I?m dreaming of breaking the 300f/s with a 49lbs selfbow!
Michael

As Redhorse mentioned, speed isn't everything for combat situations. Kinetic energy is important when you actually care about combat readiness. Redhorse's quoted <254 fps, 350-400 grain arrow> is at least 68 J of KE.

But if I were to pick a couple of examples from that forum, BrunoB's 62#@23" hickory/osage reflex/deflx bow yields <246 fps, 220 grains>, or 40 J of KE ( http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/reply/ ... ply-425275 ). And Steve Gardner's (Badger's) aforementioned 50#@18" sinew-backed plum is a composite (not a self bow). That said, the performance numbers of <268 fps, 112 grains> and <160 fps, 400 grains> yield only 24 J and 31 J respectively ( http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/reply/ ... ply-285377 ). I wouldn't exactly take these bows to a battlefield (though to be fair to you, Michael, you admit that high draw weights are not your own personal goal).

Anyway, Michael, I admire your work and I appreciate that you are providing references. But since some of us aren't familiar with the performance numbers of high poundage self bows for war, I would like Patrick Menzies to take some responsibility and provide the appropriate data and references with which he is familiar.

Heavy ELB has 60-65% efficiency, a hornbow at top can be over 90%. So it beat the stickbow any time. Even if a lousy one with only 70% :)

I'm not sure why people are getting bent out of shape by my questioning.
We've all heard the composite is far superior thoughts but when we look for the data to support it we always find very tenuous evidence.
Adam did his tests and showed the most convincing evidence of the superiority of the composite over a certain weight.
But why is it we can never find a composite enthusiast to shoot these bows in competition when the selfbow guys have so many that can shoot their heavyweights?
However if a replicated artifact comes in at 80 pounds and loses 20 pounds with shooting, are we really looking at a realistic view?
The performance of the self bow in longbow form etc. is well known and documented at this point.
If I have to actually dig up these tests and performances it just shows how deep the composite crowd is burying their heads in the sand.

I'm not so certain about the argument that a composite holds up better with long stringing time in a war environment.
ALL natural material bows drop off with stringing time. They are not glass bows. I wouldn't be surprised if a composite actually has more performance variation due to fluctuations in temperature and length of time strung.
We hear about composite bows being put away for the winter since they get stiff and dry. That hardly sounds like a 100% reliable weapon.

Personally I think it was the sheer number of archers on a fast moving mobile platform (the horse) that is the key to the dominance, not specifically what the bows were made from.
Nobody knows better than Redhorse how the two compare when actually tested together.....

Patrick Menzies wrote:

If I have to actually dig up these tests and performances it just shows how deep the composite crowd is burying their heads in the sand.

I've only been at this a short time, so I'd love to see data whenever possible. Please give us more data and less attitude.

:lol: it took the master of stickbows to beat the amatures not ready bow with a few fps. What does it tell us?

What it does show is that if the selfbow beat the composite in that test one can hardly expect a dramatic shift in the opposite direction.
Blunt statements and requests are not attitude, Justin.
The info is readily available but I'll dig up some numbers if I must.
Believe me I see the point of the composite to many degrees but I'm hard pressed to come to any conclusion that they are vastly superior.
It is worth noting that the flight shots made in modern times by wood bows and composites are remarkably close per draw weight.
It is also worth noting that the two composites that shot over 500 and 600 yards, either broke or dramatically broke down in performance.
The self bow record holder was retired to a life of hunting.
Please don't misconstrue this info as "attitude".

Patrick Menzies wrote:

The info is readily available but I'll dig up some numbers if I must.

Yes, enough side chatter. Data please. :wink:

http://www.usaarcheryrecords.org/Flight ... ecords.pdf
There's some info that I laboriously extracted from google for you.

Patrick Menzies wrote:

http://www.usaarcheryrecords.org/Flight ... ecords.pdf
There's some info that I laboriously extracted from google for you.

That doesn't say anything about the mass of arrows used, the draw weight of the individual bows, or the arrows' speeds. Please show something more detailed.

I knew you would dance around that.
The flight rules constantly seem to be changing but at least recently they seem to have standardized arrow length at a certain minimum length.
That has tended to put the arrows in a quite similar weight range across the bow types.
Particularly focus on the more recent records for comparative purposes.
Those are quite well known quantities shooting what we would still recognize as arrows.

Patrick Menzies wrote:

I knew you would dance around that.
The flight rules constantly seem to be changing but at least recently they seem to have standardized arrow length at a certain minimum length.
That has tended to put the arrows in a quite similar weight range across the bow types.
Particularly focus on the more recent records for comparative purposes.
Those are quite well known quantities shooting what we would still recognize as arrows.

Seems like you are the one dancing around. Please show more detailed data.

The results are right there. Nobody is trying to handicap their bow in any way and there are limits to how much you can enhance performance by the overdraw device rules.
The playing field is very level.
Note the performance of Jaap's turkish bow and compare it to a similar poundage hickory bows by Dan Perry.
Do you see evidence of vast superiority?
I'm pretty sure both these bows had to shoot 23 inch arrows but the turkish bow was allowed a sipur.
The Hungarians recently mention shooting 80 pound bows over 500m and that was with a sipur.
Harry Drake shot a 80 poundYew recurve 544 yards.
Would you like barometric pressure and wind readings too?

Leve him, nothing to spent time on :) it is just the usually thing, nothing from east can be better then what an anglo can do.

If only you had let go so easily when you got schooled by an oak 2"x4" :lol:
I was actually thinking your bow was going to come out on top in that test as I still firmly believe the composite does have more potential and said as much on that thread.
You let me down when I bought your BS. :lol:
My belief is certainly wavering and fwiw I'm not Anglo....

Redhorse, I can't let this one go.

Patrick Menzies wrote:

The results are right there. Nobody is trying to handicap their bow in any way and there are limits to how much you can enhance performance by the overdraw device rules.

Patrick, the results are not right there. That's why I want to see controlled tests. Arrow mass, bow's poundage, arrow speed. Very simple details that should be within your capabilities to provide.

Patrick Menzies wrote:

If only you had let go so easily when you got schooled by an oak 2"x4" :lol:
I was actually thinking your bow was going to come out on top in that test as I still firmly believe the composite does have more potential and said as much on that thread.
You let me down when I bought your BS. :lol:
My belief is certainly wavering and fwiw I'm not Anglo....

Arrow mass, arrow speed, bow poundage. So far you have failed to describe specific numbers. No one can take you seriously.

sorry for interruption, but I need to ask:
are these formula ok ?

bow efficiency = stored energy / released energy of arrow

stored energy = integral of force - draw curve until full draw

released energy = kinetic energy of arrow = m/2 v?

that means to exactly calculate we need
force-draw-curve + weight and speed of arrow ?

thanks :)

Guys, guys, is this so important that you have to bring up this never-ending discussion in this otherwise interesting topic? I think there are a lot of guys here wanting to hear more from JR and his work on these amazing bow finds.

Yep, thats it.
You don not need to shoot the distace :) the number tells you. If you shoot, other things get involved, ballistics the shooter, weather and so on.

:lol: You are right Kvilio, but JR cant say us nothing , .only if real measurments of this nice old bow from museum...

Oh yeah, my favourite topic, let?s go.
Last September I was asked by a guy, who is a member of an archery- community( plastic longbows ) what a selfbow is able to shoot. Some days ago I?ve had finished my first selfbow( short osage, 44lbs/23") making about 206f/sec., he didn?t believe it. O.k. we made a date, I took the bow, a light flightarrow, my chrono and did some shots, all in the 195f/s- 210f/s- range: you?ve manipulated the chrono!!! I asked one of them to chrono his bow, he resisted. I picked up my stuff, telling them: buy the bow, chrono it with your equipment and if the bow doesn?t make the 200f/s I?ll give the money back!

They didn?t buy the bow, I?ve shot it a lot, no breakdown at all, I?ve done 3 other bows the same way, same results.

I really don?t know why the majority of plastic- and horn bow- archers are not able to accept the qualities and capablities of selfbows or wooden- lam- bows.
Adam Karpovicz has commented the speed of short wooden flightbows as hardly to beat by any other type of bow.
Real experienced bowyers or archers didn?t have any problems with these datas.

The results of the US flights are speaking for themselves since decades.: wooden bows ( whether short ore long) are ruling!
Maybe you are dreaming of these historical 850yards, so please do that shot! Please not the usual excuses!

I think it is possible to shot that far with a hornbow, but not by mixing up principles of construction and materials like it has been discussed in that thread: pure, clear hornbow- making the Osmanian way.
Does anyone know what kind of flightarrow has been used by the Osmanians when making their legendary shots?

I?m really wondering about some statements dealing with sidewalls and heating horn.
The main constituent of horn is ceratin, so it is for wool. Why one should not wash wool to hot? Cause the keratin is a protein, heated to much it will turn into a peptone, which is a denatured protein, the horn became brittle. The critical temperature is 65C. Traditional hornbowyers know that border, don?t heat hideglue more than 65C to long.

To press horn into shape with heat is a no-go. Horn is used in bowery cause of its reconstitution power, that means a somehow pressed horn will try to regain its original shape, the glueline will be very critical.
Redhorse is right about using sidewalls, maybe their modulus is not that lower, that?s not the point, cut into a straight strip the grain is broken. It even can break easily by trying to bend it. No selfbowyer would use a wood with an interrupted grain.

I?m asking for real, pure hornbowyery as it has been done very succesfully for centuries, no buts and ifs, no maybe- mode.
Why mixing it up with obscure methods? For to get a reputation?

This is my last statement about these questions, I found it really time wasting to even discuss that. I?ll go out now with my dog, playing in the snow. How she is using here nose tells me which tracks are worth to follow..............as the Native Americans are saying: take it or leave it.

Michael

redhawk wrote:

Oh yeah, my favourite topic, let?s go.
Last September I was asked by a guy, who is a member of an archery- community( plastic longbows ) what a selfbow is able to shoot. Some days ago I?ve had finished my first selfbow( short osage, 44lbs/23") making about 206f/sec., he didn?t believe it. O.k. we made a date, I took the bow, a light flightarrow, my chrono and did some shots, all in the 195f/s- 210f/s- range: you?ve manipulated the chrono!!! I asked one of them to chrono his bow, he resisted. I picked up my stuff, telling them: buy the bow, chrono it with your equipment and if the bow doesn?t make the 200f/s I?ll give the money back!

How heavy was the arrow?

Justin,
. I can assure you that the wood bow guys are not using vastly lighter arrows or somehow putting the odds in their favor. That has historically been done by the composite crowd because flight shooting has been part of that tradition..
Everyone tries to use the lightest arrow possible for these tests.
The bow weight class is listed on the record page.
Obviously one could shoot a sub 50 pound bow in the 50 pound class but surely you can see the performance trend.

Interesting that Redhorse is now practically reducing bow performance to non real world tests. We could have saved a lot of bloodshed if the f/d curve and chrono data was used instead of warfare.

This woodbow versus composite is only going to be reactivated every time new info comes out. The Mary Rose finds were such a blessing in that they enabled replicas to be built and tested objectively.
It's only fair that the Composite finds go through the same analysis.
What is possibly wrong with that?
Test all the legends and see if they hold water.
The fact that the longbow replicas performed better than the historical data indicated and the composites are starting off performing much worse is unsettling to some.

Perhaps you should look at the test done where Redhorse was asked to put up or shut up. He lost and wouldn't shut up. It's probably always going to be that way.

Patrick Menzies wrote:

Test all the legends and see if they hold water.
The fact that the longbow replicas performed better than the historical data indicated and the composites are starting off performing much worse is unsettling to some.

Patrick, I couldn't agree with you more. But I'm interested in kinetic energy. Show us some data. Even show us some Mary Rose replica data since those are war bows. Show us something, as long as you tell us bow poundage, arrow mass, and speed. Why is that so hard for you?

Sorry, I thought everyone with an inkling of interest in bows followed the endless array of warbow flight shots and armor tests etc.
With you being new to this you may have just fixated on one style and developed heavy bias without looking at everything objectively.
I understand that you think the data isn't out there.
You will presumably show me comparative composite data, right?
Hopefully more than just linking to the tests Adam did.

Patrick Menzies wrote:

Sorry, I thought everyone with an inkling of interest in bows followed the endless array of warbow flight shots and armor tests etc.
With you being new to this you may have just fixated on one style and developed heavy bias without looking at everything objectively.
I understand that you think the data isn't out there.
You will presumably show me comparative composite data, right?
Hopefully more than just linking to the tests Adam did.

I'll quote performance numbers from Adam's book on Ottoman Turkish Bows, performance numbers that were not in the ATARN link. Now PLEASE quote some numbers for self bows. Is it so much to ask?

(Besides, I have to appreciate self bows and wood/bamboo laminates because they are part of Chinese archery as well, which is a very heterogeneous archery tradition.)

Justin, the arrow weighs 195grs. About the same arrow- weight the Osmanians used to shot flights.

But don?t come up with low- efficiency. Efficiency is completely overrated, the key is the bow/arrow- interaction.

About one and a half year ago, when I was new to flight- archery, I had a question in the PALEOPLANET FLIGHT SHOOTING SECTION: why are short bows shooting that fast? It was Adam Karpovicz answering in his typical short and clear style: limbs are moving faster... that?s it.

I?m not at all interested in goofing any other kind of bows, but if anyone is goofing selfbows I?ll argue back with real data. I?m attracted by speed, speed is real beauty to me. As I mentioned above my challenge is the 49lbs selfbow shooting 300f/s.
I was in hornbows for a long time, but since I?ve broken my spine I?ll never again able to draw more than 55lbs. A hornbow of that weight will never match my dreams of speed.

Michael

Thank you Michael. As I've said before, I'm impressed with the ingenuity of your 137.5/triangle bows. Best of luck in your pursuit of a 300 fps bow.

Edit: I also understand that longer bows, if made correctly, have limb leverage in their favor in contrast to shorter bows (the Assyrian/Egyptian Triangle horn bow being a prime example).

195 grains in 206 fps is 18.38 ftlb or 24.91 J.
44 lb 23 inch draw, straight fd-curve 40-44 ftlb, 41-45%. Recurve will have more energy.
Long way to go before it is near a horn bow :) Some of my worst has been under 60% efficency.

Is this going to morph into one of those kinetic energy wins even if the bow is no longer shot by a human and the arrow never strikes a target?
I was very interested in the data Adam gave on here but would like to see a bunch of self bows or wood based bows also strapped to that machine.
I wonder why those bows were never sent out into the real world?
What do you think is the best way to compare the two styles?
Same draw weight and length using the same arrow?

If I show you numbers will the data be invalid because a composite wasn't tested using the same arrow and chrono?
I think Kviljio used the same arrow to test his Ipe/boo flight bow and his Turkish bow. Have you seen his results from those shots?
Please let me know what you have seen before I do all the research that you should have at least dabbled in before you became so sure of your stance.

I have a racingcar, but are not allowed to race with it. Because I have 5 gear and the other just 4.

What was the extra gear again?

How about opening another thread to continue this argument (which all of you should know will never be resolved) rather than hijacking this one?

It doesn't need to be resolved but finally getting a chance to compare was nice. That's why it was brought up on this thread.
We got access to an actual bow, a replica was made and tested. Why was that even done if the info was going to be ignored?

Orda Khan wrote:

How about opening another thread to continue this argument (which all of you should know will never be resolved) rather than hijacking this one?

I so totally agree! This was suppose to be a thread about the Zargalant Bow, not a composite vs. selfbow playground. The topic is much worth discussing (!) but you guys are turning round in circles. I'd suggest: Define your rules and compare the data (like at WTT) and put them in separate thread. I am sure it'll have a lot of hits :).

Kevin

Sorry for derailing the thread, folks. Looking forward to hearing more about this bow.

@Fenris: Thank you for leading to the topic.
@Jack: I try to write you a letter (OT: museum)

It was a great feeling when we (Holger Riesch, Uli Stehli and me) kept the Jargalant bow at our hands for the first time. The bow had an oval-shaped cross section, was light in weight, and I estimated (first) the draw weight round about 80-100 lb/28?. Holger Riesch gives a historical review of research work and historical context (p. 181), Uli Stehli made quiver and arrows (p. 191).
As I am a busy scientist, there is not much time left to repeat all the data of the book. Therefore I try to give only the specifics for discussion. I separate it into chapters.

1. Wooden core:
As far as I know, it is the first time that an exact determination of the wood of an Mongolian bow of the 8. Century is published. A special institute determined Prunus spec. (p. 383) that means, the exact species of tree is unknown, but we know the genus Prunus. In Europe there are a lot of different trees of this species, for example P. cerasifera, P. mahaleb, P. padus, P. domestica, P. persica.
I have exercise with a lot of European species because of tinkering wood since 40 years. When I investigated the broken piece and the broken layers of wood (Pic. 2), sinew and horn, the wooden core seems to me like P. domestica because of some characteristics: P. domestica is a hard, beautiful brown colored wood with a smooth and dense surface, good elasticity, but not so strong bending power. You can see this wood on picture 2 of my collection of bow woods, left column on top. So I decided to take this Prunus species for the bending portion. The siyahs seemed a little bit lighter in color, they were determined as Prunus spec. too. Therefore I decided to take P. mahaleb for the siyahs. I do not know which Prunus species in the Mongolia of the 8. Century has grown, but this was a good choice, I think.
Building the core is demonstrated in the book (p. 185). But some aspects are of worth mentioning additionally: All parts were clearly visible in the CT-pictures, dovetail splice, two additional parts of the handle. The dimensions of the siyahs are identical with the original bow, please compare p. 183 and p. 249: the left, broken arm is somewhat in tension, so viewing direction more or less from top.
There is a determination of the hide glue: It is hide glue (glutine) of normal characteristics without any additions. The finished wooden core (glued together, tillered, and draw till 28?) was very narrow (28 mm) and made an elastic impression by bending.
(will be continued with chapter 2: CT)

JR, you?ve to count in woods you can?t know cause they are not growing here.
When I was ordered to research the bow- findings of olon kurin gol at the University of Novosibirsk i did the failure to compare the wood of the findings with my knowledge about wooden- species. I ended up with blackthorn ( a prunus too). There was no money left for a DNS- determination of the wood, so I did the bow with 2 central strips of blackthorn.
2 years later the university mailed me the results of finally done tests:it is tamarisk- wood. The tamarisk is also known as salt cedar and very common in the Eurasian steppe. The wood is well known for to be dense and elastic.
To me it looks like a mix of plum and yew- wood.
Stephen Selby once posted results of further DNS- tests about other Scythian bow excavations with the same result, tamarisk even heat- treated.
So be careful with the plum, JR!

For those who are really interested in flightshooting with wooden bows go to http://www.paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/fo ... t-Shooting or visit my blog BOWXPLOSION https://redhawk55.wordpress.com , tag for flightshooting. You?ll found some bows and arrows made by me, chronos, exciting pics of the flightbows used in the 1920- 1940ies ( absolutely great bow designs, shooting very far!!). You?re welcome, Michael

JR -thank you very much, you are a good man...

The Prunus species vary widely in hardness and density (I think there are hundreds of them). For example in my part of the world Prunus virginiana (chokecherry) is a hard, very dense wood, heavier than maple. Prunus pensylvannica (pin cherry) is soft and light like willow. I doubt if the difference would manifest itself too much in the bending portion of limbs, since the wood (rather thin and narrow) is well encased in sinew and horn.

So, there was a V-splice in the siyah/limb joint?

I am looking forward for more! Please do show the dimensions and the location of the CT images.

Adam

Wow, I didn?t look for a few days and I see this thread became very popular, thanks!!!

JR glad to see you here, I remember that you attended one of my seminars but I didn?t realize it?s already 20 years that have passed since then;-))

I am excited to hear that there is a v-splice visible in the x-rays of the 8th century bow. To my knowledge the earliest evidence of this kind of joining the siyahs (Jack could probably correct me).

JR is there a chance to see these X-rays or CT?s made of the bows? And would there be a chance for ATARN members to see the bows in person after they were removed from the displays in between exhibitions??

To all: The artifacts are certainly not resting in Germany, they are not possesions of the Bonn Museum, but of the Mongolian archaeological authorities or the state itself. After they were shown in the Netherlands and in another exhibition in Eastern germany they will go permanently to Mongolia in 2013.

JJ

Another appendix for the wood examination:
As biologist I know the different methods for the analysis:
DNA-tests are expensive, will take a lot of time and are often not possible with old wood of the surface.
Microscopic investigations, so called histological analysis, are a safe practice which leads on to the genus and sometimes to the species. Especially, if it is used together with phase contrast imaging or histofluorescens methods.
Actually the macroscopic view was used (p. 381, 383). May be, this has been revised sometimes. But for me: I had to work with the result of the analysis nevertheless!
The attachement is no actual picture of the bow-wood, only an example for P. avium.

2nd visit in Exhibition.

Some observations:

Adam, the bow is 5 - 5,5 cm wide in mid-limbs and approx. 1,6-1,8 mm thick.

Bede, it seems that there is a transverse sinew winding on the horn in midlimb, but it?s hardly visible, so if it?s really there it must be very thin.

Jack, other than stated before, the splice of the upper siyah is not visible, because there are dark sinew remains over it, but it seems to me that the slot which is clearly visble there, is not a drying crack, but made intentionally because of its regularity. So it is probably the same technique seen in modern Korean siyah splices with a prolonged cut.

String is heavily waxed (?) and polished. Thickness about 3-4 mm. The fibers are extremely fine where they have separated.

The arrows: I must admit that on the first visit I didn?t notice they are made of very well polished bamboo with one exception. The nodes are ground away completely. Really astonishing is that they are tapered! It was done with hardwood inserts that cover the whole fletching area. A simple V-splice is used for inserting these rear ands... Arrow nocks fit the string with about 4-5 mm width.


JJ

If I had only known ... I was about to visit the exhibition yesterday :).
Anyway taking the above measurements:
-5-5,5 cm wide and 1,6-1,8 cm thick (maybe about 2-3 mm less for the wrapping (sinew?) and cover (birchbark))
-length of the bow maybe around 140-145 cm
Compared to a similar design given in the "Reflexbogenbuch" (Avar bow)
The draw weight of the bow should be somewhere between 120 (!) and 180 lbs. That is very impressive and puts the proto-turkish design in a row with the war bows in topkapi palace.
To the wood discussion of the zargalant bow: I agree with the postings of Adam and JR. There is a wide range in modulus and density within a given species. Within a given genus it is even more. So it may be impossible to rebuild the exact (!) wooden core. It is more reasonable to take a wood with intermediate density and modulus and proceed. Plum wood for sure is a good choice.
To the identification of the genus: Looking at the book chapter of material analysis, one can see that tamarisk wood was within the focus of the institute responsible for the material analysis (they identified the whip as tamarisk wood). I would assume the analysis was correct, since the guys at "Labor fuer quartaere Hoelzer, Lagenau" seem to be quite specialized and professional :).
Anyway I realized we are talking about two different bows in the same thread. It may be a bit difficult to distinguish in between for readers which bow is talked about (as it was for me:)). Since JJ started a thread for each bow maybe everything can be put in order!?

Kevin

Too bad, Kevin! next time when you plan a visit, send me a message ;-))

Yes, there seems to be a bit of confusion in the 3 threads. All I have written in this one refers to the bow from Cagaan Chad...

The reconstructed bow (by JR) is the one from Zargalant.

JJ

So sorry, that is right: a little bit confusion. My postings should be in the thread 2:
Zargalant-bow.

Greetings, Jo

That might resolve a lot of confusion. So there is no reconstruction of the Cagaan Chad bow.

Nope not yet. But as Adam said, he made a somewhat similar bow/design!?
Did you post or comment on this bow somewhere in the forum, Adam?

Kevin

Some "stolen" pics from German " Traditionell Bogensiessen 63/2012" from exibition :D

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Like mi friend Mchal said- its looks like feathers are glued "helical" not strait...

Thanks JJ. If the bow is 145cm ntn and the limbs 4.8 x 1.4 cm (1mm bark thickness subtracted), I get 85lb. This is compared to a weaker 50lb bow of roughly similar shape to the Mongol bows (the 50lb bow is nothing to brag about - a converted Turkish bow).

JR - where are the CT-scans of the Zargalant bow?

Adam

@Admins: Is it possible to push my explanations of the Zargalant bow to the right place?
http://198.170.107.188/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2240
In the meantime I continue here...sorry!

CT scan of Zargalant bow
The different layers in a CT scan of an archaic bow showing cross sections are not easily to determine, because sinew layer and horn layer show the same compact mass. I discussed this together with an orthopaedic surgeon; he had the same opinion and could not differentiate. (compare pic 3, page 184).
Comparisons with the original layers were necessary. Therefore it was a good choice to choose one of the broken bows for reconstruction. Measurements at the original layers show the real position and dimension: The horn layer (on top pic 3) has a pointed oval shape, the sinew layer is on back and lateral of the wooden core and a little bit lateral of the horn.
The CT-pictures are sole property of the museum. They allowed to give some data of the construction to a circle of interested people.
The picture of page 184 is cross-section near by the handle, where the grip-section tapering to the limb. Most part of the limb has a thickness of 0,6 cm (horn) and 0,5-0,6 cm of wood (table p. 189) tapering to the ends (siyah-knee) to 1,64 cm (5,6 wood, sinew: 3,4, horn: 5,4, rest: glue and birch-layer)
Middle of the limb: 0,6 cm horn, 0,6 cm wood, 0,4 sinew, 0,2 birch-layer (2 x), little bit glue between birch and sinew, 1,8-1,9 cm thickness altogether
The measurements of the CT-pictures had to be equalized to the real thickness seen in the broken parts of the bow, because 1200 years let the organic materials shrink or swell, depending to the situation in the earth and their contact to humidity. But at the broken parts especially the sinew layer seemed to be swollen.

Visiting the exhibition "Steppenreiter" two weeks ago, I spend a bit time in reading further on in the cataloge of the exhibtion. I stumbled over the essays written about the harp found along with the man and bow from Zargalant. In the conclusion part of the article scientist claim, that the man found together with the artifacts may be a musician but never a warrior of his time. According to them there are severeal hints like the missing battle axe and sword that are typicaly found along with turkish warriors of that time. Despite that, a harp is a very special gift for a burried, that is usually not found. So that may give a explanation for the relatly low draw weight of the zargalant bow.

regards Kevin

:wink: interesting

isn't it ;)

Adam Karpowicz wrote:

where are the CT-scans of the Zargalant bow?

Adam

http://www.primusverlag.de/titel.php?ar ... 2273684785

yellow - horn
red - sinew

greeting benzi

Yes, thanks. There is only this one section scan in the catalog, which I have.

JR says:
"The measurements of the CT-pictures had to be equalized to the real thickness seen in the broken parts of the bow, because 1200 years let the organic materials shrink or swell, depending to the situation in the earth and their contact to humidity."

I noticed the proportions of the CT-scan do not correspond to the measuremens given (the mm numbers). If I understand JR correctly, the 19.1 total thickness is a sum of measurements taken from the other limb of the bow, where the materials could be seen from the side or have separated, assuming the materials changed dimensions also in the unbroken, bark-covered (CT-scanned) limb as well.

Since the bark on the unbroken limb is not loose, then the total thickness of limb there should rather be (nearly) unchanged with age? Then the 19.1mm thickness at the grip could actually be more than that. This actually seems reasonable, since the limbs show fairly even taper from grip to siyah. The measurements JR shows above: 14.4mm at siyah, 18-19mm at middle and 19.1mm at grip do not give even taper in the limb. I would expect something above 20mm at the grip.

JR - does it make sense to you?

Adam

I saw the bows and arrows on Saturday in Bonn. Quite impressive. A bought the Waffen und Kost?mkunde, too about your reprodukcion of the hunnic bow of Vienna, JR.