an asian style bow

close up view

Very nice. Do you have an unstrung picture?

unstrung

drawn

Can you guess how it's built ?

Wow, this bow looks really nice - good mixture of tradition and modern style
;-) Uli

Looks very good. I thought it looked completely old-style, what's the modern aspect?

How about details: length, width, weight in hand, weight of draw and length of draw; how about accuracy, etc.

Inquiring minds want to know.

MJuingong

The funny thing about this bow is that it is in fact a self bow, made from one solid piece of rattan.

I posted it here because I think it looks better than the average rattan bow.

The draw weight is around 35#, here are the dims (in cm)

Very good; that had me fooled.

Romain; I am hoping that there are different qualities of rattan because the ones that I have experienced are extremely weak, with poor cast. These were being marketed as children's bows. A Herculean size bow with minimal strength. -j-

In Beijing I found some rattan beams, 4cm diameter, that could be made into 40# bows quite easily.

They were imported from Malaysia I believe, to make furniture.

also the belly must be cooked.

Romain, where did you find rattan beams in beijing and how much cost?

Pure chance. I went to visit an antique furniture dealer along the jingshunlu after the Beigao exit and in the same backyard, there was a shop selling rattan furniture, with their workshop in the back.

I bought one beam that they cut in two for me, enough to make 2 bows. The price was around 40 RMB if I remember well. The rattan was imported from S-E Asia.

I was clumsy enough to break the first bow I built (which is no small achievement with rattan) because I cooked the belly AND the back to make the recurves.

Hence my advice : never, never, never temper the back (bark) of rattan.

romain
can you show your first rattan bow and rattrn beams? i am interested it,and ,can you use chinese tell me the address?perhaps i can find it in my city but i'm busy now.

in the south china who use rattrn beams buid the bridge, some method i hear of use fire hot it and screw(pinch), it well break into fiber , i'm not test it .

thanks

The funny thing about this bow is that it is in fact a self bow, made from one solid piece of rattan.

Does that mean that even the siyahs and the grip have no solid wood reinforcement?

Indeed, there is not any wood reinforcement, except some rattan bindings, this is a real selbow.
What is funny is that the belly seems to be horn, but infact this is just coloured with black ink.

what?s the name of this game?
I would never make a horn-bow looking like a rattan-bow........
Rattan is the stave for lazy bowyers, not worth any effort......

Michael

Yes Stephen, except the bridges which have been added, otherwise, there's only one solid piece of rattan.

Painted black on the belly and dyed brown on the back.

Not bad, eh ? despite the opinion of Redhawk...

Sorry for hijacking the thread but this is my Asian type bow that I just finished:) It's actually the first bow that I made and was surprised at how well it works.
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It's only 25lbs at 28in. but I draw it to 31in. with a thumbring.The riser is made out of oak. Siyahs are canarywood and padauk. The limbs are black fiberglass and elm. I was not paying much attention the craftmanship on this bow - I just want to finish and shoot it to make sure it works. The next one should be more refined.

it sure looks good !

Is it really the first bow you build? It's really a smart one!

:D Redhawk! I'm also a lazy rattan bowyer!
Every children around my house can shoot with my asian style bows i'm not ashamed about that.

as you can see.

i love it :D :D