A stupid question
Hello,
After reading of some articles and opinions in the forum and after some efforts of thinking I reached to a question: Why old bowyers used so difficult to made wooden core construction? In particular I mean the syahs to limbs joints. Fishtail joint requires ridge on it for solidity. Ridge made nearly 1/3 to 1/2 of limb?s length nonflexible. Wasn?t it easier to made core of one bent peace of wood and reinforced only the angles of bending and ends of syahs? Thus more length of limb will be active.
I will be happy to read some thoughts on it.
After reading of some articles and opinions in the forum and after some efforts of thinking I reached to a question: Why old bowyers used so difficult to made wooden core construction? In particular I mean the syahs to limbs joints. Fishtail joint requires ridge on it for solidity. Ridge made nearly 1/3 to 1/2 of limb?s length nonflexible. Wasn?t it easier to made core of one bent peace of wood and reinforced only the angles of bending and ends of syahs? Thus more length of limb will be active.
I will be happy to read some thoughts on it.
George,
There is a reason why Horn bows have relatively small active limbs.
Part of it is down to the materials being used in the bow, in Longbows and other selfbows you use wood alone. Wood does not work as a bow under too much compression (it will snap), therefore,a selfbow design gives a large limb and comparitively low compression on each square-cm of wood.
Horn and Sinew however have greater compression and tension abilities respectively, i.e. Horn can be squashed and sinew stretched further. Both Horn and Sinew work more efficiently at higher amounts of stress.
For this reason Bowmakers using Horn and Sinew make sure that the Horn and Sinew is under greater stress in the bow than Wood in a selfbow would be. To achieve greater stress, the limbs are made shorter. To further the leverage, long siyahs are used to pull the limbs round a greater curve.
As to why Bowyers did not use a single stave for the core, although some did, for most it would be too hard to find one long good straight grained piece of Wood. However it is easy to find short pieces of good wood, Bowyers spliced the shorter pieces together to make one 'good' core.
Also, as one bowyer has told me, the splices are sometimes stronger than the bow itself, they are the last things to break!
I hope from my rambling you can find an answer to your question.
Cheers
Mike
There is a reason why Horn bows have relatively small active limbs.
Part of it is down to the materials being used in the bow, in Longbows and other selfbows you use wood alone. Wood does not work as a bow under too much compression (it will snap), therefore,a selfbow design gives a large limb and comparitively low compression on each square-cm of wood.
Horn and Sinew however have greater compression and tension abilities respectively, i.e. Horn can be squashed and sinew stretched further. Both Horn and Sinew work more efficiently at higher amounts of stress.
For this reason Bowmakers using Horn and Sinew make sure that the Horn and Sinew is under greater stress in the bow than Wood in a selfbow would be. To achieve greater stress, the limbs are made shorter. To further the leverage, long siyahs are used to pull the limbs round a greater curve.
As to why Bowyers did not use a single stave for the core, although some did, for most it would be too hard to find one long good straight grained piece of Wood. However it is easy to find short pieces of good wood, Bowyers spliced the shorter pieces together to make one 'good' core.
Also, as one bowyer has told me, the splices are sometimes stronger than the bow itself, they are the last things to break!
I hope from my rambling you can find an answer to your question.
Cheers
Mike