Post by Hróðgár on Feb 23, 2014 21:42:26 GMT
I thought I'd open this thread so we could talk about bows, and because I felt this would be to long for the Heorþ thread.
I took a bow-building course in Lenzburg over the weekend with 2 German archaeologists.
The idea was to see how bows were carved and what's important about them. We used rather modern tools, because the course was only to take 12 hours and the people who took the course had little idea of how carving bows works. We used Hickory wood, I believe because yew is harder to carve and for the people who made north american bows it was accurate, although it's a neophyte bowwood for Europe.
We got to chose between 5 different bow types: the English Longbow, the Norse Lonbow, the Alemannic Bow, an European neolythical bow and a native american bow. I chose the Alemannic Bow, which was used around 500 AD.
After the historical introduction we started working on our bows. The Alemannic bow is not a longbow because of it's shape: The front is flat and the profile is slightly pentagonal through a ridge going along the back, and the middle is thicker than the arms and rounded at the back.
All of us received rawly shaped bows, that still needed a lot of Work, the native american bows were pre bent with steam. We used raspes, files and drawknives to shape the bows, starting with the front, by rasping about a millimeter off, so the drawknive wouldn't get stuck on the ridges of the texture. Then we filed the notches for holding the string, one on each arm, so they stood diagonal to each other. The instructor then tested the streangth of each arm with a bowstring and a device that held it back, so he could see how the arms bent. We had to correct the thickness by taking wood off the back. After that we had to carve the ridge, which I found the hardest part, as it was supposed to be symmetric. In the end I managed and I could smooth the back with the drawing blade. in the end I had to rasp middle so it would get round. i ended up smoothing the bow with sand paper. the last we did that day was to put wax on the bow and make the bowstring.
The bow's about 190cm
Today we made the arrows: We used pre factured pinewood shafts and I took medieval arrow heads, a Bodkin and a practice one. I sharpened the fronts of the shafts and then glued the heads on.
Then we sawed the nock in to the end and enlargened it with a file.
after that we glued on the feathers, cut a small part off on the front and back, so we could pull the hemp fibers around and that was it.
I took a bow-building course in Lenzburg over the weekend with 2 German archaeologists.
The idea was to see how bows were carved and what's important about them. We used rather modern tools, because the course was only to take 12 hours and the people who took the course had little idea of how carving bows works. We used Hickory wood, I believe because yew is harder to carve and for the people who made north american bows it was accurate, although it's a neophyte bowwood for Europe.
We got to chose between 5 different bow types: the English Longbow, the Norse Lonbow, the Alemannic Bow, an European neolythical bow and a native american bow. I chose the Alemannic Bow, which was used around 500 AD.
After the historical introduction we started working on our bows. The Alemannic bow is not a longbow because of it's shape: The front is flat and the profile is slightly pentagonal through a ridge going along the back, and the middle is thicker than the arms and rounded at the back.
All of us received rawly shaped bows, that still needed a lot of Work, the native american bows were pre bent with steam. We used raspes, files and drawknives to shape the bows, starting with the front, by rasping about a millimeter off, so the drawknive wouldn't get stuck on the ridges of the texture. Then we filed the notches for holding the string, one on each arm, so they stood diagonal to each other. The instructor then tested the streangth of each arm with a bowstring and a device that held it back, so he could see how the arms bent. We had to correct the thickness by taking wood off the back. After that we had to carve the ridge, which I found the hardest part, as it was supposed to be symmetric. In the end I managed and I could smooth the back with the drawing blade. in the end I had to rasp middle so it would get round. i ended up smoothing the bow with sand paper. the last we did that day was to put wax on the bow and make the bowstring.
The bow's about 190cm
Today we made the arrows: We used pre factured pinewood shafts and I took medieval arrow heads, a Bodkin and a practice one. I sharpened the fronts of the shafts and then glued the heads on.
Then we sawed the nock in to the end and enlargened it with a file.
after that we glued on the feathers, cut a small part off on the front and back, so we could pull the hemp fibers around and that was it.
