Shooting the Horn Bow

 

I took the horn bow roving, having strung it before I set off. I got someone to video me shooting it, but when I got home ... no camera... I'd swear I'd lobbed it into the car, but its nowhere to be seen. I daresay, as soon as I buy a new one, it will miraculously turn up!
Some of the guys were still at the club and when contacted said they couldn't see it anywhere, mind they did find one of my lost arrows which helps a tad.
The bow performed quite well, it was me that was the limiting factor, and I wish I had the video to see how far I was drawing. As I warmed up and the bow settled in, I reckon I was shooting about 250 yards and probably drawing about 25".
The bow was showing that one weak limb as still rather weak with bit of a tendency for the string to move over to one side. I was mostly shooting Mediterranean loose, but did shoot 3 or 4 with the thumb ring, which went quite well.

Now I'm home, I've got the weak limb strapped into a hint of extra reflex and I've added some more sinew to the weak area and to the weaker side. I'll leave it for a few weeks before reappraising it.

I'm more irritated about the memory card than the camera... I s'pose I'll buy the same model, as I know it does the job and I have a spare battery for it (Canon IXUS) at least it's not a stupidly expensive one.

Ha! The camera has turned up... it had slithered down the back of the rear seat squabs, Jackie got her slim lady hands down there and fished it out. I'll post some pics later!

Horn Bow Braced

 

I've got the horn bow braced and made a string from B55 which is horrid stretchy stuff, but necessary for horn bows with the high brace force to avoid breaking the nocks. Karpowicz tried lots of different ways to reinforce the nocks but they all failed with fastflite strings (or the strings broke). He actually specifies B50, but B55 is B50 with a thinner strand apparently. Anyhow to be sure I made a B55 string for one of my flight bows and, yes it stretched like mad, so it is

definitely not fastflite. 
The bow seems pretty well made with one limb being just a whisker weaker and a slight hint of twist at one tip. These minor issues can probably be corrected with pressure.
I haven't managed a decent draw, but I pulled it close to the point where the string lifts away from the levers, so hopefully, I should be able to manage it. The high initial draw weight feels rather brutal though.
here's a link to the video:- 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjv8rfdCSTE

Horn Bow, Warbow, 3D Shoot

I've had the horn bow to a low brace using a peg board to get the limbs back, but before getting it fully braced I've done some sinew work on the it, filing the edges to tidy up some loose sinew or sinew that was wrapped around onto the horn belly. I've added more sinew where it looked a bit thin or dry, this needs plenty of time to dry thoroughly, although the hide glue actually gels and becomes touch dry pretty quickly.
While I've been waiting for this to cure I've been doing some work on a warbow belonging to my mate JT, he's not had it very long and never been happy with it. "..sold to me as a 130#....had less than 100 arrows through it. Just a horrible square (in the hand), uncomfortable thing to shoot! " I had an initial appraisal on the tiller and then set to work, it was a bit long at about 82" nock to nock with rather cumbersome nocks so I sawed them off, loosing about an inch off each end. I thought it might be interesting to saw a long section through the nocks to see how they were fitted... the result was horrible.

The pic shows one of mine (from a 50-60# bow) for comparison.

The Warbow has been strapped down straight and heat treated ready for some re-tillering.
I've done videos of both the horn bow and the warbow refurb on my youtube channel. (Del Cat)

The weather has gone from heatwave to persistent rain an thunder, luckily it held off for my first 3D shoot since the Covid lockdown at the Cloth of Gold club. It was an interesting format "kills only"

which gave a score of 10 for a kill, but minus 2 for a wound! Two arrows on each target, it produces some anomalous results like a small pheasant where I was the the only one from our group of 3 to hit it, but I scored -2. It was good fun and I was with my primitive, the other guys had a longbow and a recurve barebow. It was interesting to compare styles on some of the trickier stances. I was much more at ease with the kneeling shots.
Thanks to all at CoG for a wonderful shoot.
The torrential rain returned on my way home and more the next day, when in the evening I noticed some water on the floor of the sun lounge... so it was up onto the flat roof clearing all the gutters and accumulated buck from the roof, hopefully that will prevent a recurrence. I couldn't see any actual problem and my guess is that the muck accumulated behind and under my solar hot water pipework had allowed water to rise over the flashing or to find a seam in the flashing/upstand against the wall. Time will tell.

Horn Bow!

 Back in February (it seemed further back than that) I bought a box of stuff from a bowyer who was moving on to other interest and projects. The main items were a part finished composite "horn bow"* , a pair of horns, some horn tips, sinew and Adam Karpowicz book "Ottoman and Turkish Bows manufacture and design" (the definitive work on the subject, and very hard to find in hard copy).
The bow comprises the horn, wood and sinew structure, but it had never been strung so I approached it with some trepidation...which is maybe why it's been sitting since February! Mind I had been studying the book.

I've now started work tentatively flexing it, tidying up the sinew and evaluating it. I may do some glue and sinew work before cutting in nocks and stringing it, but it's a matter of making haste slowly. I have done some sinew work before, but very little, I do know it needs weeks if not months or years to fully cure (depending on thickness of glue, sinew etc. Hopefully the little I'll be doing will cure in a month or two.

There is no rush, and I recognise I'm a long way from my comfort zone. It bears no real resemblance to tillering a wooden bow as apparently most of the adjustment is done by flexing and some gentle heat.

The blogger site has forced me to use the new version which abjectly refuses to allow me to move pictures or wrap around text in any useful or consistent manner... maybe it's so it works better on phones. Anyhow, it is what it is and I'm tending to post more on Youtube now. The advantage of the blogger is that it gives better quality still pics which are good for reference... the disadvantage is, it's bad for my blood pressure!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8muNDAm0qUM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuJtTpaDu6M

It's something that I'd had as a long standing ambition and the sort of thing I read about as a kid with almost total incomprehension... bows that can shoot 800yards? So for me it's a privilege to get to work on the bow without having had to do some of the very slow, messy preparation and sinew work.
I'm doing short video showing the progress, but bear in mind it's a long term project with no real idea of the potential draw weight or the chance of success... but that what bow interests me... I don't make bows to end up with a bow! I make bows to learn and to enhance my skills.

*That's not to be confused with the many cheap Chinese "horse bows" on the market which are fibre glass (or glass/wood laminate) . These are often leather covered and I've seen people shooting them as "primitive" at NFAS field shoots and winning... I couldn't be bothered to challenge it, I only shoot for fun, and if people want to cheat I'd rather not get wound up by it. Experience over the years has shown me that cheats often claim total innocence, get "upset" and say things like "oh, well if you want to be like that about it"... and you end up as villain of the piece... 
I don't really want any more plastic medals anyway!