Whew What a Scorcher

Went to the Medieval Society roving marks shoot yesterday in Norbury park in Surrey. Beautiful setting great company and superbly organised shoot despite their catering equipment being stolen the night before. They managed to find replacements at short notice, kept calm and carried on.

I shot the 60 pounder Yew hunting longbow which served to finish its shooting in. It performed well, but was hard work by the end of the day... mind I should hardly complain when there were those shooting 100# and over.
The weather was pretty hot despite the forecast saying overcast so my forearms and face are a nice shade of red this morning and I have a pale stripe across my forehead from the reversed baseball cap!
The were some very tricky shots over distances from about 100 - 210 yards which were difficult to judge, I only scored on one mark where I was aiming near vertical, the arrow was in the air so long we had time for a drinks break before it landed.
Sorry no pics as I limited what I was carrying to keep the weight down.
I travelled with my mate JT, which was good as it kept the driving down... shattered by the time I got home but a quick shower and a roast dinner soon fixed me up. The shoulders were a bit sore, an asprin and an early night has left me remarkably bright and breezy this morning and feeling very limber.

It was great to meet up with old friends and particularly to have a chat with Chris Boyton and show him the Osage flight bow for comment. I said I might slim the tips a bit more and he commented " There's always wood to be removed from tips" which I rather liked. I also showed him some of the patches on bows (several of mine, and many of his, were being shot) particularly a belly patch on the 130# Warbow which was to protect a pinch. "I do that" was his response which I found very encouraging.
I'd recently seen a very disparaging remark from a bowyer who was criticising such work and proudly saying how he only uses perfect staves. He really needs to get out more! Some of Chris Boyton's bows were from superb staves, but there were also plenty of character bows incorporating dramatic knots missing from the side of the bow and roller coaster undulations.
So if you are trying your hand at making a bow and you meet a problem, don't just saw the bow into firewood, try to find a fix or a save, it's how we learn and don't be afraid of imperfect wood.
If you insist on waiting for the perfect Yew stave, you may never make a bow.

In the heat of the afternoon, I got drawn into a slightly heated discussion with a guy shooting a 100# bow who claimed it shot flat at 90 yards. I explained that an arrow drops about 8" over a 10 yard flight! After some explanation and order of magnitude maths, it transpired he meant the point blank range (point on distance) was 90 yards. He then started to explain to me what point blank range meant... I had to laugh and say I did actually understand this stuff. It ended in a good natured manner. But it does illustrate how careful we need to be our words else we end up with people who think modern target bows have paradox and point blank range is zero.

Thanks to all at Med' Soc' for a great day!
There, I've added a pic to cheer you all up... courgettes from the garden at last... yum!

New Distance PB :-)

I made up a couple of flight arrows yesterday and tried 'em from the Osage flight bow in the evening, my first shots were a bit tentative, and the best was only 267 yards. I had another go with a much firmer left arm and a crisp loose as I drew the last inch. 307 yards as measured with a laser rangefinder.
I was really chuffed, mind to be fair there was a tail wind, but I think there is more to get from the bow. The arrows were 5/16 diameter cedar shafts of the highest spine I could buy which have been fairly heavily barrelled (266 and 325 grain ) If I can go smaller diameter and say 250 grain with reduced fletchings, I should get a bit more. The nocks where slightly tight too as it was all done in a rush.
The arrow flight was good, but I lost sight of them near the top, there was a hint of porpoising, but no visible waggle. Adjusting the nocking point should cure the porpoising.
Off to a roving marks shoot tomorrow with the Medieval Society, I'll be meeting up with some old friends so it should be fun.

The top pic shows how Osage ages to a darker colour from the bright Yellow when it is first worked. The bow on the right was used as a reference to give me some idea of dimensions. The little shorty was made from an offcut and makes a fun demo bow, showing how much power you can get from an apparently innocuous little stick.
The pic of the tips shows how those of the flight bow are much slimmer. The temporary Hickory nocks got tidied up and have remained.
Bottom pic shows the slight cut away and shelf lined with leather suede side out. The shelf may get enlarged, but it seems to give good arrow flight at the moment.

Update:- The Osage flight bow has since shot 341 yards using a longer (28") draw!

Osage Flight Bow V Close

I've heat bent some deflex, heating at the fades and improved the curve of the tips, but then the string line was out, I think it had shifted where I'd heated it so near to the grip. Clamping it up carefully and doing another correction has got it back again. The moral is, you can't have too many clamps and you should spend as much time jigging up a bend as actually heating it. I've posted a pic of the clamping arrangement for the tip bend which also took out a little kink from the early tip alignment bend.
Other pic shows unbraced which is looking quite pretty, but note I've gone fairly subtle on the deflex and reflex. The drawn pic is about 65# at 22" so that's damn close. I'm going over it cleaning up, checking the thickness for thick points and rounding the edges, then I'll take it to 24".

I'm not having a cut away arrow pass and shelf, but I may do that later on once I've tried it.

Cleaned it up, borrowed the string from the previous flight bow and tried it with my regular field arrows (5/16" about 400gn). Damn hard to draw it initially until I got the feel, It's like the start of a warbow draw (it interpolates to about 90# at 32" which I can just about manage, and that's why I chose this weight). It's fast but it fractured the arrow... fortunately my son spotted it as I was asking him to video me shooting... lucky escape from arrow embedded into left hand.

So I cut a small shelf to minimise paradox and thus arrow flex, then I tried one of my 11/32" 490grain arrows. V smooth and very hard hitting. It also hit home straight and true, roughly where I was aiming.
BTW. I marked the arrows at 24" with masking tape, as a draw length indicator.

Not Much Room Inside

Blimey the seasons are moving on apace. My neighbour's apple tree is one of the first to start dropping fruit, they leave the windfalls on our front porch and I give 'em a litre of last years cider. I've got the apples stored on the garage floor on an old bamboo roll up blind, add in the Yew I have on the floor and I'm running out of room. I don't think it will be a big apple harvest this year due to the late frosts.



I've pressed on with the Osage flight bow and it's beginning to flex. The string line is good, I'm a bit scared of it, It's not braced yet and I've only pulled it to 55#... now from my own advice I know that if you want a 70# bow, you have to pull it to 70#... I don't want to end up with a 55# bow, but I also don't want to over-stress it until the tiller is looking good.
You can see from the pic the tips are back just about far enough to brace it, so I should give it a careful try at a low brace.
Maybe I'll heat in a little deflex at the fades and recurve the tips a bit more.

The problem is, I don't want to use all the bend up just bracing the bow, but conversely, that's the way to get a flatter force draw curve. Bottom line is... it's all guesswork. If I end up with the nocks about in line with the back of the bow and a reflex/deflex shape that will do fine.

To put it simply and to exagerate slightly:-
Do you have very thick stiff limbs deflexed back to almost brace height so the early draw weight is low, but it ramps up very sharply and the limbs don't actually have to bend back very far to reach full draw. Or do you have thinner softer limbs with a lot of reflex which takes a good poundage to get braced and the early draw weight is high and it comes up smoother and slower... BUT the limbs actually bend a much greater distance from unbraced to full draw?
Obviously with modern materials you can go for the latter, with natural materials it's less straightforward and to be blunt the maths/physics is verging on the impossible. Even those who have analysed this stuff rely on vast simplifications, and those who try to explain it in layman's terms are often somewhat confused. Just try to explain or understand exactly how reflex achieves an improvement, and why. Is it an improved force draw curve? A better acceleration profile? Is it due to change of string angle or an effective shortening of the limbs as the string makes contact?I know enough to recognise I have no idea and I just go by gut feel and watching the wood.

Update:- I've evened up the right limb a tad, had it on a low brace and back to 60#. Then I clamped it up to heat treat in a little deflex. I'm following my old adage of doing about half as much as I think I should.

Working on some Osage

The Hazel is having a few days rest to help seasoning any freshly exposed wood, meanwhile, on the Osage...
I've followed a growth ring on the back and decided to go for a shortish flight bow about 70# at 24".
Just to get some sort of reference I took my only full sized Osage bow  (45# at 28") over to the flight field and let rip, it sent one of my regular arrow 197 yards and a flight arrow 206 yards.
Osage is pretty heavy, so I'm hoping to do a design with nice slim tips to minimise the moving mass, maybe with some deflex to help get it strung and maybe some reflex or flipped tips for some punch. I've cut it to 58" long to avoid some of the bend and waggle at the end of the stave.
The big problem is a lateral bend in the stave... it will be too stiff to try and bend it at the grip, unless I leave it until the grip is narrowed, but even then bending at the grip is tricky as it takes very little angular bend to make a big difference, also bend tends to spring back, so it's very hit and miss.
I'm messing with the Osage.
I had a cunning plan which was to ignore the last 5" or so of each limb which will be a slim tip/lever, lay the bow out straight and the n fit the tips in along the line of the wood and heat bend 'em into line.
Now that probably doesn't make sense, do I've done a pic.
I did wonder if this idea was totally bonkers, but I'm posting it on Primitive Archer as it progresses and the guys there agreed that it was a sensible game plan, which is very reassuring.
Note I've left the tip wide to encourage the bend to happen where I want it. Also the centre line is still a tad off centre, but it is biased towards the arrow pass. There is no truth in the rumour that I originally marked it out biased the wrong way round and had to lop 1" off one limb... another reason for always cutting a bow 1" longer each end than you want !

Hazel Osage and Decking

I've been pretty busy with all sorts. I did the arrow pass on the 60# Yew, it needs a few coats of Danish Oil and a few more arrows through it, I may take it to a Medieval Society roving marks shoot next weekend, that would get the shooting in nicely finished.

I've done more to the Hazel and got it to a low brace. I rather jumped onto doing the hazel and ignored some of my own advice ... I cut the grip in slightly and I'm now struggling a tad with the string line... mind it was always going to be problematic with that dogleg in the lower limb. I can feel the wood is seasoning nicely, it's feeling drier under the edged tools and where it's tearing a bit round some of the knots I can feel it crisp under the rasp. With this sort of stave it's very touchy feely with plenty of looking to see where the stiff spots and weak spots are, it's certainly not a make it by numbers job. I do have a few tricks up my sleeve to help the string line, but I know from experience, trying to steam or heat bend at the grip is very tricky as the wood is thick and a it's only a tiny bend that's needed.
What I can do is to take 1" off each tip, this takes is down to where the limb is a bit wider and thus gives me a little extra width to shift the nock across. There are even extreme options like splicing in short levers.

I know some people are keeping an eye on this bow so I'll try to post some good detail. I've pulled it to 40# from a low brace, I thought I'd put it back on the long string and take a pic at 40# so you can see the difference it makes going to low brace (ignore the tilt in the bow in the second pic and the slight change in scale... it's hard to zoom in the same each time, I was doing it quickly).
One pic shows a knot which has a lot of tiny pins within it, on the belly the wood was tearing a bit and I used a rasp rather than the spoke shave. It looked a bit like there was a pinch or a crack, but cleaning it up revealed a row of tiny pins, I've left a hint of extra width there, but it's really down to seeing how the limb bends (Other pic shows L for "leave" marked on a slightly weak area)... a bulky knot may be a stiff spot or a potential failure point, it's down to gradually working down the thickness and the width to get an even bend... if you rush it you can easily get a hinge and a chrysal. That happened on the last Hazel primitive I did, but I patched it and it ended up being a lovely bow.
Here's a brief video, showing the progress:-
https://youtu.be/kmpWFO0ToXU

I've made a start on the Osage stave I was given back in 2014 at the Tennessee Classic by Clint "Osage Outlaw" on Primitive Archer, this stave was from a monster Osage tree. I wasn't sure what to do with the stave and I'm still not certain but I've at least chased a growth ring along the stave to give me a clean back. My options are all a sort of take on an English longbow, but they vary from a flight bow (70# at 24") to a Warbow (90# at 28") or even adding some deflex reflex whist meeting the ILAA specification for a longbow.

I'll be mulling it over while I help the wife and cat do some work in the garden, re-furbishing and extending a patio area just outside the double patio doors, to improve wheelchair access to the garden... the cat's help has been mostly to roll around in the soil.

Hazel Primitive

I'm always blethering on about how the best way to start making bows is with a Hazel stave, and how you can season it quickly if it's reduced in size.
Well, I thought I'd put my money where my mouth is, but just to make it interesting I'm using a wonky or "character" stave. I also decided to make it for a friend who had a bow from me a while back, she's a health care professional (to use the current terminology) and has a penchant for buying bows most of which are modern things (and pink!). She's into all forms of archery, and very enthusiastic, so I thought I'd indoctrinate her into the joys of a Primitive style bow for field shooting.

Now seeing as how I volunteered myself for this build I thought it would be nice to donate any money we decide the bow is worth to a charity that she supports.
Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS)
Anyhow I'm jumping the gun... the bow may not turn out... but here are some pics.
It was cut on the 9th of June  so it's not even had a full month yet, mind it was roughed down soon after being cut and stored somewhere warm and draughty.
It's just flexing a little at 40# on a taut string. I'm aiming for 40-45# at 28" and at the moment, I have some doubt about the string line and the fact that it barely flexes... but I have to trust my instincts.




I don't know if the bark will stay on the bow as the stave was cut in the summer. Note there is a sort of concave area on the back, half way up the lower limb (top left pic) that should be interesting!