Crossbow Bolts and Warbow Arrows

There's been a lot of interweb activity due to Coronavirus lockdown, much of it has been an irritating waste of space, but there have been some sensible discussions.

One chap was questioning if warbow arrows were sorted in spine in any way... some people chipped in asking why "random arrows" would be all put in a barrel together. Of course that sort of comment is weighted to support his own position... the arrows were not "random" they were made to some sort of specification (albeit, maybe not a written one) in that they would have been suitable for warbows, say 3/8 - 1/2" shafts, big long fletchings (3 per arrow), heavy head, between 28 and 32" long. We know from documentary evidence that the shafts and heads were not necessarily assembled where they were made, so sheaves of shafts and barrels of heads would be sent up to the Tower of London. maybe one bloke cut all of his shafts the same length, maybe they were trimmed to length when they were made into arrows.
The point is we shouldn't jump to conclusions. What we do know is that measuring the spine of an arrow shaft by hanging weights on it and doing arithmetic is a modern idea. Now that doesn't mean that a native making arrows for his bow didn't flex 'em to select those he liked best or flew best, but, spine wasn't actually "measured"...
Ah, but does it even matter?... The bloke who asked the question had no real experience, and was just quoting what he'd read (sigh). So, as well as stating my experience I thought I'd better back it up with an actual experiment.
Does the spine of a Warbow arrow matter? Well we know they fly pretty well out of heavy warbows, but what happens if you shoot one out of a 70#@32" bow? It should theoretically be over stiff in terms of static spine*. Then if we shoot a 5/16" 30"arrow of 40-45 spine from the same bow what happens? Does the sky fall in?
Well the heavy arrow hits the boss square on at 10 yards having straightened out already due to the heavy head and big fletchings. The light arrow is still flexing as it hits at 10 yards, but they both fly in a perfectly usable manner. (see pic)

To keep me busy I've been turning up some 3/8" points for my heavy 275# repro "Light Sporting Crossbow" It uses up some odd Ash shafts I have lying around and some of the feathers I picked up the other year. I'll post some pics and video when I test them in the crossbow.
I've finished one bolt and tested it from the crossbow. It flew nicely at 10 yards, I also checked the spin by lobbing it up in the air underarm and watch it spin as it fell back down. The 2 fletchings are slightly offset to enhance their natural curve to induce spin. You can see on the pic of the fletching jig I have stuck a bit of white card under the front edge of the clip that holds the fletch, that just lifts it a tad.


* For those who don't understand the difference between static spine and dynamic spine.
Static spine is simply how the shaft flexes when a weigh is hung from it's centre... but when it is shot from a bow there are other factors like the weight of the head... if the head is very light, there is very little to stop the arrow accelerating, so there is little force bending it. With a heavy head, there is lots of inertia, so rather than accelerate forwards the arrow will flex.
Taking this to the limit, and a 50 spine arrow with a 15 grain head can be shot from a warbow. Conversely an infinitely heavy head (which is simulated when you over draw and jam the point of the arrow into the belly of the bow) will cause the same 50 spine shaft to explode! The length of shaft also effect dynamic spine...if you pick up a 3 foot length of scaffold pole and give it a shake it feels rigid. If you pick up a 20 foot length holding it at the centre and jerk you hand up and down you can feel it flexing.

Boo Yew Lemonwood Done

I've got the bow finished, it's a whisker over 80# at 28" and I'm nearly able to get it back to full draw... a little practice every day and I'll get there... when I do I'll post some video.
Meanwhile here are some pics.

Keeping busy during lockdown, I'll have a good tidy of the garage, might make some heavy points and bolts for my repro crossbow.
Meanwhile I have a 2D rabbit on the target boss (at 10 yards) and my son and I are having 3 arrows each every now and then and scoring them like an NFAS big game round (but scoring all 3 arrows) we can then plot graphs etc and see our progress or lack of it over the days.

Update:- I managed to get the 80# bow back to a reasonable draw :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=869kQ4L8hCM&t=1s

Video almost every day

I've not been keeping up with this blog , but I've been doing a build-along of a Boo backed Yew ELB.
it ended up having a Lemonwood belly added to make the target weight (80# @ 28").
I've posted video on my Youtube channel most days. Here's a link to the first one:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsle21_qqak&t=5s
I'll probably link them together as a playlist once it's completely finished.
Also did a V short vid showing the difference between a T draw and a medieval/warbow long draw, it's only with a lightish bow (~70#) but it's to show the mechanics of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWJd34g_fpI

Meanwhile, here's a picture of a cat :-)

Spending more time on the PC while we are in lockdown, so I followed the advice of some bloke on the TV and made a stand for the monitor to lift it up more in my eye line.
Made from some offcuts left over from making formers for gluing up bows.
This has been V good for my posture as I suffer from a stiff neck and I've also had some low level toothache following a filling about 12 days ago.

Spent some time shooting into the garage with my son, we tried a couple of different bows, shooting at a 2D rabbit.

It seems lots of people have been making videos and posting stuff on line to keep us all amused. :-)

Just a Chat

Hi everyone,
I've been working on some bows and doing a video build along of a Boo, Yew English Longbow, part 1 is done. Started on part 2.

There has been some daft stuff on Youtube suggesting bonkers ways to draw a warbow. The discussions on Facebook went on rather a lot... so I went into full rant mode and made a video.
If you want 4 minutes of sensible perspective punctuated with swearing and sarcasm have a look!
Warbow Secrets and Mysteries Rant
I'm hoping to shoot on Sunday, a handful of us may get out and lob a few arrows in an isolated field keeping our distance, and of course there will be no beer and chips on the way home.
If we meet up, I'll be able to hand over a bow that I've done some repairs on.
I suggested payment should be a tin of chickpeas or a bog roll ;-)
... my mate replied "That's a bit steep! Will you accept a bottle of wine!" LOL!

Anyhow, I hope you are all keeping yourselves amused, I expect there are a lot of arrows being made... handy for if it all kicks off in the Supermarket carpark.
Stay safe
Del

New Belt Sander

The old belt sander is past it's prime and has had many repairs and mods. I'd been looking online for some time and found that Machine Mart do a decent one for just over £300, it's being superseded and they didn't have any left for delivery. There was one left in Cambridge , so I drove there and got it.
I made a bit of a cock up, as I'd already started bidding on one of the same sanders on E-bay, but decided I wanted it now! I put in a maximum bid of £100 so hopefully I'll get out bid... if not I s'pose I go and collect it, clean it up and re-auction it... it has to be worth at least £200 (whew, I got out bid and it went for £126... a bargain for someone)

Like a lot of tools it needed some assembly and tuning up to get it working right, but it's a beast with a 1 hp motor (the old one was 1/2 hp). The belts are 48" x 6" as opposed to 36" x 4" and the flat sanding surface is 17.5" compared to 11.5" the best thing is I can bear down hard on an Ash backing strip and it won't stall the sander, it actually does the job.
I've had to modify the dust extraction a bit to allow long staves etc to be sanded. First pic shows the old and new sanders side by side.I've been using it to prepare the Ash backing and Yew belly for a Warbow/Flight bow to lob heavy "standard" and "military" arrows. I've prepared a former for the glue up which is sawn from from a 3 1/2" x 1 1/2" (C16 structural grade) length of timber, I sorted through the timber and found one bit which was quarter sawn and relatively knot free. I sawed it on the bandsaw and then glued the two bits together separated with spacers, this allows G clamps to be conveniently fitted whilst keeping the former big enough to remain solid and be clamped in the vice.
 I'm not sure if I've got the Yew heartwood belly thick enough to get the required poundage (100-110?), I can always add another belly lamination if needed, but bearing in mind it has a little reflex (about 3/4") and will be 31" draw, hopefully it will be ok. I'll give it a flex on the tiller to gauge the draw weigh before rounding the belly at all.
That way, it will still be clean and flat if I want to add an additional belly lamination.

Update:- Next day, I've got it cleaned up and had a first flex on the tiller, it has plenty of poundage :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZkE_BBgmTc

Flight Bow Fever

It's that time of year when a bowyers fancy turns to flight bows.
Some organisations allow bamboo backing on an English Longbow and some don't, I have plenty of Bamboo but I don't have any really good Ash for a backing.
The Ash backed flight bow from last year was smashed on a test rig last year without ever being shot at a real full draw, so this time I'll allow a slightly bigger margin of error (other people's error, you understand!).

I phoned up an old friend who runs Celtic Harmony . Many years ago Chris Boyton had felled some Ash there and used some of the timber in a bow making course. I'd had a couple of the left over quarter logs at the time and wondered if there was any still there. They'd all had been stored in a shelter (3 sides and a roof).
I made contact by E-mail and phone and was invited over to collect anything good that was left. I was impressed to see the centre had more round houses and a new heritage centre was almost finished, there were 3 coachloads of schoolkids obviously enjoying themselves despite the heavy drizzle.
I was asked if I had an old bow which could go in the Heritage centre, and recalled just the thing, a longbow made from churchyard Yew, full of character but with some repairs and splits which made it too unsafe to shoot. I took the bow round to him in the afternoon and I also put a tenner in the donations box.

I ended up with one really nice quarter log a couple of smaller scruffy ones and some partly roughed out light longbow staves. The longbow staves are handy as I can give them to newbie bowyers to learn with rather than jumping straight in on a valuable Yew stave.


The Ash looked really scruffy, but once I'd run the drawknife over it good clean wood was exposed.
I've been cleaning up the faces of the quarter log using Axe, drawknife and plane) so that I can examine the grain and decide the best way to cut the backing strips for maximum yield and an minimum waggle in the grain. It's interesting cleaning it off as the various splinters and tears pull out giving an idea of how deep they run, how they follow the grain and how long they run. I'll be cutting the backing strips with the grain running edgeways thus ||||||||||||||| rather than following a ring. In light of my observations I'll make the backing a little thicker than last year.
Like many jobs, the devil is in the preparation. Running a 7' log accurately through a bandsaw on your own isn't an easy job. Finding an assistant who knows what they are doing and is psychic isn't easy either! I know from experience it's best to keep your wood full length as it's easy to get some run out on the sawing at one end or t'other.
Cleaning the log to give relatively flat faces will allow it to be guided through the bandsaw smoothly.

It's interesting to note that the rings are very tight near the outside of the log and much wider near the centre. I may even consider taking two narrow strips of the tight grain and gluing them together to make a wide backing strip of  the tight grained timber.

I've got the first slat sawn, pic left, shows the set up with my adjustable guide.
The rest has been cut now, yielding 5 slats plus two half width ones with tight grain that could be glued together. One of the other staves looks to have good clean straight grain too. That should keep me going for a while. The rest is stashed up on my shelves... a good days work (spread over 2 days).

Testing a Couple of Bows

I went over to Boyton Cross (Now Strike Archers) fairly early, lovely day clear blue sky bit a fairly chill wind blowing briskly.
I was testing the 45# @ 30 Boo Yew and the scruffy Italian Yew 80# at 29" (but it's more like 80# a@26" at the mo') I also took my only 32" draw bow (Hickory backed Yew) to warm up with.
The Boo/Yew shoots nicely with a 30" 5/16" arrow small 2 1/2" parabolic fletchings and 100gn points. I had some 11/32" 28" with cut down fletchings and 100 gn points too which flew smoother but not so far (mind some of that would be the reduced draw.
To allow for the wind I shot both ways and averaged 206 yards for the 5/16" ... 181 yards for the 11/32".
I'd been, done my testing and gone before anyone turned up, mind I was accompanied by the usual green woodpeckers which always make me smile.

The lower pic shows where I've been fettling the arrow pass on the boo Yew to get the arrows touching it centrally and easing it off a tad to make it a little closer to centre shot to suit the 5/16" arrows as they were wagging their tales when I first tried it the other day.
It slightly amuses me when I hear endless discussion about arrow spine, as I tend to adjust the bow to be tolerant of the arrows I want to shoot, there are so many variables and a slight tweak of brace height or a couple of strokes of a bastard file may well be enough to give a smooth flight rather than rushing off to buy a new set of arrows.

Here are some dimensions taken from the upper limb for future reference.
Note:- the first and last measurements are not at 6" intervals, this is to avoid the nodes in the bamboo which would exaggerate the thickness measurement and also to fit in with the limb length.
Overall length nock to nock 72"
Distance from nock , Thickness, Width
4"                                12.8mm , 19.9mm
10"                              14.0mm , 27.2mm
16"                              14.1mm , 34.2mm
22"                              15.6mm , 37.7mm
28"                              16.7mm , 39.7mm
32"                              20.3mm , 40.6mm

I was hoping to able to draw the heavier bow, but couldn't quite get on top of it, I was managing about 27" of draw but the left arm was trying to collapse so I only got off about 5 shots before discretion made me quit. I've been doing about 15 press-ups night and morning and some other random stuff, drawing a bow is an odd action and it uses strange muscle groups. Take the left arm for example... the big fat bicep is no use keeping the arm straight, it's the weedy triceps which has to stop the arm folding up (obviously with some back and shoulder muscles are working too) so maybe I'll look at some specific exercise or just walk around all day with a 10kg weight in each hand.
Out of interest, when shooting the 11/32" arrows from the heavy bow I only got 'em to go about a yard further than with the 45# boo yew ! It shows I was no where near mastering the bow.