english bow woods

[dave_t_aber]

Hello,
Does anyone have any personal experince with english grown bow woods, such as english ash, yew, oak, hawthorn or apple?

I recently tried a flatbow out of english ash, but it snapped in the final stages of tillering, possibly as i had it too short or maybe it was too dry. I have tried elm, but I found it couldnt stand much compression, especially as the heartwood was too near the centre to be usable (Ie it would have been highly crowned).

I ask this as I would like to make a few bows out of proper english wood, as all the bow woods seem to be american, I cant think why this is, other than for traditional reasons.

I am going to try the ash flatbow again soon, but wider this time, and longer, as other than the snapping of the previous bow, it looked good, no string follow at all.

cheers
dave

[BorderBows]

Originally Posted by sp220

.

However, I cannot think of any english grown woods myself that would be suitable, yew is one obvious choice, but it would not be as good as if you imported it (not that it matters, its no less authentic if you did so) and it would be horrendous to try and find any.

elm is a good choice as well as ash, these are what we would class a second rate woods but would make a very acceptable bow if made properly.
not sure about apple, howthorn.

Oak can be made to work, but its not the best... Some of these woods need to be wider rather than deeper.! as they dont work too well in stretch or compression. so more fiber are needed to hold the limb together.

Hope this give you some good googling

[provins]

In NFAS we have a primitive bow class with people making bows from many types of wood.
A friend of mine even made and shot a bow made from Ivy.
A lot of the guys doing this are more than happy to have a go with virtually anything that grows accepting failures as part of the fun.
Have a look at Hilary Greenlands excellent book The Traditional Archers Handbook for ideas and advice also a visit the SPTA website.
Have fun.

[dave_t_aber]

I know nearly all of the yew was shipped from abroad, but was that due to financial reasons, or some other non performance related issue? Tradition is all well and good, but I do like to experiment with most things, It is all too easy to do as others do, its nice to create something good off your own imagination.

Border bow: A bow I had in mind with oak was a backed flatbow, I would imagine oak can stand compression well, but I dont know about its tensional abilities. I have alot of bamboo still, I was thinking of doing a bamboo backing on the oak flatbow. Getting a board of english oak isnt too hard, I think I might try it.

As for the elm, the elm bow i made was my first bow, which was a D profile bow, I will think about trying it in a flatbow, as it should, like you say stand the compression well.

A bow out of Ivy? I admire that, thats imaginative, although you would have to get a wide old section of ivy surely.

I dont mind failures, you learn more from a failed bow, than a perfect bow at times i reckon. Ive snapped 3 bows so far, and had 3 which were poor shooters, but didnt snap.

cheers to all of you
dave

[jb.68]

Originally Posted by dave_t_aber

I know nearly all of the yew was shipped from abroad, but was that due to financial reasons, or some other non performance related issue?

Not financial, purely down to quality. Yew grown slowly at high altitude produces a much much better quality bow wood. British Yew generally wasn't used as it grows too fast, meaning it is less dense and the growth rings are therefore not as tight.

[steve58]

I did an indoor comp once with a chap who was shooting a self-bow made of hawthorn, lovely looking bow and shot very nicely.

[dave_t_aber]

Ah, yes I would expect hawthorn to produce nice bow wood, as its got a nice hard heartwood, and a thin layer of sapwood. Ive got access to it aswell, which is always good.

cheers
dave

[alanesq]

I have just made a 130lb bow from ash (admittedly American ash but its just a bit of kiln dried from the local wood yard so not even an ideal stave for bow making)
so it would certainly have been possible to make bows from ash

My guess is that woods like ash and elm would have been used to make every day bows (for practise at the butts etc.) but always the real bows for war would have been yew

[steve58]

Originally Posted by alanesq

I have just made a 130lb bow from ash (admittedly American ash but its just a bit of kiln dried from the local wood yard so not even an ideal stave for bow making)
so it would certainly have been possible to make bows from ash

My guess is that woods like ash and elm would have been used to make every day bows (for practise at the butts etc.) but always the real bows for war would have been yew

I think I have read that the welsh used Ash warbows to good effect?

[dave_t_aber]

130lbs? really, thats a fair draw weight? what was the draw length? does it take much of a set?

I do wonder what the differences are between english and american ash, probably the are the same genus, but maybe a different species, they should share alot of similar charactheristics i suppose.

cheers
dave