Composite Bow

[pierre girard]

I've been intrigued by the composite (asiatic) bow for many years - ever since I read a piece about the incredible distances such bows could fling an arrow.

Have any of you bowyers had any experience shooting or building one of these bows?

PG

 

[Ranger Bob]

I've a couple of Mongolian bows in my possession.......and they both shoot beautifully. As many writers say...they do indeed draw in a similar manner to a modern compound bow and they shoot hard and fast! I've got one on the drawing board for when I've completed a holmegaard bow I'm in the process of completing. A great resource for asiatic archery is http://www.atarn.org/

 

[Robbo]

Theres a write up on composite bows in the bowyers bibles series of books in Vols 2 and 3 (Vol 3 discusses building a korean composite bow in some detail).

From what I've read they are a very involved build, with a construction time of in some cases over a year to allow the hide glue to fully cure deep within the sinew/wood/horn limbs.

I've never shot a true composite but I have a 45 lb samick SKB recurve which is the modern equivalent of the traditional korean bow, its fast, very fast the short limbs and deep recurving all increase the speed of the arrow send off, a true korean bow with its rigid siyahs would likley be even faster, a standard korean Archery range is around 161 yards.

You can buy a replica composite bow for around £100 - £200 but it will be a laminated fibre glass copy usually with a leather covering.

The following link has some great looking compsite bows with everything from the fibre glass replicas I've mentioned to true sinew/wood/horn composites (be warned they are extremely expensive £1500ish). theres also a good deal of information regarding the people who would have used the various styles of composite bows, Mongols, Turks, Scythians, etc, etc

http://www.grozerarchery.com

but if you've got the time and the determination then make youre own, once I've mastered making wooden bows I'll be trying a composite.

As Ranger Bob said www.atarn.org is a very good source of information on them.

One more thing it is possible to make a hornless composite bow, I've got the article saved somewhere (it was on the primitive archer website) if your interested, but essentially the bow was made the same way as a regular composite but the limbs where deflexed then recurved instead of being reflexed and recurved, the deflex being to reduce the stress on the wooden belly of the bow. Aside from this the bows looked identical when braced to proper Composite bows.

Andy

 

[Grooveski]

Gathering enough sinew to attempt it is tricky.
The Rowan stave that my pal Scottie started at Achray is a perfect shape to make a wee deflex-reflex affair and would really suit a half dozen layers of sinew but that's a lot of forelegs.

Raw forelegs are tricky to source these days. Having been in Cumbria during the foot+mouth crisis I understand why but I don't know if anything changed legaly.

 

[Ranger Bob]

I've mentioned to true sinew/wood/horn composites (be warned they are extremely expensive £1500ish).

I picked up my two bows in Mongolia for about £30 each! The air fares over there were about £500.............so I've saved myself £1000 on one bow and got the other for free!

 

[Robbo]

£30 each!!!! Wow, are they defenitly sinew wood horn composites?

if so then very well done, Think the sellers would do a group buy deal?

One thing i should mention to would be composite builders is that the glueing surface for the wood / horn interface would be grooved with 1/8" or so deep v shaped grooves on both the wood and horn to increase the surface area, the fit between these grooves would in some cases be exact. the limb woul be wrapped with a cord and tightened hard enough to deform the would into any air gaps in these groves.

(Apologies for my typos but I fractured my collar bone today and i'm typing left handed only)

Andy

 

[Robbo]

Groovski you could try asking a butchers or a slaughter house for sinew.

A friend of mine works in a slaughter house n he managed to get me some cow sinew, he called it paddiewack or padywak he some times gets some for his dogs.

The original composite horse bows would have used cow or similar sinew since the people who used them were primarily nomadic cattle herders/warriors etc.

Andy

 

[Ranger Bob]

£30 each!!!! Wow, are they defenitly sinew wood horn composites?

Oh yes....only the real thing in Mongolia, even saw a bow being made!

 

[Ranger Bob]

Groovski you could try asking a butchers or a slaughter house for sinew.

If you can't source any from a Butchers/Slaughter house, then Richard Head longbows stock Red stag sinew @£5 for 4 and full cow horns for £2.50

http://www.english-longbow.co.uk/cat20.htm

 

[Grooveski]

I was impressed by the size of the stag sinew from Richard Head. They're about twice the length of Sika and a good five times the diameter. Well worth the cost but we were hoping to source some localy.

Tried my local butchers a wee while ago who pointed me to his slaughterman.
At the slaughterhouse I was told that they rarely had call to seperate the sinew. In the past they used to just give folk forelegs but since F&M they'd stopped handing out hoofs.
Similarly they weren't inclined to pass out brains to the general public but I got the impression that was law now following BSE.

The bow won't be a proper composite anyhow, just a heavily sinewed stave.
I don't know if I could handle trying to make a horsebow. The pro's say it takes a year to make one properly, took me a year to make simple longbow so I'd probably have to measure build-time in decades.

Is that what a paddiewack is? Ha, learn something new every day.

 

[Robbo]

The reason composite bows take yearsto make is to ensure all the sinew and glue has dryed properly. Possibly because if a bow failed in warfare the bowyer would probably be decapitated by the irate mongol warrior who owned it(presuming the bow failure didn't cost the said warrior his life)

Andy