Less than long bow

[nobby]

read the article in the magazine about making a bow from ash.

Is it feasible to make a bow that will work from a 4' long piece of wood?

Cheers

 

[torjusg]

Not effectively. The short drawlength will make you hard pressed throwing anything at even equal speeds as the bow with a longer draw. And the velocity of the arrow will be very low and could hardly penetrate skin. That is why crossbows are exceedingly strong (several hundred pounds is common). They need the extra power in poundage to compensate for their lack of working limbs (The energy have to come from a much smaller piece of material).

It would have to be so strong that you could not pull it and the required thickness would surely break it if you could.

You could however probably make a sort-of crossbow if you use it for a core in a horn-sinew bow.

Good luck!!!

Edit: Sorry, I thought it was inches you were talking about. Since it seems to be feet, that should work out pretty well. Plains indians sometimes made that short bows I believe. Backed with sinew though.

Torjus Gaaren

 

[Eric_Methven]

You should be able to make a decent bow from a four foot piece of ash. Because the parabolic curve at full draw will be much greater than a full longbow, backing it with sinue, linen thread or rawhide will not only give it additional draw weight, but will help prevent it from checking.

Eric

 

[Snufkin]

Also try to make the limbs as wide as possible. You should also aim for a short drawlength say 24". Do a search for north western indian bows, some of those are fantastic looking weapons.

 

[stovie]

made my son's bow from a white wood with similar properties to Ash. 50" long, draws around 30# @ 18-20". Check this link to stovie jrs bow .

I would echo the sentiment to make it a flatbow, and adding a backing such as linen will strengthen it up.

Let us know how it goes..

 

[OzaawaaMigiziNini]

Edit: Sorry, I thought it was inches you were talking about. Since it seems to be feet, that should work out pretty well. Plains indians sometimes made that short bows I believe. Backed with sinew though.

Torjus Gaaren

Actually yeah they were short... in finished length. But the Lakota Indians (and others) made flat bows about 5 feet long, and steam bent them into a Gull-wing effect. This gave them the power of a good sized bow, in the compact size they needed to maneuver a bow on horseback.

The California Indians though DID make extremely small flat bows for shooting over a blind on game trails. The bow was sometimes a minimum of 2 feet (barely bigger than the arrows they shot!).

,Ozaawaa