english bow woods

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dave_t_aber

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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
 

sp220

Active member
You seem to forget that back in the "day" hundreds of years ago when bows were made from yew... it was imported by the shipload from spain. This is due to the unfortunate weather of this soggy island.

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.
 

BorderBows

New member
.

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
 

dave_t_aber

New member
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

Member
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

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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

New member
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

New member
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

New member
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

New member
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
 

alanesq

New member
its has a 32" draw length, the bow is 79" between nocks
around 2.5" set (which is ok for a warbow), I know ash is said to take a lot of set but I have not experienced any problems with this myself (I have 4 ash bows I have made)

but, actually - after posting here it did get some chrysals and although its still shooting I dont think its going to last long although people have told me they have had bows for years like this ?
(I had hoped heat treating it would stop this but it doesnt seem to have helped at all)
I have a 115lb one I made a while back which is my main bow and whilst this also has some they are just surface ones and its still going strong

but as I say, this is just cheap wood from the local woodyard (with very thick growth rings) and I am sure completely the wrong sort to be using to make bows anyway and this is only my 4th try at making a bow (with no instruction) so the fact it holds up at all shows it must be a strong wood ?
I am now looking for some more suitable ash or elm for my next attempt
 

steve58

New member
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
Sure I remember finding a link on here to a site that listed just about every sort of wood imaginable, together with comments as to how suitable they were or weren't for making bows. Didn't save it to my favourites, silly me!
 

LobbyMuncher

New member
Sure I remember finding a link on here to a site that listed just about every sort of wood imaginable, together with comments as to how suitable they were or weren't for making bows. Didn't save it to my favourites, silly me!
Sounded interesting...hmmm...quick Google found this...
Duramens Almanac
...can't believe I spent an hour fascinated by the properties of wood - American, at that!
 

dave_t_aber

New member
Thats interesting alanesq, nice to hear, i didnt think ash was strong enough to cope with such draw weights, I have heard, read etc alot of things now, which makes me believe that the "second string" woods, such as ash are really just as good as the two main bow woods, osage and yew. Its just that each wood requires a different design. The 1st bowyers bible is brilliant in out lining the fundamentals of wood, particulary the chpaters concerning limb profile, bow design, and the forces involved in a bow. I feel so much more in tune with my bow and subsquent others after reading that.

that site is good, cheers to all
dave
 

alanesq

New member
One thing I have noticed with this last bow is that it seems better to make the edges of the belly well rounded
my last bow I tried to round the belly as much as I dare to make it more like a "proper longbow" but the latest one I made very square with the belly very flat to try and spread the compression across the whole surface (as I am told you should do with ash)

but, it looks like the rounded belly means that compression cracks stop very quickly where as on the square bow the come to the edge then spread down through more growth rings

My last bow does has rounded edges but it looks like a rectangular cross section with rounded corners rather than the more usual D shape

I had wondered why longbows were this rounded shape, maybe this is why ?
 

dave_t_aber

New member
My lemonwood longbow is rectangular in section, with rounded edges, i did this, like you, to spread compression load. A cross between the D shape, and the rectangular shape was what i aimed at, so that the compression would be spread, but the rounded edges would help stop the bow from twisting, by keeping the forces slightly more concentrated towards the centre.

One or two people had said that its not a true longbow, but its definately not a true flatbow! a longbow flatbow hybrid maybe.

cheers
dave
 

dave_t_aber

New member
thats a really in depth piece of writing, very precise, and with alot of woods included, but I didnt see the yew or osage woods mentioned. But it does have lemonwood (Degame), hickory, ash and elm, which you can compare to each other. Will have to print it out soon.
Cheers
dave
 
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