New German book on "The Reflex Bow"

jsachers · Post by **jsachers** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 12:32 pm

Hello everyone,

this is just to inform you of a new German publication on "The Reflex Bow":

Volker Alles (ed.): "Reflexbogen. Geschichte und Herstellung"
Verlag Angelika Hoernig
Ludwigshafen 2009
ISBN 978-3-938921-12-8.
21x27 cm. Hardcover. 336 pages, full colour illustrations.
? 48,-.

Contents:
"Reflex bows. Their history and manufacture"
1 Indications for recurve bows in neolithic Europe (Leif Steguweit)
2 The Scythian bow (Erhard Godehardt)
3 The Subexi bow in the exhibition "Origins of the Silk Road" (Holger Riesch & Dr. Joachim Rutschke)
4 Reflex bows, riding quivers and steppe arrows (Holger Riesch)
5 Arrowheads from the empire of the composite bow (Ulrich Stehli)
6 Bow and arrow in Japan (Fritz Eicher)
7 Horn in bow building (Michael Bittl)
8 Basic building plan for a composite bow (Dr. Joachim Rutschke)
9 Odysseus' bow (Michael Bittl)
10 A "double bow" as recurved self-bow with laminates (Dr. Joachim Rutschke)
11 Reconstruction of an Ottoman composite bow (Micha Wolf)
12 The American recurve bow (Jaap Koppedrayer)
13 On the mechanics of the bow with static recurves (Bob Kooi)

Please note that the book is written in German! Lots of illustration though ?

Bede · Post by **Bede** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 3:43 am

This sounds like it will be a very interesting book. I have been buying a few books in German lately. With luck, I will soon not have to use a dictionary so much.

Daniel T. · Post by **Daniel T.** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 6:21 am

I ordered it already a while ago and it should arrive soon. I already devoured Adam's book and I guess the same will happen with this one.

Micha Wolf taught me basic bow making, so I am very curious to read his contribution. I didn't know there was also one from Bob Kooi. That's great, I really like the work he did in his thesis

jsachers · Post by **jsachers** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 7:51 am

Bede (and others) ? if I can help with certain expressions or partial translations I will be glad to do so.

M??a · Post by **M??a** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 11:47 am

Last weekend I visited "International Bogenmesse" in Eisenbach (Germany), and there was possible to buy this book. It seems good . Big format A4 and many informations for beginers.
I was litle unhappy, because on International messe was possible to buy books only in German

My german is very, very basic

Display with books:
http://img5.rajce.idnes.cz/d0502/2/2230 ... 002301.JPG
But on place was possibility to try a lot of bows by Saluki bow (Lukas Novotn?) with excelent quality. This bowyer has very interesting new technology for making replicas of historical bows and it seems, that it is equal as horbow. I?m sorry for offtopic

Jos?Dom · Post by **Jos?Dom** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 1:30 pm

M??a, on the picture I can see a book entitled "International traditional bow-arrow of yesterday and today", anybody knows how I can purchase this book?

Reto · Post by **Reto** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 4:42 pm

Dear all,

Last weekend I also visited the exhibition in Eisenbach and met some interesting people (also Lukas N.).

About the book. I finished reading it in 2 days - it is a very interesting and an easy reading one. I like especially the topics about the Scythian, the Subexi and the Odysseus bow. For experienced Atarnos their are not really new findings or outcomes and many topics have been discussed in more details or are elsewhere available. This book is a very good summary for German readers/speakers with no or little foreign language knowhow (English, French, ...).

The details about the reconstruction of an Ottoman composite bow (by Micha Wolf) is a very simplified, but good description. It certainly cannot at all compete with the book written by Adam K. (is also not the purpose). The descriptions/texts/pictures/drawings are easy to understand for newbies and quite some processes got simplified in a good way. Micha Wolfs is a trainer/coach of www.dick.biz and this company offers a 10 days workshop in making a Turkish horn bow. To make this happen, things need to get simplified (...with Epoxy)... The link between this workshop and the description is obvious but nicely done.

Reto

Bede · Post by **Bede** » Fri Jul 10, 2009 4:22 am

jsachers wrote:Bede (and others) ? if I can help with certain expressions or partial translations I will be glad to do so.

Thanks for the offer. I have just ordered a copy through Amazon.de. Everything seems to be going ahead.

Reto, thanks for the book review. As a person who reads German with difficulty and a dictionary, I appreciate all the help that our German speaking colleagues offer.

Murat ?zveri · Post by **Murat ?zveri** » Fri Jul 10, 2009 5:59 am

I also ordered a copy from www.amazon.de. Seems to be great book with rich content. Thanks for the info.

redhawk · Post by **redhawk** » Fri Jul 10, 2009 8:03 am

I?m one of the authors of the book, I wrote the chapters: The use of horn in bowery and The bow of Odysseus.

For to tell the truth I?m a bit disappointed of the book, cause the publisher seemed to be much more interested in a good lookig book than in in facts.
My chapter The bow of Odysseus is focused on Scythian hornbows based on the myth that Odysseus has outperformed his rivals by shooting a Scythian hornbow. The reconstruction-details posted there are not presenting my actual state of experience and knowledge! The chapter has been written in 2005, in the meanwhile I had been in Novosibirsk for to study Scythian bow and arrow-findings. Remember my postings here.
E.Godehardts chapter dealing with Scythian bows too, is more up to date.
I would recommend the chapters of E.Godehardt, Leif Steguweit and Bob Kooi, the chapter focused on the Subeixi- bow is compared to Stephens and Bedes publishings more than a disappointment.

Within E. Godehardts chapter you?ll see a pic posting my reconstructions of Booetian bows, the most exciting bow- construction I?ve ever done.
I?ll post a topic focused on Booetian bows here next week.

It was really hard to cooperate with the publisher, I remember Stephen and L.Novottny had been asked too for to do a chapter for the book, but they have refused.
Maybe the publisher will kill me now, but that?s my truth about this book.

About the fair in Eisenbach:

This fair takes place every year near my home, but I don?t go there no more.
Some years ago, this fair was one of my favourite dates: a few "primitive bowyers " posting their skills and knowlegde.......selling staves, sinew, horn,arrowheads.........tools........sharing experiences...............performing their recently done bows..............a very good place to go!
Than the dealers came up and, as usual, killed every beauty and innocence of the event. You?ll meet there a lot of the usual fake you can find everywhere.
That?s still hard for me to realize.

Michael

M??a · Post by **M??a** » Fri Jul 10, 2009 8:43 am

This is very important work and I?m looking forward to translation to english . If it is possible to as much languages as possible

This book hasn?t usualy popular face- big pictures with small quality informations. I would like to uderestand text as exactly as possible because it looks as treasure
Reading turkish books with dictionary is enough for long winter evenings

About big book in English on photo- I?m breaking off my hairs

I took notice of this at home during expeding photos from camera.
The most time I spend with "Reflex bow" and display with book offer I photographed only for interest. Damned

jsachers · Post by **jsachers** » Fri Jul 10, 2009 11:46 am

Could this book, "International Traditional Bows and Arrows" ,be a collection of articles presented at last year's WTAF?

Reto · Post by **Reto** » Fri Jul 10, 2009 4:40 pm

Could this book, "International Traditional Bows and Arrows" ,be a collection of articles presented at last year's WTAF?

Not long articles but a summary of bows, arrows, quivers, misc., from Korea, Europe, North Can Indians, Mongolia, Japan, Southeast Asia, Tibet, Australia, Bhutan, Turkey, Africa, China and pictures from the Collection of Karl Zeilinger.

For those ones of us who were in Korea last year, you also will find (at least quite a number of) excellent pictures, photos and comments of the bows and arrows given to the organization committee during the Gala dinner.

This book also has many pictures, photos of artifacts from the the Young Jip Bow & Arrow Museum for all of us, who never get the chance to go there.

For me personally I have never ever seen so much nice and beautiful archery stuff especially from Korea (but other nations as well) in one book. IT GIVES YOU GREAT IDEAS IN MAKING ALL KIND OF ARROWS, its decoration/cresting, shapes, nocks and so on..

Important note: This book is different from the ones (summary at the end of the WTAF) we got in 2008 (Seoul) or 2009 (Bhusan) with the articles written by many ATARNOs or other archery colleagues.

It is worthwhile to buy

Best regards
Reto

TZH · Post by **TZH** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 5:18 pm

An other excellent book, the only sad thing: not one word about North-american (indian and inuit) bows...

Zolt

New German book on "The Reflex Bow"

New German book on "The Reflex Bow"

German book................