Asian wooden bows

[Alex S.]

Yes, you are right of the baleen bows.

Haze is only used for the reason because it is brittle. Bamboo can bend but does not have speed to return, haze can return quickly before they fail, and the bamboo keeps the haze from failing in tension and compression. For this reason, they know already that haze (sumac) is not suitable for selfbow. Is this called low hysteresis? Something similar to cherry wood.

From what I know about catalpa, it is not used for shooting bow, but ornament? I am not very sure about this wood, have only heard of it being used once and not for selfbow. I think most American that try catalpa wood also report it is brittle and soft.

[Bede]

Catalpa had spiritual connotations and shamans used catalpa bows. I have a book on it somewhere called The Catalpa Bow, but I can't remember any mention of ordinary bows being made solely from this wood.

The baleen riman-kyu bows were quite effective at short range, which was what they were made for. They had well developed recurves and unusual nocks.

[redhawk]

he, that?s great info Alex, thanks a lot.

euonymus is my favourite bow- wood. I did know it since I met a wood turner last year, who didn?t use any other wood due to the outstanding capablities of it. Its name spindlewood means that it even has been used for to make gear wheels and other parts of early machines. I can?t find any historical proove of its use in bowery in Europe or America.
It has been mentioned in the PALEOPLANET bowery forum as a great but difficult to get bowwood. Maybe it was not used in Europe cause it is known as an brush highly appreciated by Celtic shamans, it is indeed very strange looking and very poisonous
Anyway I gave it a try, really great bows.
You can have a look at 2 of my euonymus- bows at http://redhawk55.wordpress.com , look for "euonymus- my favourite bowwood"

Alex, you have made me curious a lot: do you have pics or paintings or measurements of those Japanese selfbows?

Michael

[jiao]

http://image.baidu.com/i?ct=503316480&z ... 0&s=0&se=1

Chinese Warring States Period bamboo bow, 3 layer bamboo, ntn 112cm wide 2.7cm thickness 2cm

[Alex S.]

Michael,
Sorry, I have not yet find painting, still search. Though, most text tell these bows were longer than 2 meter. I have been told old war yumi has gentler curve and so I believe the selfbows may only have recurve on upper limb if even that. Its easy to see in old painting they draw the bow with straight limb, you dont see any recurve so its possible old selfbow is simply asymmetrical longbow. The nocks would be the same as those on modern yumi since they are also used on other types of Japanese bows.

If I find some painting I will post.

[jkekoni]

<Euonymus Europaeus>
http://chestofbooks.com/flora-plants/fl ... eus-L.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euonymus_europaeus
http://www.luomus.fi/kasviatlas/maps.ph ... &year=2008

Height: 3 - 4 m Width: 2,50 - 3,0 m Source: http://puutarha.net/index.asp?s=/suorak ... asp?id=352

[jack farrell]

Jiao; Stephen and all; Does anyone have a cvloseup of the construction of the Warring States laminated bamboo bows?

[Bede]

Jack,
I have a diagram from the archaeologists' report, but I am not sure it is good enough to make a reproduction from. I have seen photographs of the intact bows, but you really can't see the construction.

[jiao]

i hear form tv about a tomb of china han dynasty maybe it call mawangdui(&#39532;&#29579;&#22534;&#27721;&#22675;&#65289;, a man find the laminated bow in the tomb has thousand layers more thin than the paper ,i'm not know how many bow find in the tomb and which bow has thousand layers ,

in china hubei province museum has 25 bamboo bows of chu country of Warring States&#65292;if we can find a break bamboo laminated bow that is very good luck for see the construction, i am has no free money go the museum for the picture or do the research, i guess stephen no money do it also, but if stephen as atarn institution send a email to the museum got some help maybe not so difficult, http://www.hubeimuseum.net/index.jsp

bede :can you show your have seen photographs of the intact bows?

[Dusan]

Best exploid for wood bow in Teleuti -Siberian tribe . Bow like babys cradle

[jkekoni]

i hear form tv about a tomb of china han dynasty maybe it call mawangdui(&#39532;&#29579;&#22534;&#27721;&#22675;&#65289;, a man find the laminated bow in the tomb has thousand layers more thin than the paper ,i'm not know how many bow find in the tomb and which bow has thousand layers.

The strongest part of bamboo is the outtest layer under the "shiny one".
The weakest parts are those insine and the nodes.

I read the above that there is bow costructed from multiple thin layers of bamboo (glued together).

If one would make a bow from multitude of thin slices of the outtest layer without nodes. These layers would be glued toheter with natural glue with distributing the shortest parts similar to the way the sinew ends are distributed in sinew layer. Could this be efficient bow material. Or bow back and belly material.

At least it would be a process taking a lot work to construct...

[Stephen Selby]

Jiao; Stephen and all; Does anyone have a cvloseup of the construction of the Warring States laminated bamboo bows?

The same as Bede, I have seen the reports. Clearly there were wooden build-outs at the grip and the tips. The rest remains a bit obscure. The archaeological reports identify the build-outs but postulate a single bamboo strip for the limbs. I find that unlikely.

As to the ones I have inspected personally, they were covered in an outer layer of lacquer and no-one was prepared to do an x-ray.

I'll look up the report (Grace of Marquis Zeng Yi), Late Spring and Autumn Period, Hubei.

S

[redhawk]

Please go to: www.paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/34603
........you?ll like it. Actual bowery and a very special kind of archery in India.
Michael[/url]

[Szabi Nagy]

I like these Nenets bows:

http://www.arcticphoto.co.uk/results.as ... archnum=32

http://www.arcticphoto.co.uk/results.as ... archnum=32

Szabi