tatar or korean

[ginni]

Thanks to Peter who posted this pic:




Look carefully at the second bow from right!


Here is my modern korean semihorn bow:



How many differences can you see?

The tatar one seems to have a very smooth kassan section, the ridge is almost invisible.

[Uli]

I LIKE TATAR BOWS !

here is some detail of a siyah and a question:

picture 1 - looks like a laminated siyah
picture 2 - note the broken-off tips at the very end -
one might speculate the tip part distal of nock was prone to break and give this particular form - see ginnis picture above - same phenomenon
pics are from http://atarn.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2141


plus: many tatar bows in strung (!) state can be seen in the T?rckische Cammer in Dresden : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8cId1q0NJM
highly recommended !

[MJuingong]

Wow! That Turkische Cammer video is goood! I must look up "Cammer".

Yes, the tips do seem susceptible to damage. Hasty stringing? Wear and tear?

[Bede]

I have several old bows with the same kind of nock damage. There are a few possible explanations. One is tied up with why were the tips extended so far past the nocks on so many bows, particularly war bows? The robust tips make me wonder if there was not a perceived problem with bows in combat. Strung bows of composite construction are very rigid and might be damaged if they were dropped on a very hard surface like rock. In desperation, they might have been poked at an enemy who had got too close in a battle. The other area that has been talked of is that the problem happens after they go into a collection and they are damaged by improper handling. Bows broken by being strung backwards are not unknown so what else happens in collections, private and museums?

I am not comfortable with drawing too close a comparison between Korean bows and Tatar bows based on their similar profiles from the side. The tips are a different shape, their limbs have different cross sections and their dynamic bending actions are different. The kasans of Tatar bows are basically rigid and the grips are flat on the belly side unlike Korean bows. Their limbs are broader and more stable. Those heavier limbs cannot move as fast as a well made Korean bow though they do shoot a heavy arrow very effectively.

[ginni]

Bede, the kassan part of the korean bow is not so rigid like in the Tatar bow, but in comparison with sal is rigid. Is bending a little, but as you can see in older pics this is a modern feature, is the past the kassan was much rigid than in modern bows, which looks more flexible in kassan, but is still relatively a rigid part. If you look at the pic with korean bow from France posted by JJ, you can see a strong non-flexible kassan.
So I think those bows are not so different in working.

Regarding the shape of siyahs, Adam says that no turkish bow he tested can resist when is shot with a fastflight string. So, turkish and also tatar bows may be prone to have breakage issues, especially in warbows and with nonstreching string. Some bows had horn reinforcement glued in the tip to avoid breakage.

I like to see the korean siyah like a solution, a very ingenious solution for this problem, the breakage of the tip.The shape of the tips makes the koreah siyah more resistent and allows using strong vegetal string. I bet you can't see many broken tips in korean bows.

Regarding the second bow from left, if there is a triangular shape of the kassan, is hard to see it, maybe Peter can tell us.

However, I don't make statements, I like to let my imagination free in absence of solid evidence and knowledge.

[jack farrell]

To my thinking, the differences between Turkish, Tatar, Korean and Persian bows is superficial. There are just a few tried and true joinery techniques used and the rest is proportion and detailing.

A Mongol bow of all demonstrated types is structurally different, so is a crab bow but just a little. Same with Qing. Most all bows of the first millennium and before represent different technologies.

[Adam Karpowicz]

I agree that a Korean bow with rigid siyahs would be similar in the f-d curve to the Tatar bows. The rigid siyahs force the sals to bend closer to the grip, causing more string follow there as well. However, the bows, although similar in general, are not identical, which can be easily seen in this batch.

I think the common damage to the tips above nocks would be something one can expect to happen to the extremities of a longish object. And the bows were probably hung by the nock in the museums and even by the users. The damages I saw from the FF strings were concentrated at the lower lip of the nock, where the wood or the sinew binding was sheared away by the wire-like string loop. The tips above the nock were normally not affected.

Adam

[ginni]

Adam, I didn't referred to broken tips in the pictures above but to the breakage described by you in your articles.

[Bede]

Ginni,
I have found the bows very different in the hand. Military Korean bows are quite different from the target bows that are made today and they perhaps should be compared with Tatar bows. The problem that I see is that even to me the photos look similar, but in the hand the Tatar bows are longer and wider and the kasan/tip doesn't look even vaguely similar. It is the different between 2D and 3D.

The problem with strings that Adam mentioned in his book is mainly obvious with modern materials. I have repeatedly shot bows Adam made with very stiff linen strings and the strings broke and not the nocks. Since I was using light flight arrows, there was a lot of residual force in the bows when the arrow left. I do not believe the lighter Korean nock would have taken the strain any better. Due to the moisture problems at Bonneville Flats, I have given up using linen strings in favour of silk. The linen breaks too easily. This year I made a silk string for Jaap and this is the first time he hasn't broken a string on that bow.

Regarding the horn inserts in tips, I wonder at their distribution. I am not sure they are only in very strong bows. I have seen bows of approximately the same weight and one had one and another did not. I have also seen several where the horn insert is off-center. In my bows with broken tips, it was clear that the horn was eaten out down to the base of the nock before the tip broke. Maybe this is a common occurrence with horn inserts in tips.

[ginni]

I have seen this set of pictures and looks interesting.

http://www.hornbow.com/cross.html

Before the beginning of V splice the core has the thinnest spot and in the kassan is slowing increasing his thickness (is basically not the limb but the siyah-kassan). This growth in thickness suggesting the limb become rigid to the kassan end - base of ears. This is common in all turkish/tatar bows. The amount of kassan flexibility from none in the otoman/tatar to more or less in the korean bow is not so big difference in my eyes. Of course, the ratio horn/wood/sinew could be very different between those bows and this also change the way how the limbs are working.

Regarding this issue, nobody said how did taper the core in the bows made here. In the korean bow both belly and core looks tapered, belly more than core. Tapering the belly is easy to made after the bow is sinewed, but the core must be tapered befoare, how do you know when ready?

Other question the sinew layer looks very thick, about a half of limb overall thickness, this makes the belly to work more than the backing, the belly being ?overpowered? by the thick backing. This can move the neutral line from center of the limb close to the belly (the exterior and hardest part of the bamboo) and compress the glue line. This makes me wonder if the grooving has the role to strengthen the bond only or also makes a smooth transition from horn compressing properties to wood when the limb bend. The grooved line is working not like horn ant not like wood, some between. Also this put the question if matched grooves really works better than non-matched?

[Uli]

just a note concerning the tip break: what I meant was that if the GLUE line of the siyah lamination distal from the nock would break / give up by moisture (see my posted pic), the result looks like in our pictures.

[PaleoNinja]

I think that I remember adams book mentioning that NONE of the old bows he examined had matching grooves.... so I think you're onto something Ginni when you say the grooves are only to ease the transition between wood/bamboo and horn.