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Happy to answer questions. I have work to do to get to full draw length (10.5”). No idea what the power will be but I am 2 or 3 mm below target thickness- 10 percent below - which is annoying. I’m way over the 50kg of my scale. Common wisdom says bows of this type and period (hand drawn bows...

I am trying to get a reasonable idea of the actual power of medieval wooden crossbows. This is very niche research. There are only 9 wood crossbow laths (Europe the bow is called lath or lathe, US they are called prods) that I am aware of, out of which 2 are sinewed. If you want fulldetails...

My father in law was a very good plumber/gas fitter. We had a major disagreement when he plumbed in our upstairs bathroom and I then went to box in the pipes. He only allowed the pipe work to be boxed after my better half joined in the discussion and still insisted the boxing was fixed with...

Ordered a couple of metres of hemp rope. Spent a fun few hours learning/practicing eye splices. Be nice. Should I whip the tail ends?

Make sure the sails are serviceable or you’re in for a couple of grand before you even jet wash it For what it’s worth I always fancied the Hurley long keel yachts

A shipwright I worked with in 2012 suggested a minimum budget of £1000.00 per foot for a yacht refit, so a decade ago you’d be looking at at least £70k for a refit in a boat that size

Afraid this is incorrect. Excavations at Birka show Danish vikings were using horn bows, as were the Rus. The Chinese are well documented for having Summer and Winter crossbows. Of course hornbows were the gold standard- the Ferrari or Aston Martin if you will- for crossbows across the entire...

If you can tolerate the very rough and ready approach/equipment and high chance of failure, I’ll open a thread in “projects”

Mwinfrance, in this case sinew is unlikely as the tiller is not equipped with lugs for a spanning device, the lath is not scored to key a glued lay-up and the back is intact and pretty lumpy where a sinew back would need to be smoothed off. Also the draw length is about 10” so not really enough...

Dephill I’ve enjoyed the conversation

this project is an attempt to replicate a medieval crossbow from a moat in Sweden. Nomenclature is not my strong suit but technically speaking, although I would prefer to use a tillering stick, as it is so strong I have mounted the crossbow lath in a crossbow table/bench/press- a large screw...

Wouldn’t dream of it. Who else would run the Secret Santa?!?

Catching my hand on a sharp saw blade

Any ideas why not?

Bowline is my “go-to”

Bourbon, I’m trying to workout the draw weight of the Skane Lillohus crossbows.

True to the zero stretch, but, I do need to minimise it. I have a heavy lath set up in my bow press. The press has 14” of travel, the nylon rope in there at the moment pulled the tip on the lath for the first 6 inches of travel, the next 6 inches of travel were all stretch on the rope I have...

I had no idea hemp rope still existed , that’s perfect!

I need a 2 metre length of rope or cord able to repeatedly winch 200kg with zero stretch. The 10mm braided nylon I am using isn’t up to the job. I have some linen thread I could make up a length with but it’s not cheap and I would rather use it for other projects. I hear good things about...

On tonight’s Great British Celebrity Bake Off there was a large display disk which looked like a 14 or 18” timber round with bark on My beloved now wants a chopping board “just like that one”: timber disk cut off a moderately large tree trunk, bark still on, no splits, cupping or warps. Any...