Medieval crossbow replica

[mwinfrance]

Alibaba ( and express ) but not Banggood have decided to apply geo-ip based language forcing, at least to France.So when I search them, unless I use a VPN in an anglophone country, they insist on giving me incredibly badly auto-translated ( from Chinese , via English, into French, results . I really have to want something badly to go down that rabbit hole as I have to guess what their system might have decided an object would be called in french in order to get non gibberish " "Chinglishench" search results.I'm trying to learn Chinese ( in what free time I don't have ) to be able to sneak in via TaoBao and similar. Also out of general interest in languages, when you have more than one, learning additional ones becomes easier..Banggood will probably begin doing the same dumb thing re geo-ip language forcing one day.
Thanks anyway for taking the time to search for them

 

[stuckinthemud]

Thanks all. I usually use a crane scale on my crossbow bench but this lath is way past the capacity of my scale. When I priced a replacement the best price I came up with was near enough £50. The blacksmith’s crane scale is 100kg but he also has lots of heavy steel items and a couple of pull -alongs . He’s even up for fitting a ground anchor to take a pulley or two, though putting a loop around the anvil and block should be plenty of resistance

 

[Orraloon]

Going by the drawings of the actual item it would not have been particularly heavy draw weight. Its also an early simple pin release. 100 kg would likely be all you need. From what I have read I would guess it was a hunting bow rather than the much heavier military bows. When hunting light and easy to span for loading in the field would be good features to have. The military crossbows were usually steel prods and some were about half a ton pull. The Genoese crosbow men had an offsider on the battlefield to carry the loading winch and set up his big shield.
Regards
John

 

[stuckinthemud]

Recent excavations have rewritten the context of the bow, pushing it back 100 years and suggesting a possibility of a war bow during wars with the Danish possibly just after the Black Death . A reconstruction of the Berkhamsted yew bow came out at 275lb

Although metal crossbows did appear in the scene in about 1450, Metallurgy wasn’t very advanced and early Steel crossbows were temperamental (tended to snap) and didn’t like the cold. It wasn’t until about 1550 that they they really started to gain momentum. Horn sinew crossbows were the weapon of choice for those who could afford them until mid 16th century- Royal workshops, knights templar, city armouries, and the rich . Yew/sinew were as effective in cold climates, but poor folk had to make do with yew and yew/sinew

 

[stuckinthemud]

Mentioning the knights Templar, they used a mixed skirmishing crossbow “team” of heavy, medium and light crossbowmen, light crossbows being peasant levies operating knockelarnbrust (stick bows), the light, quickly spanned, crossbows suppressing fire while heavy slower spanned bows picked away at longer range/ heavy armour

 

[Orraloon]

Think you have read more on the subject than me. I have made a few longbows 2 of them being yew but crossbows are a prohibited weapon here in Australia so only know what I have read on them. The Crossbow by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey being the main source and its quite a few years ago since I last dipped into it. Sir Ralph claimed to have shot a bolt across the Meni Strait with a steel bow he built. Welsh crossbow connection there.
Dont know if you have already looked but there are traditional archery forums where there is a lot of building knowhow. I dare say there will be a few UK ones to check out.
Anyhow your project reminded me of a somewhat similar venture of mine from some years ago. A replica of the Holmegaard bow. Stone age bow from a bog in Denmark.


Was one of the most satisfying bow builds I did.
Anyhow keep up the good work. Research and solving the problems is almost as good as the building itself.
Regards
John

 

[stuckinthemud]

Love that bow!
Research is way more fun. I used to live in Primitive archer

 

[stuckinthemud]

Been a good few hours scraping and tillering. Tiller actually hits the measurements taken off the drawings which is nice. Thickness taper is 1mm per 1 inch. Centre is 26mm, fades are 25 mm 2 inches each side of centre, tips are slightly less tapered. My makers space is an absolute midden squeezed into a corner of my timber store/family junk store/bike shed. I clear it out annually when the weather holds fair for a few days and everything can get sorted- welsh weather in the winter does not encourage me to clean. Anyway excuses over, I need to make a string, which will take a good while and the lath looks like this:

 

[stuckinthemud]

Oh, one more thing, hemp rope stretches

 

[Orraloon]

Shhh. You will start the rope discussion again. At sea we used to stretch out new rope before using it. Some of the stretch is down to how tight the fibers are wound. One trick was feed it out the back of ship and drag it through the water. Helped take out the tendency to kink from sitting in a tight coil. When I made the longbows I tried sail twine as being in the maritime industry I just happened to have some. I also tried linen shoemakers thread for strings. Both worked and are authentic but to be honest the modern dacron worked better.
Regards
John

 

[stuckinthemud]

String is made and the tillering is nearly done. Two feet on the bow and a two handed pull gets it drawn to 8”. I suspect the draw weight will end up as disappointing

 

[stuckinthemud]

I had thought draw length would be 10” but I re-measured the drawings and Draw length will eventually end up at 12”, which is going to be a bit of a challenge

 

[stuckinthemud]

Full draw, just a small tweak left to go.

 

[Orraloon]

Tiller on that is looking quite good. I dare say it will take a bit of set over time but no reason not to make another as a spare. Any progress with the stock?
Regards
John

 

[stuckinthemud]

The tiller is nearly there, I’m not 100 percent happy with it but it’s close. I have tempered it but it’s taken about 10mm of set.

I had thought I would not mount the bow as I only wanted to do a strength test but I have knocked out a tiller from yellow pine. It took next to no time with a hatchet and plane to rough out. Possibly a terrible choice of timber but I am going to cheat with inserts to add strength here and there

 

[stuckinthemud]

Well that sucks. No idea why it blew up, oh well , I was 5mm under thickness so chalk it up to experience and start again. I’ll keep you updated

 

[Orraloon]

Pity but thats bow building. For what its worth I had a lot of failures but it sure feels great the times it works.
Regards
John

 

[stuckinthemud]

My failure rate is far higher in crossbows than in archery bows. Still on the steep part of the learning curve

 

[Orraloon]

My failure rate is far higher in crossbows than in archery bows. Still on the steep part of the learning curve

That statement of yours got me thinking and its likely aiming for a very high draw weight in a very short bow. Has to be harder to do. Its also likely that back in the day the original was made they had access to better yew and were further along that learning curve. I know you are trying to keep with the dimentions of the original but I would be tempted to make the next one a few inches longer and keep the draw length the same.
Regards
John

 

[stuckinthemud]

That and building bows and crossbows was a trade governed by guilds and/or a craft passed on from father to son, so makers were taught not self-taught. You are completely correct of course and I have made a few successful crossbows of more normal weight but I have raided my stock of better quality yew for the next one, though the heartwood is not as dense as I would like and the sapwood is 10mm thick and I am debating whether to thin it or not.