Crossbow at the top of the page

In this thread: [url]https://thearbalistguild.forumotion.com/t167-holding-a-arbalist[/url]

Geezer wrote:The beautiful crossbow at the top of this page has a 4 or 5 axle lock.  That gorgeous bronze thingy on the bottom isn't the trigger.  It's a trigger-guard.  The actual trigger is a little folding tang that's hidden on the underside of the stock, about half the guard's length back.

I'm wondering if there is a resource with an index of the information about certain historic bows that are buried in this forum?

It would help us new guys get up to speed...

There is not, but that sounds like a great idea to catalog crossbows. We could make different categories for  existing historical specimens and one for our home builds. On it put specs and details such as when and where built, draw weight, draw length, materials used, details on trigger mechanism etc.


Todd

A different forum I'm on has a sticky thread where any time somebody mentions a recipe in another thread, somebody adds a link and a one-line summary to the recipies thread...

Makes for an easy place to search.

Cataloging home built crossbows on the forum would be a neat thing.  Each person could have a catalog somewhere in their profile. Very interesting indeed! Since I have already cataloged  the five I have built, I guess I would have a head start.


jds6

Pierre -- the Search function here can help you locate mentions of specific historic style bows, like say the Ulrich bow, Skane, Padre island, Chinese, or "14th century".  It helps if you use the Advanced search options, too.

Anything in particular we can help you find?

Ken, if I were not new to the historic bow game, I might know what terms to put into the box... I've looked up Skane and Ulrich, Cho-ko-nu, and a few others based on threads I've dug up here.

I can say that the bow at the top of the page is none of those.

I gather that Die Armbrust would give me some guidance on what to search for, but I don't have a copy yet.

The crossbow is a late 16th or early 17th century sporting or target bow.
Not much turns up on our forum search but google has a few more examples by searching for "16th/17th century sporting crossbow"
Hermann historica (auction site) have some of this type previously for sale with descriptions of them on their website too.

We do have a lot of great info on the forum, as others have said it just needs to be organised better.

Sorry Pierre -- I thought you were interested in specific weapons from specific periods.

A good free resource is The Crossbow by Sir Arthur Payne-Gallway, you can download a copy of it free from several places on the net.

At this point, I'm not even sure of what I'm interested in.  So a literature survey is in order.

I've always wanted a crossbow capable of throwing bolts in the 1 to 5 pound weight category...  Which I gather was not unheard of in the windlass bow era.  I remember reading The Saracen Blade as a child, and I've wanted a bow too powerful to span by hand ever since.

I've build a little test-bed that I can mount to a workmate type bench, to experiment with different configurations.  I've acquired some fiberglass tension-rods, torsion springs, surgical tubing, some 250lb test dyneema braid and I'm making some plywood cams and pulleys.  That should let me try out different in-swinging and out-swinging configurations with variations on power-stroke, and power source...  I'm probably going to have to acquire some thera-band gold, since Jorg Sprave gets some impressive results out of the stuff.

For the test-bench, since I'm going to do a scaled down model, I'm planning on throwing this little quarter-pound bolt that I turned up on my lathe:

If I set up my lathe for a bit of production, I can make a bunch of them, and I think I have a good idea for a magazine to feed them into a bull-pup arrangement.

Ah!  More of a siege engine or wall defense than a carryable weapon then.  

You might be interested in the Triple Prod Siege Crossbow invented by the Chinese:
http://198.170.107.188/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2447&highlight=triple+prod

I found the answer to my original question in the thread about it.  Dating back to 2009, there are some pictures and information about the crossbow at the top of the page, and also some very interesting diagrams of how the lock on a multi-axle setup from the 16th century worked.