17th century stonebow school project

I'm working with my 2 7th grade students making 3 stonebows based on the design in Gallway's book.
I'm doing the big work, and they are doing the whitework  and smithing, as well as the stocks.
Using red oak for the stocks, 1018 for the hardware and 1075 for the prods. I'm aiming for 30-50# on the bows at 12 inch draw.
Cutting the latch out.


Making the ticklers


Top: my lever, middle the prototype, lower one of theirs; unfinished.


The prototype so far

Very good idea and beautiful work. When you'll put the bow be careful to give a bit of angle  to the stock to be sure the shooting trajectory wont hit the stock, or cant a bit the bow tips upward. You look to have nice working tool !

Be very careful about the the bow clamp system. This may help.

This picture show you what Gallwey mean "upward slant" in the stock 

That way you'll be sure the ball won't hit the stock 

Hope I have been clear! please inform us of your work with pictures.

Last thing , I would suggest to do a stronger bow around 100# (can be span by hand also)

Thanks for the replies!
Jeep: I'd like to keep the power on the low side. The kids are 12, and while I trust them they have little experience with things that shoot. They made hickory bows, but as we know that is a different animal than a crossbow.
Mine, however can be stronger muahahaha.

As for the stock, I have an offset on it, that I hope is deep enough. It is certainly enough for the sling to clear. It is 2 pieces one 1.5" the other .5" with an alternating grain to give some more strength. I'm not fond of using red oak, but I have a very limited budget.

As for the prods, I was going to temper them at 700F It is 1075 1/8" thick 3/4" wide and 28" long.
I'll play around with prods on the prototype before they make theirs, and find a good fit.
cheers!
chriso

I should add that I'm looking to use 1/2" clay balls

But think how much fun paintballs would be!

Evil grin

ugh, I cannot heat the whole prod at the same time, which will make tempering a little...impossible. I'm therefore making a tempering forge from an old gas grill. I'll put in a different burner too so it'll do double duty as a regular forge too. It came with a full tank too.

Some links below may have been presented here before however they contain some pictures of bullet/stone bows. Be patient scrolling down and click each image to get nice detail.
     
http://armborst.forum24.se/armborst-about36.html
http://armborst.forum24.se/armborst-about153.html
http://armborst.forum24.se/armborst-about126.html
http://armborst.forum24.se/armborst-about112.html
 
Tom

The skill, technical and artistic level of those guy are just unbelievable! Respect man! respect...

wow. The learning curve just got steeper...
Thanks for the links!

Here is the stock so far. The prod is not hardened, and not spanned. Rather I used a long string for measurements. I'll be making the irons as soon as I fix my forge. $&*@ blower broke.

I know this post is old, but I asked Tod from Tod's Workshop and he said that you can't cant the bow back like a normal crossbow. You have to make it straight but have the bow curved meaning that the bow has a bend in it from side to side. This is so it can shoot straight and make clearance for the double string also the spherical projectile. I tried making a stonebow and it's dangerous if you just put a cant in it. It will most of the time hit the front of stock but sometimes you have the freak accident. Of it ricocheting and shooting backwards. I found this video of this guy he made a medieval stone bow and his bow had a bend in the middle of it. So that the tips did not meet with the center they went off center https://youtu.be/Khd09zyW3V8

I think this puts it in better perspective what I was talking about.