Padre Island bow, for Fla Museum of History

Just sharing my newest project, the Fla museum of History wanted a Padre Island bow.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/swifthoundbows/sets/72157626848234259/with/5841887099/



Best!
Lightly

OOhh I couldn't help but drool over those bow. That is some might fine work there Lightly. And once again thanks for sharing with us how it all goes to gather with another indispensable reference.

Thanks, Basilisk!
As I have said before, Geezer and I do make bows THIS way, but, as we all know, it is not the ONLY way... I am glad that I (actually, sort of accidentally) started documenting his (and now my) style of bow making.
I originally took photos so that I could refer back to them, and remember what and how I did the bows. I made them public so friends could see what I was doing.
And that is actually why I am on this forum, someone was posting a photo from my Flickr of a Maximilian bow I did some time ago. Someone else here, recognized it as from New World Arbalest, contacted us, and here we are! And, I will continue to document the interesting bows.

Best!
L.

Good work Lightly! Do you guy's have any difficulty cutting a "bird style" lock-plate out of that stuff, looks like a heavy bronze plate that would look great on a "certian William Tell crossbow" you may of heard of? I would dig seeing it appear on here.

Olrono;

We are very new to making brass/bronze lockplates. I don't know yet exactly what Geezer has planned for your lockplates, but I DO know that the bronze is thick and difficult to work with (and expensive!). The more linear lockplates and cheekplates on the Padre Island bow are quite difficult enough... not sure how we would do the much more curvy bird head lockplate. That would be a heck of a lot of filing... whew... I'm a wood worker, not a metal worker, lol! But Geezer is clever and resourceful, so, I am sure that something will be worked out. Best of luck!

Lightly.

Geezer is clever, resourceful, and LOTS AND LOTS of other good things.

Lightly,

How did you put the nut in the socket after gluing the socket into the tiller? Am I missing something?

Thanks,

Wilhelm

Hi Wilhelm,

Read through this topic here: Nut bearing blocks

Any questions or need for clarification, feel free to drop a few words in there.

Lightly,

Lady, you know I love your work.

...and...just my way of showing you some appreciation...scroll up a bit to your first post.

I'll PM you on how to do that straight from Flikr.

Ivo

Not missing anything, Wilhelm.

Once the lugs are cut out of the nut, you can slip it in. That cut out gives you sufficient space to roll the nut right in.
To KEEP it there, we use a pin, or nussfadden (think I spelled that correctly) That last being the cord that goes thru the nut while it is in place, and wraps round the body of the bow.

Hope this helps!

Best;

Lightly

Ivo! omg, thank you! That is wonderful!
Yes, I would love to learn to do that, I am not good at the niceties of the computer world, my skills lie elsewhere...

Best!

Lightly

Lightly and Ivo,

Thanks for the clarification on the nut socket question. That makes a lot of sense now that you mention it - there is a real limit to what we can learn from staring at pictures of a project and scratching our heads for a few hours!

Speaking of which, Lightly, I have to jump on the forum bandwagon in commenting on how much I enjoy seeing your work. It's always wonderful to see an old craft so lovingly resurrected by talented hands and a curious mind, and your documentation of your work will certainly help others (present company included!) to keep learning.

Wilhelm

First, Wilhelm, thank you for your kind words! I hope the documentation may help some others learn how to make these bows (again, it is the way that WE make them, certainly not the ONLY way to make them!)

But, I wanted to post a link to the finished Padre Island bow. It is now boxed and will be shipped to today off to FLa.

Yes, I know, Ivo, I am posting a link and not photo's, lol! But they are on Silly Person's Flickr, and I am not sure if I can, or am allowed to do that from other folks Flickr accounts?

Anyway, here it is!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesthefletcher/sets/72157627613042162/with/6122322837/
[Admin EDIT]


Best;

Lightly

Hi Lightly,

Love the Spanish bow you got there.

The brass looks fresh!!!

If I remember correctly, the underside and sides of the front end are covered by two plates of brass(or is it bronze) that were notched and hammered to contour the shape of the stock with the notched ends butting together. The fit of these notched flaps looks to be way better though - what were once obvious hammered flaps with gaps in between now looks like a solid piece of metal.



How did you make it fit so well?
*If not a secret*
Did you burnish the edges and then sand them smooth? ...or.. Some kind of brass/bronze colored filler/solder? ...I'm lost.

Lightly wrote:Yes, I know, Ivo, I am posting a link and not photo's, lol! But they are
on Silly Person's Flickr, and I am not sure if I can, or am allowed to
do that from other folks Flickr accounts?

Not a problem.

You can post pictures/slideshows from any account on Flickr just as you would from your own. Simply log in to your Flickr account, open up the picture set(your's or someone elses) you want to share and grab the Embed code to add to your post.
I actually couldn't figure out why I didn't have access to Silly Person's Flickr at first too, but then noticed I wasn't logged in ...that's what the main issue was...logged in and all went well from there.

Thank you for sharing ,

Ivo

Hey Ivo!

First, it IS bronze, as you guessed, and I did bronze as there are extant examples of bronze on a Spanish bow.
The cheekpieces of the crossbow bits found in the wreck off of Padre Island were iron. We have the mild steel sheets, but on the bits on the wreckage, the thickness of the iron was quite a bit more than we had in shop. We could get thicker steel, but I do not know how to work it that thick, nor do I have the tools (yet...)

I still wanted that thickness, and we DID have the bronze, which I can work. Used a dremel cutter, and then filed it down.

The cheekpiece was all of a piece on the original. That is, it was worked over a mold of some sort, as near as we can figure, to then be fitted on the nose of the bow.

I've been talking to a metal smith, we've been trying to figure out a way to make them in one piece, as they were done back then. David did do one like that, but it took a few tries, and lots of effort. So, looking for a simpler way.

To make this piece, for the museum bow, I did this:
\http://www.flickr.com/photos/swifthoundbows/5838394736/in/set-72157626848234259

That is to say, I inlet the wood on the nose of the stock, put the cheek piece on while still flat, attached it to the stock with the screws (yes, rivets are actually the correct way, but that would make it impossible, or very difficult at least, to effect repairs...) and then, where it would fold down, cut with a hacksaw, filed each 'flap' to fit against each other. Once they fit really really well, my metal smith friend brazed both sides together for me, and did an excellent job. If you don't look too closely, it does look like one piece! And, I did sand it quite well, to make it as smooth as possible on the bottom.

I surely hope they like it. I'd love to have a photo of the bow on display, that would be wonderful! I'll pester the Museum lady later about that.

Take care!

Lightly

...my metal smith friend brazed both sides together for me, and did an
excellent job. If you don't look too closely, it does look like one
piece! And, I did sand it quite well, to make it as smooth as possible
on the bottom.

I knew it..well sort of.

The cheekpiece was all of a piece on the original. That is, it was
worked over a mold of some sort, as near as we can figure, to then be
fitted on the nose of the bow.

I was thinking about that too and did a bit of searching...ended up looking at auto body side of the deal(Bead rollers, stretchers, shrinkers, etc.). Couldn't find any traditional shrinking/stretching videos(that were even slightly related to the part), but did find a clip on a manual shrinker/stretcher press that looks like the tool for the job.



Sounds like you guys are on the right track in thinking about hammering over a mold. Possibly the piece of metal was bent, then what was to be the bottom was stretched and the sides were shrunk a bit.


Ivo

PS:

I surely hope they like it. I'd love to have a photo of the bow on
display, that would be wonderful! I'll pester the Museum lady later
about that.

Just have a little shoot with her at the museum.

Wouldn't it be cool, if every arms&armour museum you went to had their own little indoor crossbow range?
I think so.

There are hand planes that are made by cutting dovetails into the side plane then the sole is cut to fit. The pieces are joined by peening the sole piece into the sides.
http://www.handplane.com/30/making-planes-dovetailing-infill-planes-101/
It might not be the way the Padre Island bows were made but it would be an elegant solution to a tight fitting brass/ bronze fore end piece.

Dovetailed cheek-plates (reinforcing the stock around the prod) would be sweet, but I've actually seen a bronze plate from a 16th century shipwreck site (one in Turks and Caicos Islands) It was all one piece, probably bent over a form and riveted onto the fore-end with bronze rivets. There were bits of oak still clinging to the rivets (the rest of the stock was long-gone)
By the way, the Padre Island crossbows were also oak... or Roble, as the Spanish say.
Presumably the lockplates on the Padre bows were iron, since bronze plates would still be in situ, and these are gone, leaving only their mortises behind in the wood.
Geezer