Halbe rustung. Nearly finished now, next up is shooting it!!

First topic message reminder :

First steps towards a new build. Getting the angles correct on the parts to make it all work together whas kinda tricky. But i think it worked out. Next i have to clean them up and harden te surfaces to reduce wear, any ideas how to harden them? heating to redhot and cooling in oil sufficient? i made a short movie to show how it works. MAc, thanks for the picture of the 4 axel trigger assembly, i decided to keep it a bit simpler but it is basically the same.

Ferdi, not sure what kind of wood Larix is...do you have the latin name for it? Many hardwoods are suitable for an all wooden bow, with exceptions and precations such as backing the bow with another species of hardwood, sinewing the back, quarter sawn to orient the grain a certain way when using hardwood boards, and for stave bows, some other factors....tell me more about what you are thinking about.

Dane

stoneagebowyer wrote:Ferdi, not sure what kind of wood Larix is...do you have the latin name for it? Many hardwoods are suitable for an all wooden bow, with exceptions and precations such as backing the bow with another species of hardwood, sinewing the back, quarter sawn to orient the grain a certain way when using hardwood boards, and for stave bows, some other factors....tell me more about what you are thinking about.

Dane

It is a european lariks or lork as it is also called in our language.
It is a pine family wich is flexible, low resin and nice red colour.
I once made a bow out of a nordman christmas tree but was to fast and did not tiller it properly an it snapped.
To bad, it looked great.
But anyway, i happened to come across a piece of it whdn i was at a sawmill and it caugh my eye. because all the lines stay in the whole length

Probably you should take a pass on any type of pine being suitable for bow making. It just isn't strong enough in tension, and will snap sometime during the tillering process. But, if you want to give it a go, and the grain is perfect, why not? Keep it wide as you can, and backing it with rawhide or sinew may help, too.

Dane

Top is covered! Unfortunatly there are no more domino's so this is it!
Close up it isnt perfect, but then again, it should look at least a couple of hundred years old.
Now engraving and aging.

Dominos... that's ingenuity! Good luck with the aging process.

Gnome

It looks fantastic, I would never have guessed you used dominos. It looks like ivory or bone, and I bet it is a very slick surface, good for getting extra juice out of the bolts when you shoot them. You should be very proud of your work. It looks very professional.

Dane

We might call that wood Larch? Looks like a pine but looses its needles in the fall like a hardwood/ deciduous tree.

8fingers wrote: We might call that wood Larch? Looks like a pine but looses its needles in the fall like a hardwood/ deciduous tree.

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I think that is the one! It does indeed loose its n!eedles in fall!
Nice red colour, i'll give it a go for making a longbow.
Needs to dry for now, was fresh cut.
Lots of time to spend on this crossbow.
Next up is engraving and aging.

Ferdi, I just looked up Larch in a chapter on bow woods in The Bowyer's Bible Vol. 4. European Larch, Larix deciduas, has a specific gravity of .53, while Western Larch, L occientalis, has a .53 SG rating. Larix larcinia, called Tamarack, is also good bow wood, but not super strong. It seems comporable to elm, some species of ash, etc. I guess give it a try, particularly for a long bow. Be sure it is seasoned and dry before you start, of course.

stoneagebowyer wrote:Ferdi, I just looked up Larch in a chapter on bow woods in The Bowyer's Bible Vol. 4. European Larch, Larix deciduas, has a specific gravity of .53, while Western Larch, L occientalis, has a .53 SG rating. Larix larcinia, called Tamarack, is also good bow wood, but not super strong. It seems comporable to elm, some species of ash, etc. I guess give it a try, particularly for a long bow. Be sure it is seasoned and dry before you start, of course.

How long do u guess i have to let it dry? Couple of months? It is allready cut so it isnt very thick, i'd say 2" square.
I will try too keep it wide as possible and we will see.
But i have little experience tillering and stuff so i hope u are willing to teach, i most certainly are very willing to learn!
I am looking forward to it but need a lot of time to finish this project.
Thanks for all the help!

Since it is kiln dired boards, it is ready to go. I was very tired when I wrote the last time, so didnt think it through as I should have.

The best advice is to go very slow, and don't violate the back of the bow (the side facing out, vs. the side facing you, which is called the belly). Keep it on the wider side, since it is a "white wood", and wont have the same properties as yew or osage. Make it at least your height in length. You can do a full compass bow that bends in the handle, or a stiffer handle, say, 4" to 6" long, with fades right out of the handle and an eliptical tiller. Generally, with that style of bow, the last 6" to 8" at the tips bend very little or not at all.

And whatever you do, don't draw back the bow past whatever your intended draw length will be. If you wish a 50 lb. bow at your draw length (say, 27", which is mine), you want to keep from drawing back past 50# at all stages of tillering the bow, which is the term for inducing the bend, not the stock of the crossbow as we use the term tiller here.

You start by defining he width of the bow, handle placement and fade placement, then limb length, then begin tillering, so you get an even bend on each limb. Once you get an even bend in a process called floor tillering, which is pushing on the bow while holding one end against the ground, you put on a long string, about the length of the bow, and begin drawing it that way with the long string, remove wood as you go along with rasps, files, or scrapers, and gradually get it bending evenly on each limb at a longer and longer draw length. At some point, you want to brace the bow to the correct string height (around 6" for me), and continue wood removal until you hit your intended draw length and weight.

I highly recommend another great web community, Primitive Archer. Free to sign up just like this site, and a wealth of expertise in all aspects of making bows. My screen name is Dane there. Folks there are excellent, there are a lot of buildalongs, and they are from all over the world, and very free with knowledge nad assitance.

Paleoplanet is one other web community I love, and it is much like Primitive Archer.

Dane

Thanks Dane!
My drawlength is very far because i am a tall guy. 80cm or 31.4inches.
That wil probably reduce the strength of the bow because it might brake otherwise?
The wood wasnt dry by the way, it was green cut.

If the wood was green when cut, then you should allow it to dry. One way of telling this is to weigh it once every few days. Once it stabalizes, it is dry enough to work on. Putting it in a hot car for a few days may help, or another very dry place. Be sure and seal the ends with glue or schellack to makes sure you dont have checkering, which will ruin the stave. One way of speeding up the process it to cut out the basic outlines of the bow, which will mean less wood that has to dry. Usually, it only takes a few weeks to get it dry enough to work on it.

Your height is a good length to start with, it is probably that measurment that has been used for thousands of years. But, with a very long draw, add some addtional length, say, 72". You can always cut both tips back later to make it shorter, but then you will have to retiller the bow to adjust and bring down the draw weight, so keep that in mind. Wood can be removed, but never put back.

As you work it, pay close attention, and if you feel the wood is too wet, stop and let it dry. Too damp will cause too much set, which is permenent bend because you are crushing wood on the cellular level. A little set isnt that bad a thin, say 1 to 2 inches, but six if far too much. Telltale ticks as you bend the wood will tell you that you may break the bow. The term listening to the wood is based on that kind of observation, at least to me, it is.

Something else you may think of doing is backing the bow with rawhide or even paper or fabric. It will help lessen the chance of breaking, will help keep the break from being catastrophic if it does break, and will give it some addtional strength. If you make certain not to cut into the grain on the back of the bow, backing is not generally needed. If you have a lot of grain runoff toward the sides of the bow, depending on how the wood was cut, backing is not a bad idea either. An ideal board had grain that runs perfectly the lenght of the bow, with no runoff toward the sides, or looking at the side, up or down direction toward the belly or back. Finding a board that perfect is hard to do, but if the board is very wide, you can lay out your center line to approach that ideal. Quarter sawn boards are in my opinion ideal, as you dont have any issues with the grain configuration; the grain is running at the 90 degree angle to the back and belly, and breakage for that reason is almost impossible,.

Dane

My rule of thumb is 2.2 X draw length plus stiff handle length for total length of the bow. http://www.vintageprojects.com/archery/Flatbow-plans.pdf

This is a pretty good plan and there are many similar ones on line that will get you well started. I have made about a dozen bows that are still shooting.
To season your stave: Try putting your bow stave in a car in the sunlight. Seal the ends with glue or paint first. It is fast but a little risky. Other wise keep it flat and well supported, let air move around it.

Allright!
Back to building after a while at last!
Went for the sugar hardening ad it seems to work so far!
Damn hard getting this mechanism to work, but i'm nearly there!
Parts are in the tiller, nut in also, greased it up and it works after a few file strokes to the nut!!!
Finishing touches are next,have to make some holes to push someparts in the right position for arming.
Seriously, arming a bow like this is no quicky!

Making teh metal pieces that were added later on the original crossbow in the museum. Unfortunatly i couldnt make the axels fit the plate as i wish but none the less looking pretty nice allready! Now to make the top plate and the safety on the bottem. Little problem i need to fix is that i cant drill the hole for the push-rod like it should be. The mechanism is a little bit different in dimension so i will have to make a "custom" ajustment to get every piece in arming position. Anyway, here is how it looks so far.

wow, thats looking great so far, looks like we're inspired by the same crossbow... just finished the trigger parts on mine

Lien93 wrote:wow, thats looking great so far, looks like we're inspired by the same crossbow... just finished the trigger parts on mine

Got any pictures of ur build?
Did u have the same difficulties making the mechanics work as i did?
Succes with ur bow!

Sadly my camera won't cooperate with the computer, but i altered the design on the stock a bit to fit a wider bow. i'm also veneering the whole thing in ebony. its not going to be a copy of the original, but i really liked the iron fittings on it.

The trigger is working, but i want to move it further back on the stock to make more room for the resetting holes.

About those resetting holes, that is a bit difficult on mine.
The top one is easy, but the one that pushes the no.1 axle (that locks the nut) in the bottom wont work for me.
So i plan on making a custom device on the bottom with a ring for a finger to pull it.
Should look nice also!
Like u said, an exact copy is not my goal either.
I just like old school mechanical thingies!

ferdinand wrote:Tiller construction is on the way! I had an aged peace of Azobé tropical hardwood in the backyard for a couple of years wich i am now converting into a tiller.

If all goes as planned i will make a replica of the bow in the Royal Dutch Army Museum inventory number: 12012 , a German schnepper dated 1725 as shown above.

I probably wont be able to get the bone or horn inlay and detail of decorations correct but i will focus on the metalwork. Any ideas for imitation bone are welcome.

Thanks for the great images Rizzar!
Really helpfull!
About the type off crossbow; i whas under the impression that this whas a so called "Schnepper" .
But u were right to doubt this!
So weird, i double checked myself and went thru the pictures i took at the museum again!
I found a huge mistake!
In the museum they switched the numbers on 2 bows wich ard displayed next to eachother.
Number 21 or also known as inv.nr.12012 is the schnepper!
And next to it number 22 also inv.nr 11984 my favorit,the halbe rüstung!
Haha, we discovered a major fuckup my friend!
thanks again!
So from now on i shall call it a Halbe Rüstung.

Hee Guys!

Sorry to stay away so long, been really busy lately! Anyway, i'll spare u the details and show some progress. Here is a picture of some metalwork i did on the Tiller.

and another one, bottem side looks nice i think.

and even though i'm long from finishing the prod i couldnt resist starting the prod. I had a hard time "rolling" the first end of it because i didnt use oxygen/gas burner. Instead i went for the plain gas torch wich heats it up just enough to "forge" the metal but doesnt overheat it, anyway thats the theory. I have consulted some big brains in the world of steel in our factory( steel plant) and i have been told to keep the temperature around 700 degrees Celsius to make the steel soft enough to forge but not damage the properties. I let it "air cool" afterwords near the flame to go even slower. If anyone thinks different please give me ur thoughts, i dont want accidents to happen and i am no professional! The prod should have quite a bit of power when i finnish, i didnt taper it very heavily. Also because of the hole in the center of the blade i wanted to keep its width as wide as possible. Tomorrow the second side of the prod an then probably a few days of muscle-pain!!

by heating it to a nonmagnetic state and then allowing it to air cool, you're leaving the metal in an annealed state and doesn't have the hardness to act properly as a spring. also heating the end drew out temper along the spring going towards the center. depending on the amount of heat and time it stayed heated on each end you probably have two different hardness levels for each side.

you'll need to heat the whole spring now to nonmagnetic, then oil quench it. then sand of buff it to clean shiny metal. after the quench you'll then have to draw out some of the temper by placing the spring in an oven or similar heat source buried in a tray of sand set at 400 degrees F and pull it out evey few minutes to check for the correct color change to indicate you have drawn it back enough. the bright shiny metal should change to a light tan/sandy color when done.

you most likely won't be able to heat the whole prod to nonmagnetic fast and even enough without a forge or acetylene torch. propane won't put out enough heat to heat the whole prod without some of it cooling giving you soft and hard spots when you quench it. the soft spots will bend too easily. the hard ones won't bend well and will be brittle and can possibly break.