How to make a compound bow. How to make a bow with your own hands: from classic to blocky and hunting

The bow is the oldest human weapon. Most of the peoples hunted and fought with him.

Although modern weapons are much superior to a simple bow, in the wild, it will become an indispensable thing.

Children will be happy to play with a real bow and arrow. You can buy it in the store or build it yourself.

What does it consist of

Onions have only two components:

Shoulders;
Handle.

The shoulders of the bow are located above and below the handle. A special shelf is sometimes made on the handle, on which the arrow rests. A bowstring is stretched between the shoulders.

To direct the arrow, a hole is made in the bow. The size of the bow and arrow depends on your height. They are easily identified by the span of the arms.

There are fixed sizes:

How to make a shallow strip foundation correctly:

Varieties

Shooting bows are classified according to several points:

1. By sight.
  - Simple. Consists of a flexible stick bent in a semi-fold into an arc. Her shoulders are joined by a bowstring;
  - Complicated. Consists of a core that is reinforced with tendons and corneous plates glued together. Sometimes its handle is lined with bone patches.
2. By form.
  - Straight;
  - Curved.

Materials (edit)

The material from which your bow will be depends on what it is made for. You can make a bow from the following materials:

What can you make a bow from?

Wood... The most common variant is ash or white acacia. The tree should be free of knots, cracks, chips and other flaws;
PVC pipe... Made from PVC pipe;
Paper... Suitable for making a mini-bow or crossbow;
Skis... The tops of the skis are used as shoulders;
Plywood... Used for making shoulders.

What materials to make a bowstring?

For a bowstring, you can use:

Polypropylene rope;
Fine nylon thread or lace;
Capron, kevlar;
Fishing line;
Leg-split;
Kevlar climbing sling (sold in sports stores);
Lavsan thread.

Most often, the bowstring is made from synthetic threads.

What to make an arrow from?

Arrows are made of wood - pine or birch. It is more difficult to process birch, but in the end the shaft is of better quality. This can be a branch, a board, or wooden slats.

The arrowhead must be sharp so that it can cut through the air well and can stick. You can attach a nail and wrap it with copper wire. To use the bow as intended, it is best to cut the tip out of thin steel (1.5-2 mm).

Preparation and processing of wood for onions

Tools needed to craft a wooden bow:

Drill;
Ax and knife;
Saw, jigsaw, or electric jigsaw;
Scissors for metal, saw for metal (for making a sharp tip);
Grinder, sandpaper (for grinding parts);
File;
File (file for working on wood, metal);
Slipway (to give a curved shape);
Plane (for processing boards).

Harvesting and processing of wood

First you need to choose what the bow will be made from. The simplest and most affordable option is a tree. Deciduous trees (oak, white acacia, lemon tree,) are suitable for a powerful bow.

The tree is cut down on a cold, frosty day. You should pay attention to the growths and branches on the tree - there should be few of them. We cut a large branch, at least 180 cm long. This is a blank for the future onion;
We don't touch the bark. We cover the ends of the sawn wood with paint or impregnation with an oil base;
To dry, put the branch vertically for 2-3 months. The temperature should be at least 20 degrees and not more than 28 degrees;
Using a sharpened knife and a sharp ax, we give the workpiece a rectangular shape;
Steam the shoulders of the onion with steam (just hold them over boiling water). Both shoulders must be steamed at the same time;
We place the steamed workpiece in the slipway for 14-15 days. In this case, the bark must independently come off the workpiece. If this does not happen, we gently help her with a sharp knife.
wax. After complete drying, we make notches for fastening the bowstring.

Arrow creation instructions

For a good bow, you need to make at least 4 arrows. For their manufacture, we take slats or boards, 2 to 3 cm thick. The length of the arrow is about 85 cm, but it is better to determine it from the special table above.

We do the markup. Using a planer, we change the thickness of the board to 1.5 centimeters;
We mark the board into squares (from the end) and saw it into arrows;
We turn the squares into hexagons using a file or a knife;
With a grinder or sandpaper, give the shaft a round shape, up to 8 mm in diameter;

If necessary, we attach feathers (3 pieces per arrow). It is better to take crow feathers, which we cut along. We equalize the pile with scissors, leaving 0.5 cm. We fasten them with threads. Instead of feathers, you can make grooves for the fingers;
The tip should be triangular. You can make it yourself;
In the shaft we make a notch for the tail of the tip and fasten it with the same thread.

How to make a bowstring?

The bowstring can be made by pulling the thread over the notches that we made on the shoulders. Let's make a bowstring ourselves. For this we need:

The winding thread should be silk or nylon (# 10);
Rubber glue;
PVA glue;
Wax (moisture protection);
Board;
2 thick nails.

1. We take two round sticks (coated with varnish or tape, 10mm wide and 20 cm long) and a board (200x40x40). At the distance of the bowstring, we drill holes and attach the sticks to the resulting holes;
2. We take any reel and wind the string for the bowstring on it;
3. Wrap the thread for the warp evenly on the sticks. 2-3 turns are enough. We tie the ends of the thread into strong knots, which we glue together with PVA;
4. We spread glue (rubber) on the nylon thread immediately, then grease with PVA when winding. On the rest - we coat with PVA, and when winding - with rubber glue;
5. We make the winding in tight turns. We wind 10 cm for each thread and shift them half a turn. We wind until loops are formed. It turns out about 20 cm on both sides;
6. We make a loop for putting on the bowstring.

In order to put the bowstring on the shoulders, it is necessary to bend / unbend it several times. This will allow him to get used to the movement and pressure a little.

After 10-15 steps, you need to put a loop of thread on one shoulder and turn the bow over without letting go of the bowstring. Then we bend the shoulders so that the distance of the bowstring remains between the ends of the bow. We put on the second loop.

Attention! Never rest your shoulder on the floor or any other hard surface! This makes it easy to break a homemade bow.

Do-it-yourself strip foundation waterproofing:

Bow assembly steps

We are considering a simple bow that does not need to be assembled later.

You can use regular wood glue or thick screws to assemble the pieces of a prefabricated bow for shooting (if the handle is made separately from the shoulders).

Shooting Bow Care

Store upright;
We put on the bowstring before shooting. If the bow will not be used for a long time, it is better to remove the bowstring;
Before shooting, you need to slowly pump the bow - make 5-10 swaying movements with the shoulders of the bow (let it get used to the load);
You cannot rest the shoulders of the bow against a hard surface when the bowstring is being put on;
Store in a dry place, avoid direct sunlight;
Do not let go of the bowstring without arrows;
You cannot drag the bow.

Advice! It is better to buy or do it yourself a special case for your bow.

The video below provides detailed instructions for creating and assembling a real bow and arrows for it:

A hunting bow is the most affordable weapon that is not so difficult to make with your own hands. Its advantage in comparison with the purchased one in cost, as well as the fact that it can be made "for yourself", taking into account individual characteristics. The only thing that needs to be taken into account when making a bow for shooting with your own hands is the correspondence of the maximum tension force of the bowstring, established by law, to a value of no more than 40 kg / s. You can learn more about how to make a hunting bow with your own hands.

Homemade bow

Before making a bow with your own hands, you need to prepare the material. Wood for the manufacture of archery weapons must have such characteristics as strength, flexibility, elasticity. The material for the workpiece must be straight, even, without knots, any damage. In principle, any tree is suitable for making onions: birch, oak, apple, juniper, maple, hazel, ash, elm, yew or teak.

The branch for harvesting must be cut down in winter, at sub-zero temperatures, so that the tree sap remains inside. The length of the workpiece should be the required length of the future bow, plus 30 cm for cracks during drying from each end, the occurrence of which is very likely. The bark is not removed from the cut down branch. Its ends are covered with oil paint in order to avoid the occurrence of internal defects in the wood when it dries, which should occur evenly.

After that, the workpiece is left to dry for up to five months in an upright position at room temperature. In this case, the ambient air should not be too dry, otherwise the workpiece will deform.

How to make a hunting bow with your own hands

After making the initial blank, you need to determine the natural curve of the bow made of wood. This is necessary in order to make it convenient to use the weapon in the future. To determine this bend, you need to press one end to the ground, holding the other end with your hand. The frame will turn its natural side.

Make a bow with your own hands, scheme

A future hunting bow must be made from a round blank. The width of the onion frame is usually 3 cm. It is better to cut off excess wood with a knife, while checking for knots and other defects.

Since a simple bow consists of a solid frame, it is worth shaping its curves while cutting with a knife. With the help of a knife and a planer, its lateral and frontal parts are formed. The ratio of frame width to shoulder width should be 3/2. The size of the shoulders should be the same so that they are not inferior in elasticity to each other. At this stage of work, the bow should not be bent to prevent its deformation.

Next, you need to shape the bend of the bow. For this, the method of water steaming is used. In particular, the shoulders of the bow are steamed to give them the desired shape of the bend. To do this, the bow is fixed with special slipways (wooden blocks) in the desired position of the shoulders, and processed with hot water vapor. In this fixed position, the weapon dries for about one week. After that, the slipways are removed, at the ends of the shoulders, places for the bowstring are cut out.

It should be noted that all this time the bark was not removed from the bow. After steaming, it begins to flake off. It must be carefully removed without damaging the wood fibers. The remains of the bark are removed with a sandpaper, and the surface is covered with grease, hot wax, varnish or paint.

There is another option for how to make a bow bend:

It is necessary to make a special board with cuts, which is attached perpendicular to the center of the frame.
Both ends of the bow are connected with a thread.
The thread clings to one of the cuts on the board to bend according to the required radius.

The manipulation should be carried out slowly, because the wood fibers can be damaged if the bend is sharp.

Making a bowstring

It is better to make a string from a multi-layer rope. A bowstring for hunting should be strong, made of several threads of kevlar, nylon, lavsan, fishing cord in spools, and other artificial threads. A 3mm thin strip of rawhide will also work. The main requirement for a string for a bowstring is strength, resistance to abrasion and stretching. It needs to be shorter than the size between the shoulders of the bow to stay taut at all times. First, it is fastened in one shoulder notch, tightened in a knot to the bow, then pulled to the other end and tightened there. A properly taut bowstring should be 15 cm from the middle of the bow frame.

Making arrows

The arrows should be of such length that it is proportional to the length of the bow and the maximum amount of bowstring tension. In practice, this means that when the bowstring is taut, the arrowhead should protrude a few centimeters beyond the frame of the weapon. The boom should be about 6mm in diameter and the shaft should be perfectly straight. The material for making arrows is spruce, pine, birch - for hunting small game and birds, as well as ash, hornbeam, oak, and other heavy and dense species for hunting a predatory animal. You can chop them from logs, use boards, glazing beads, wooden square slats. Then they need to be shaped into cylinders, sanded so that the surface is smooth. The smoother the surface of the arrow, the more accurate its flight will be. In the end part, you need to make a small slot for the bowstring in accordance with its diameter.

The arrowhead shape is made according to the type of loot. If hunting is meant for a bird, the tip is made pointed. If hunting for larger game is planned, the tip is made of stone or triangular metal.

For the arrow, you will also need to make plumage. The simplest one is from bird feathers, but it can be made from other materials - plastic, paper, etc.

Compound bow

A hunting bow can be of a composite construction, i.e. consist of two or three parts. It is easier to find material for such a blank than for a simple one. Typically, a composite structure consists of a central frame to which two arms ("horns") are attached, which end with bowstring attachments. For normal shooting, they are made the same size, and for knee shooting, the lower shoulder should be made shorter than the upper one.

For the manufacture of onion shoulders of a composite structure, you should choose bird cherry growing near the reservoir. The workpieces are cleaned of bark, dried in a dark place, even better, on fresh air... After cutting out the main parts, the workpiece can be dried in the sun.

The component parts are glued to each other, in field conditions this can be done using fish glue (made from crushed fish bones). The frame is impregnated with resin and fat, and the joints with the shoulders are pulled together by the tendons of animals (you can use fishing line, strong rope), and again impregnated with fat. When all parts are glued together into a single structure, the bow is cut with a sharp knife. To give even greater strength and strength, the surface of the onion is pasted over with boiled birch bark, glued along with the fibers.

First, we cut out the blanks. I took a maple this time. You can also other wood, say, ash, walnut, elm, etc. The main thing is to choose a piece of the trunk that meets at least the most basic requirements: namely, the absence of cracking, knots, sagging, internal ruptures and displacements of layers, the layers should be uniform and located along the plane of the future shoulders, and not across. It is almost impossible to find such a blank in wood shops where sawn boards are sold, so it is better to take a log.

Deciduous trees are rich in sap, which contains various sugars. Without going into details, let's just say - they are harmful to the work of the shoulders. Accordingly, first of all, we get rid of intrawood sap. To do this, we cook in hot water, sluggishly walking, and not bubbling, for 40 minutes, it is possible up to an hour and a half, but do not overexpose. Experience is the best teacher. The task of this stage is to get rid of the sap in the wood, so that it does not crystallize in the future and does not tear the fibers from the inside during repeated bending, as well as to make the wood pliable for bending and drying on a template.

While the wood is hot, we tie it to the template and leave it to dry in a cool place. So, they say, they used to do skis. We repeat the same process for the second shoulder.

Next, when everything is dry, we make a handle from comfortable wood. I took maple too. You can also birch, it is quite consistent with the task.
According to the size of the owner's hand, as he imagines holding the bow, the dimensions are adjusted, a wedge is made at both ends for gluing. We mark with a pencil the places of the pasting on the shoulders. It's time to mark the shoulders and ends of the handle during the fitting process so as not to get confused when gluing. We cut out a wedge for gluing the handle.

We cut out the bars for the "saya" horns. We make them square in cross-section, about 4 cm. We cook, too, and very quickly on a template - we bend and fix. Why fast? Because with a relatively large thickness, the cooled tree does not bend! Or maybe even crack. Which is not always critical, because then adjust the geometry anyway, remove excess wood.
Then, when after a few days the tree is dry, we fit it under the upper ends of the shoulders. The same process is preparation for gluing on the wedge.

Now an important stage - we go through all the glued surfaces with toothy cycles (see photo), to obtain uniform parallel grooves, to increase the area of the glued surface. The pitch between the teeth is about 2 mm.
We dilute the previously prepared tendon glue in a water bath (60 degrees). The volume is at the bottom of the can. We prime the surfaces for gluing. The layer dries up - put a new layer. So up to 7 times. As you work, the glue in the jar gets thicker and thicker. The primer is getting smoother. Such is the simple trick.
Then it remains only to heat over any heat source and - dock for gluing.

Then we glue the parts of the onion and give it the shape and size necessary, according to Turkish traditions. There are a lot of sources, one of those that can be used - this is such a simple scheme:

In the meantime, we have the following picture:

Among other operations on wood - removing 1-2 layers from the back of the bow where the shoulders are supposed to work.
Tendons play a special role in bow making. They should be told in more detail, keeping in mind the questions that the interested audience likes to ask.
Bovine tendons are used. You can buy them in the markets of Moscow and other cities, I hope, where the carcasses of bulls, cows and calves are cut into beef for consumption. These tendons do not go anywhere; they are usually chopped by butchers and added to jellied meat sets. In short, as you agree. Butchers are a kind of audience, you need an approach to them.
Neck and dorsal tendons - as a rule, do not contain as much collagen as hock tendons, which work more during the life of cattle. Therefore, ask to cut the tendons from the legs, but not in pieces, but as a whole.
Small tendons will go for glue, it is still better to chop them into cubes, and the longest hock should be saved for sticking on the bow. It is necessary to remove excess films from the tendons, carefully remove all fat under running water.
You can use both layers of the tendon, and the outer sheath, and the inner tendon itself.

First of all, before drying the tendons, it is better to remove the sheath from them. It is also dried and glued on as well. The inner fork is longer, but harder to break into fibers. The shell breaks down more easily. It is necessary to dry in the shade, ultraviolet light has a bad effect on collagen. If outdoors, then under a canopy, or better indoors. For example, like this:

Ready-made "glassy forks" are stored for a long time in a cool dry place, somewhere in a closet, in a box, but without precipitation. In general, they should look like this:

Before gluing, they must be split into fibers. For this, a special device is used, which helps to turn the "glass" into strings. There she is:

And who said it would be easy?
Now for another purpose of tendons - to become glue.
This is a very difficult process. Many left the race without defeating him.
Cooking method in a pressure cooker: beef tendons (Achilles), peeled from fatty films, throw into boiling water (regular, from the tap) and wait until they shrink, drain the water.
Clean again from the remaining films and any cuts. The veins themselves will have the consistency of rubber, and a translucent, yellowish color. Then cut them into cubes and put them in glass jars that fit into your pressure cooker. Fold so that the veins occupy one third of the volume of the jar, fill the jar by two thirds with distilled water. Banks - in a pressure cooker, place them so that the walls do not touch each other or put rags between them. Pour water into the pressure cooker to the bottom to cover the tray on which the jars are.
Close the pressure cooker.
Raise the valve.
Put on fire.
As soon as steam comes out of the valve, not much, but just starts to go, close the valve.
After that, from the moment steam starts to flow from the closed valve, time is recorded - 2 hours.
Two hours have passed - we remove the pressure cooker from the heat and let it cool without opening the valve!
It has cooled down to the point that you can keep your hand on the wall of the pressure cooker - we take out the cans, pour the contents through a sieve into a bowl in which we will evaporate the glue.
Evaporate, stirring constantly, to the consistency of thick vegetable oil, then pour into plastic trays (containers from under the herring in pieces - fit), to which the glue does not stick tightly and cool down in the refrigerator.
The glue has cooled down - we take it out of the container and cut it into pieces with a knife soaked in water - we hang it on a string and dry.

We remove the finally dried glue cubes from the ropes and put them in hermetically sealed jars; they should be stored in a cool, dark place.
If necessary, we take out the cubes and dissolve in a water bath at a temperature of about 60 degrees Celsius.
Another non-trivial topic is horns. The task of the horns, which are glued to the belly of the bow, is to work in compression. What is a horn and why was it so suitable for making bows that for many thousands of years no one has come up with anything better?
First of all, the horn is hardened intertwined hairs, so to speak, flesh from the flesh of an animal. So evolution ordered that part of the hairline formed into keratinized growths. Accordingly, the horn has a structure similar to felt, or more precisely, to a braided woolen rope. It is known that when twisted, the fibers that make up the wool are so closely intertwined that they are able to maintain their shape after repeated attempts to change it.
If you examine in detail the structure of the horn, you can see that it consists of spiral-twisted structures, which also consist of smaller spiral-twisted structures, and so on, up to very microscopic sizes. Thus, it turns out that in the form of a horn we have a perfectly balanced spring system that works best precisely for compression, which is not surprising if you pay attention to how animals use their horns: blows, damping falls, like mountain goats and rams, and almost never - in tension.

Without going into further details, we note that it is better than this natural damping spring, so far no one has come up with anything.

So, let's take the horns of the Indian cow, which differ in their length, and which can be bought at any store that sells goods for historical reenactors. They play the role of signal horns there.
We saw with a narrow hacksaw with fine teeth. It is necessary to saw on the outside of the horn, where the length of the plate is maximum.
So, the horns have been sawn and a flattened profile has been given to them with the help of a flat cycle. The purpose of the scraping is to prevent the horny plate from bursting when flattened.

Now cook and flatten, flatten, flatten.
Who will do the needlework - pay attention to the profile of the end of the plate.

Cook first. The end of the horny plate is visible in the tank, if noticeable.

Here the water boils for 40 minutes. Plus or minus 10 minutes has no effect.
The main thing is to prepare the conditioner in advance to install the plates with minimal heat loss.
We take the plate with tongs - hot! - put it between two pieces of powerful plywood. It can be seen in the photo. We squeeze it with our hands and put it in the conditioner. There are two ordinary hydraulic car jacks. We squeeze to the stupidity. The degree of dope is strictly individual. When on the second plate I heard a sneaky crunching crunch - I realized that there was too much foolishness. But there is nothing to do. I forget about them for 3-4 days. Two times a day I go in to squeeze, shrinkage ..

He took the horn out of the conditioner.
Here's what happened. In the pictures, you can see the markings in pencil, how it will be necessary to cut an even strip. Cut with a fine-toothed hacksaw.

The cut plates turned out like this:

Due to the lack of normal horns, you can use not two strips, but .... six!
It is quite difficult to choose a uniform strip of horn from cows, even long Indian horns. A lot of cracks, you see they are buttery.
You can cut a few smaller strips from almost-nowhere-worth-less horns. Cut out 10-15 centimeters of a normal horny plate.
The flattened plates must, as already mentioned, be cut to give the desired shape, and it is necessary to tackle the scraping and sanding, so that the plates are uniform, albeit not quite the same, but close to each other, so that there is continuity between them at the joints.
It is better to skin by hand, only on initial stages you can use electromechanical devices, but very carefully so as not to spoil such, now very expensive material.
Moreover, the inner surface of the horny plates must be cleaned of the film that lines the horn from the inside, otherwise no glue will help.
The horny plate is glued to the flat surface of the shoulder. The section of the shoulder at this time is strictly rectangular. But the horn, especially the cow's horn, has one side flat, the other slightly convex, see photo. When you cut off everything superfluous from the horn plate, it turns out to be narrow (shoulder width), and flatter than initially. Then, in cycles, the edges of the plate, already glued to the shoulder, must be rounded off. And the tree on the other side, under the tendons, poke around the edges and choose the excess in the working part. Well, you can make a beautiful transition near Sayya. That is, aesthetics is already beginning. And it turns out the lenticular section of the shoulder of the bow.
We glue the horn on the belly of the onion. The gluing technique is standard. First, with serrated cycles, we direct the grooves on the horn and on the shoulders. The depth of the grooves is up to 0.5 mm, this is quite enough to significantly increase the area of the bonded surface. Prime with liquid tendon glue until all grooves are full. Further, we heat the primed surfaces over the electric stove and press firmly against each other. We tighten with a cord and fasten. Then you need to warm it up thoroughly so that the glue bubbles. Now that it is dry, it will sit down and pull the surfaces to be glued with incredible force. The readiness of the gluing can be understood by loosening the fasteners - since shrinkage will occur.

After the horn has dried, it is the turn of a more precise fit with plows and cycles of different curvatures, in accordance with the templates, of the wooden component.

Finally, it is the turn of the tendons. Working with them is very painstaking, requires a lot of patience and perseverance. In addition to a hammer, which breaks dried tendons, you also need a steel comb and hardworking hands.

The resulting fibers must be impregnated with tendon glue. It looks like this:

It is necessary to ensure that the weight of the tendons for both shoulders is the same. But keep in mind - it is the tendons that give the bow's strength. The number of tendons should be reasonable - so that a bow for Hercules does not work out, which will only be suitable for decorating the wall and waiting for the hero ...
Now, a very serious moment. You can't even carry anything greasy nearby. To the extent that it is forbidden to eat fat, otherwise you can breathe in such that all the tendons will fall off. On hands - rubber gloves. And now, up to coating the finished onion with varnish - never touch it with your bare hand.
Now you need to glue, glue and glue. Sometimes scrape in cycles. And glue again.

About glue: in total, three types of glue are used in the process:
1.primer (very thinned glue),
2.Medium in concentration (for tendons) and
3. high concentration (for the horn).

The split and straightened fibers are immersed in the glue in a bundle, soaked, now nothing should distract (the phones are turned off, we do not respond to the doorbell), until the tendons run out, the process cannot be stopped. The number of tendons is determined empirically.
The tendons overlap along the bow, overlapping each other at the tips. This is the whole trick - tendons, as the glue dries, they intertwine with each other so that they form a homogeneous glassy shirt, which retains plasticity as long as there is even a drop of moisture inside, and it is always there.

After an hour of fixing the glue, and he begins to "get up" literally in a few minutes, when he is not enough for the skin of his hands, it is necessary to wrap it with a bandage made of a rubber bandage, which was previously cut into convenient pieces.

Now a day dries - two.
The surface of the glue is leveled with cycles. At the same time, the fat that has come out is removed. It is never completely deleted. It will come out after each drying.
The second layer of tendons is laid using the same method, only the place of gluing is slightly different.
It is also dried, wrapped in rubber, dries for a day or two, unwound, leveled ...
A third layer is laid, which already covers both the sidewalls and the handle, in short, everything that is needed.
The tendons will squeeze the shoulders and wrap them towards each other. How much it is wrapped depends on the material. In fact, the wrapping of the shoulders in a "ram's horn" does not mean anything. More precisely, he says, but about something completely different. If the bow is folded into a ring, it means that it has never been fired from it yet. This means that no one can say whether he will shoot or break during the first test.
If it has lain like that for a long time, then, most likely, you will have to soak it, remove the old, fossilized veins, peel off the horn and glue everything fresh ...

This photo shows traces of the rubber band. The bandage has already been removed, the bow dries up open.
These photographs show the condition of the tendon covering: the tendons are transparent, like the glue that connects them, but individual fibers can still be distinguished. Since the material is virtually the same (raw tendons and glue welded from the same tendons), the joint is at the edge of the alloy.
The second photo shows a trial scraping in order to level the surface of the tendon covering. It's still early days. The mass grabs onto the steel. Let it dry some more.
The next step: an additional tendon “harness” is placed on the dried tendons. More precisely, it grows layer by layer, thread by thread, forming something like a ridge along the axis of a bow.
I specially photographed the raw tendons so that they were better visible due to the whitish-hazy color. When they are dry, they will not look different from the rest of the tendons.

Those who will make the bow themselves need to be patient (this is understandable) and prepare bows for five materials, no less. It won't work the first time - that's for sure. From the second and third - too. Further options are possible, as smart people say.
The process itself is very delicate and requires, in addition to patience, a lot of experience, which comes only with the number of bows made.
There are a lot of moments that cannot be described, because it is impossible to grasp.
For example, how to describe that the moisture of the tendons on the bow should be measured with the lips or cheek?
If the curvature of one shoulder began to differ from the curvature of the other, what should I do? And it also depends on where such a deviation happened ...
Need to add tendons, or subtract cycles? And then the tendons will cut ...
In the described production process, the horn had to be peeled off and changed twice. Hidden defects. The cows were buzzing. Defects were revealed after the sticker.
I had to recruit from pieces. The version with a solid overlay on the handle did not work, it began to pick up other pieces. I had to go back to the textbook - docking in the middle of the handle with a bone gasket.
And so on ad infinitum.
For example, the shoulders were a clear propeller, the propeller - wherever there, even hang on the plane. Even with the horn glued on, the twist remained.
After gluing the tendons and drying, the rotorcraft was gone. It remains to slightly correct the mirror sides of the horns (saya), removing literally a couple of millimeters on the wedge. So that the bowstring goes along the axis.
And if you don't know all this in advance?
Only experience is the son of difficult mistakes.
Dare, brave, and do not look back at those of little faith.
The bow was sanded at the tendon side. The glaring irregularities and seizures were ruthlessly sandwiched.
The main concern is not to tear the tendons.
Then a lamb skin was made. The coat is stripped off, the skin is dry and wrinkled. The result is parchment.
I decided not to use the purchased one. It is expensive today and the sheets are smaller than the aforementioned lamb.

The skin was primed with diluted glue. Then, a primer was applied to the tendons, after which the skin, previously loosened into strips, was pressed against the bow. Wrapping with a rubber bandage is already traditional. The winding marks are still visible. Excess skin is cut off with a scalpel. The horn is not covered with skin. Only the tendon bands at the joints of the horny bands are covered with skin.
The skin is rougher than parchment. Now a certain amount of moisture is conserved inside the tendons and wood, which ensures the work of this ancient composite.
No, in reality everything is much more complicated than in this description. For example, it was decided to put the onion in a humid place, where water leaks from the pipe and intensive evaporation takes place, so that it collects more moisture, otherwise it is dry.
Then - on tepeliki, warm-bend-withstand, warm-bend-withstand. And so on until it takes the desired shape.

The mysterious process of heating. Natural coals. Although, in all honesty, the electric stove is more convenient.
Well, now, it happened. Thank God! The lengthy technological process has been completed, now only fine tuning. Build, build and build. Well, all kinds of decorations.
The sensations are amazing. It stretches comfortably, after getting off the fillies - you clearly feel the jerk, like on a block (or rather, on the contrary, on a block, like ...). The arrow comes off evenly. Even in cramped quarters, at 12 meters, it comes to the shield evenly - at least check the square. WindFighter - no, no, yes, it will throw its tail here or there. And here - every shot is like a carbon copy. Not a target, but a comb. I apologize for the lyrical digression.

There are a few more important, in my opinion, points on which readers need to focus.
The symmetry of the shoulders is laid during the carpentry processing of workpieces. Ideally, you make one, then an exact copy of it - the second. Usually they are led in one direction, so that as a result, this lead is compensated for by itself. If insignificant.
Tepeliki allow you to bend your shoulders equally, to give them the desired bend. In fact, you do not need to do this, you can leave your shoulders straight, as the Tuvans, Mongols, Jurchens, Tungus, Manchus and many others do.
And to the tepliks, while the assembly is in progress, the whole thing is evenly adjusted, cycled in cycles. On the shoulders, 1-2 layers are also removed, exactly where the shoulder should work.
And how he glued the tendons, and even covered them with the skin - that's all, there's nothing to scrape here.
It is better to knead and smooth the tendons while still giving in. Well, if very large irregularities have formed, you can. But it's not worth cutting the tendons. Only the upper layers are processed, and then one should try to thin it, not cut it down.
If it turned out completely unsuccessful, then you will have to soak and disassemble the onion, and - a repetition of what has been passed.
Tilting helps to see the shortcomings of the shoulders. If necessary, heat the area of the shoulder to be corrected and try to correct it on the tiller.

Actually, the tillering device is a bar with cutouts for the bowstring at different distances from the bow. You warm it up, hold it on the first line, then warm it up, hold it on the second line, etc., until you reach the maximum planned stretch of the bow.
About cycling.
The horn is cycled repeatedly. And in the process of preparing the horny strip, and after gluing to the wooden base of the shoulders. Here you need to respect the profile, it is advisable to make templates for the selected type of bow and carefully check them.
Dried veins should be looped very carefully, and then if there is absolutely no other way out. Looping of dried veins is shown only to give an aesthetically smooth surface, so that the glued sealing coating (leather, parchment) has a pleasing look to the eye and does not cause rejection to the touch.
Below are some close-up photos of different sections of the bow. The bow began to undergo the "decoration" procedure. The horn is painted a pleasant black color. The horns (saya) are painted red and bone plates are glued to the very tips to strengthen the tips and prevent chipping during careless handling. All this is covered with a thin layer of varnish and dries for now. Next, I plan to apply as beautiful patterns as possible. The work will be manual, so everything is possible ... I hope it will not turn out very scary))))))).

5-04-2016, 18:07

DIY Turkish bow. Turkish onion making. Making Turkish onions at home. Manufacturing composite bow from natural materials according to the Turkish method. This article will focus on self-made composite bow made of natural materials according to the Turkish method.

While the wood is hot, we tie it to the template and leave it to dry in a cool place. So, they say, they used to do skis. We repeat the same process for the second shoulder.

According to the size of the owner's hand, as he imagines holding the bow, the dimensions are adjusted, a wedge is made at both ends for gluing. We mark with a pencil the places of the pasting on the shoulders. It's time to mark the shoulders and ends of the handle during the fitting process so as not to get confused when gluing. We cut out a wedge for gluing the handle.

Then, when after a few days the tree is dry, we fit it under the upper ends of the shoulders. The same process is preparation for gluing on the wedge.

Now an important stage - we go through all the glued surfaces with toothy cycles (see photo), to obtain uniform parallel grooves, to increase the area of the glued surface. The pitch between the teeth is about 2 mm. We dilute the previously prepared tendon glue in a water bath (60 degrees). The volume is at the bottom of the can. We prime the surfaces for gluing. The layer dries up - put a new layer. So up to 7 times. As you work, the glue in the jar gets thicker and thicker. The primer is getting smoother. Such is the simple trick. Then it remains only to heat over any heat source and - dock for gluing.

In the meantime, we have the following picture:

Among other operations on wood - removing 1-2 layers from the back of the bow where the shoulders are supposed to work.

Tendons play a special role in bow making. They should be told in more detail, keeping in mind the questions that the interested audience likes to ask.

Bovine tendons are used. You can buy them in the markets of Moscow and other cities, I hope, where the carcasses of bulls, cows and calves are cut into beef for consumption. These tendons do not go anywhere; they are usually chopped by butchers and added to jellied meat sets. In short, as you agree. Butchers are a kind of audience, you need an approach to them.

Neck and dorsal tendons - as a rule, do not contain as much collagen as hock tendons, which work more during the life of cattle. Therefore, ask to cut the tendons from the legs, but not in pieces, but as a whole.

Small tendons will go for glue, it is still better to chop them into cubes, and the longest hock should be saved for sticking on the bow. It is necessary to remove excess films from the tendons, carefully remove all fat under running water.

You can use both layers of the tendon, and the outer sheath, and the inner tendon itself.

Ready-made "glassy forks" are stored for a long time in a cool dry place, somewhere in a closet, in a box, but without precipitation. In general, they should look like this:

Before gluing, they must be split into fibers. For this, a special device is used, which helps to turn the "glass" into strings. There she is:

And who said it would be easy?

Now for another purpose of tendons - to become glue.

This is a very difficult process. Many left the race without defeating him.

Cooking method in a pressure cooker: beef tendons (Achilles), peeled from fatty films, throw into boiling water (regular, from the tap) and wait until they shrink, drain the water.

Clean again from the remaining films and any cuts. The veins themselves will have the consistency of rubber, and a translucent, yellowish color. Then cut them into cubes and put them in glass jars that fit into your pressure cooker. Fold so that the veins occupy one third of the volume of the jar, fill the jar by two thirds with distilled water. Banks - in a pressure cooker, place them so that the walls do not touch each other or put rags between them. Pour water into the pressure cooker to the bottom to cover the tray on which the jars are.

Close the pressure cooker.

Raise the valve.

Put on fire.

As soon as steam comes out of the valve, not much, but just starts to go, close the valve.

After that, from the moment steam starts to flow from the closed valve, time is recorded - 2 hours.

Two hours have passed - we remove the pressure cooker from the heat and let it cool without opening the valve!

It has cooled down to the point that you can keep your hand on the wall of the pressure cooker - we take out the cans, pour the contents through a sieve into a bowl in which we will evaporate the glue.

Evaporate, stirring constantly, to the consistency of thick vegetable oil, then pour into plastic trays (containers from under the herring in pieces - fit), to which the glue does not stick tightly and cool down in the refrigerator.

The glue has cooled down - we take it out of the container and cut it into pieces with a knife soaked in water - we hang it on a string and dry.

We remove the finally dried glue cubes from the ropes and put them in hermetically sealed jars; they should be stored in a cool, dark place.

If necessary, we take out the cubes and dissolve in a water bath at a temperature of about 60 degrees Celsius.

Another non-trivial topic is horns. The task of the horns, which are glued to the belly of the bow, is to work in compression. What is a horn and why was it so suitable for making bows that for many thousands of years no one has come up with anything better?

First of all, the horn is hardened intertwined hairs, so to speak, flesh from the flesh of an animal. So evolution ordered that part of the hairline formed into keratinized growths. Accordingly, the horn has a structure similar to felt, or more precisely, to a braided woolen rope. It is known that when twisted, the fibers that make up the wool are so closely intertwined that they are able to maintain their shape after repeated attempts to change it.

If you examine in detail the structure of the horn, you can see that it consists of spiral-twisted structures, which also consist of smaller spiral-twisted structures, and so on, up to very microscopic sizes. Thus, it turns out that in the form of a horn we have a perfectly balanced spring system that works best precisely for compression, which is not surprising if you pay attention to how animals use their horns: blows, damping falls, like mountain goats and rams, and almost never - in tension.

Without going into further details, we note that it is better than this natural damping spring, so far no one has come up with anything.

So, let's take the horns of the Indian cow, which differ in their length, and which can be bought at any store that sells goods for historical reenactors. They play the role of signal horns there.

We saw with a narrow hacksaw with fine teeth. It is necessary to saw on the outside of the horn, where the length of the plate is maximum.

So, the horns have been sawn and a flattened profile has been given to them with the help of a flat cycle. The purpose of the scraping is to prevent the horny plate from bursting when flattened.

Now cook and flatten, flatten, flatten. Who will do the needlework - pay attention to the profile of the end of the plate.

Cook first. The end of the horny plate is visible in the tank, if noticeable.

Here the water boils for 40 minutes. Plus or minus 10 minutes has no effect. The main thing is to prepare the conditioner in advance to install the plates with minimal heat loss.

We take the plate with tongs - hot! - put it between two pieces of powerful plywood. It can be seen in the photo. We squeeze it with our hands and put it in the conditioner. There are two ordinary hydraulic car jacks. We squeeze to the stupidity. The degree of dope is strictly individual. When on the second plate I heard a sneaky crunching crunch - I realized that there was too much foolishness. But there is nothing to do. I forget about them for 3-4 days. Two times a day I go in to squeeze, shrinkage ..

He took the horn out of the conditioner. Here's what happened. In the pictures, you can see the markings in pencil, how it will be necessary to cut an even strip. Cut with a fine-toothed hacksaw.

The cut plates turned out like this:

Due to the lack of normal horns, you can use not two strips, but .... six!

It is quite difficult to choose a uniform strip of horn from cows, even long Indian horns. A lot of cracks, you see they are buttery.

You can cut a few smaller strips from almost-nowhere-worth-less horns. Cut out 10-15 centimeters of a normal horny plate.

The flattened plates must, as already mentioned, be cut to give the desired shape, and it is necessary to tackle the scraping and sanding, so that the plates are uniform, albeit not quite the same, but close to each other, so that there is continuity between them at the joints.

It is better to sand it by hand, only at the initial stages you can use electromechanical devices, but very carefully so as not to spoil such, now very expensive material.

Moreover, the inner surface of the horny plates must be cleaned of the film that lines the horn from the inside, otherwise no glue will help.

The horny plate is glued to the flat surface of the shoulder. The section of the shoulder at this time is strictly rectangular. But the horn, especially the cow's horn, has one side flat, the other slightly convex, see photo. When you cut off everything superfluous from the horn plate, it turns out to be narrow (shoulder width), and flatter than initially. Then, in cycles, the edges of the plate, already glued to the shoulder, must be rounded off. And the tree on the other side, under the tendons, poke around the edges and choose the excess in the working part. Well, you can make a beautiful transition near Sayya. That is, aesthetics is already beginning. And it turns out the lenticular section of the shoulder of the bow.

We glue the horn on the belly of the onion. The gluing technique is standard. First, with serrated cycles, we direct the grooves on the horn and on the shoulders. The depth of the grooves is up to 0.5 mm, this is quite enough to significantly increase the area of the bonded surface. Prime with liquid tendon glue until all grooves are full. Further, we heat the primed surfaces over the electric stove and press firmly against each other. We tighten with a cord and fasten. Then you need to warm it up thoroughly so that the glue bubbles. Now that it is dry, it will sit down and pull the surfaces to be glued with incredible force. The readiness of the gluing can be understood by loosening the fasteners - since shrinkage will occur.

After the horn has dried, it is the turn of a more precise fit with plows and cycles of different curvatures, in accordance with the templates, of the wooden component.

Finally, it is the turn of the tendons. Working with them is very painstaking, requires a lot of patience and perseverance. In addition to a hammer, which breaks dried tendons, you also need a steel comb and hardworking hands.

The resulting fibers must be impregnated with tendon glue. It looks like this:

Now, a very serious moment. You can't even carry anything greasy nearby. To the extent that it is forbidden to eat fat, otherwise you can breathe in such that all the tendons will fall off. On hands - rubber gloves. And now, up to coating the finished onion with varnish - never touch it with your bare hand.

Now you need to glue, glue and glue. Sometimes scrape in cycles. And glue again.

About glue: There are three types of glue used in the process:
1.primer (very thinned glue),
2.Medium in concentration (for tendons) and
3. high concentration (for the horn).

The tendons overlap along the bow, overlapping each other at the tips. This is the whole trick - tendons, as the glue dries, they intertwine with each other so that they form a homogeneous glassy shirt, which retains plasticity as long as there is even a drop of moisture inside, and it is always there.

After an hour of fixing the glue, and it starts to "get up" literally in a few minutes, when it is not enough for the skin of the hands, it is necessary to wrap it with a bandage made of a rubber bandage, pre-cut into convenient pieces.

Now a day dries - two. The surface of the glue is leveled with cycles. At the same time, the fat that has come out is removed. It is never completely deleted. It will come out after each drying.

The second layer of tendons is laid using the same method, only the place of gluing is slightly different.

It is also dried, wrapped in rubber, dries for a day or two, unwound, leveled ...

A third layer is laid, which already covers both the sidewalls and the handle, in short, everything that is needed.

The tendons will squeeze the shoulders and wrap them towards each other. How much it is wrapped depends on the material. In fact, the wrapping of the shoulders in a "ram's horn" does not mean anything. More precisely, he says, but about something completely different. If the bow is folded into a ring, it means that it has never been fired from it yet. This means that no one can say whether he will shoot or break during the first test.

If it has lain like that for a long time, then, most likely, you will have to soak it, remove the old, fossilized veins, peel off the horn and glue everything fresh ...

This photo shows traces of the rubber band. The bandage has already been removed, the bow dries up open.

These photographs show the condition of the tendon covering: the tendons are transparent, like the glue that connects them, but individual fibers can still be distinguished. Since the material is virtually the same (raw tendons and glue welded from the same tendons), the joint is at the edge of the alloy.

The second photo shows a trial scraping in order to level the surface of the tendon covering. It's still early days. The mass grabs onto the steel. Let it dry some more.

The next step: an additional tendon “harness” is placed on the dried tendons. More precisely, it grows layer by layer, thread by thread, forming something like a ridge along the axis of a bow.
I specially photographed the raw tendons so that they were better visible due to the whitish-hazy color. When they are dry, they will not look different from the rest of the tendons.

The process itself is very delicate and requires, in addition to patience, a lot of experience, which comes only with the number of bows made.

There are a lot of moments that cannot be described, because it is impossible to grasp.

For example, how to describe that the moisture of the tendons on the bow should be measured with the lips or cheek?

If the curvature of one shoulder began to differ from the curvature of the other, what should I do? And it also depends on where such a deviation happened ...

Need to add tendons, or subtract cycles? And then the tendons will cut ...

In the described production process, the horn had to be peeled off and changed twice. Hidden defects. The cows were buzzing. Defects were revealed after the sticker.

I had to recruit from pieces. The version with a solid overlay on the handle did not work, it began to pick up other pieces. I had to return to the textbook - docking in the middle of the handle with a bone gasket.

And so on ad infinitum.

For example, the shoulders were a clear propeller, the propeller - wherever there, even hang on the plane. Even with the horn glued on, the twist remained.

After gluing the tendons and drying, the rotorcraft was gone. It remains to slightly correct the mirror sides of the horns (saya), removing literally a couple of millimeters on the wedge. So that the bowstring goes along the axis.

And if you don't know all this in advance?

Only experience is the son of difficult mistakes.

Dare, brave, and do not look back at those of little faith.

The bow was sanded at the tendon side. The glaring irregularities and seizures were ruthlessly sandwiched.

The main concern is not to tear the tendons.

Then a lamb skin was made. The coat is stripped off, the skin is dry and wrinkled. The result is parchment.

I decided not to use the purchased one. It is expensive today and the sheets are less than the aforementioned lamb.

The skin is rougher than parchment. Now a certain amount of moisture is conserved inside the tendons and wood, which ensures the work of this ancient composite.

No, in reality everything is much more complicated than in this description. For example, it was decided to put the onion in a humid place, where water leaks from the pipe and intensive evaporation takes place, so that it collects more moisture, otherwise it is dry.

Then - on tepeliki, warm-bend-withstand, warm-bend-withstand. And so on until it takes the desired shape.

The mysterious process of heating. Natural coals. Although, in all honesty, the electric stove is more convenient.

Well, now, it happened. Thank God! The lengthy technological process has been completed, now only fine tuning. Build, build and build. Well, all kinds of decorations.

The sensations are amazing. It stretches comfortably, after getting off the fillies - you clearly feel the jerk, like on a block (or rather, on the contrary, on a block, like ...). The arrow comes off evenly. Even in cramped quarters, at 12 meters, it comes to the shield evenly - at least check the square. WindFighter - no, no, yes, it will throw its tail here or there. And here - every shot is like a carbon copy. Not a target, but a comb. I apologize for the lyrical digression.

There are a few more important, in my opinion, points on which readers need to focus.

The symmetry of the shoulders is laid during the carpentry processing of workpieces. Ideally, you make one, then an exact copy of it - the second. Usually they are led in one direction, so that as a result, this lead is compensated for by itself. If insignificant.

Tepeliki allow you to bend your shoulders equally, to give them the desired bend. In fact, you do not need to do this, you can leave your shoulders straight, as the Tuvans, Mongols, Jurchens, Tungus, Manchus and many others do.

And to the tepliks, while the assembly is in progress, the whole thing is evenly adjusted, cycled in cycles. On the shoulders, 1-2 layers are also removed, exactly where the shoulder should work.

And how he glued the tendons, and even covered them with the skin - that's all, there's nothing to scrape here.

It is better to knead and smooth the tendons while still giving in. Well, if very large irregularities have formed, you can. But it's not worth cutting the tendons. Only the upper layers are processed, and then one should try to thin it, not cut it down.

If it turned out completely unsuccessful, then you will have to soak and disassemble the onion, and - a repetition of what has been passed.

Tilting helps to see the shortcomings of the shoulders. If necessary, heat the area of the shoulder to be corrected and try to correct it on the tiller.

About cycling.
The horn is cycled repeatedly. And in the process of preparing the horny strip, and after gluing to the wooden base of the shoulders. Here you need to respect the profile, it is advisable to make templates for the selected type of bow and carefully check them.

Dried veins should be looped very carefully, and then if there is absolutely no other way out. Looping of dried veins is shown only to give an aesthetically smooth surface, so that the glued sealing coating (leather, parchment) has a pleasing look to the eye and does not cause rejection to the touch.

Below are some close-up photos of different sections of the bow. The bow began to undergo the "decoration" procedure. The horn is painted a pleasant black color. The horns (saya) are painted red and bone plates are glued to the very tips to strengthen the tips and prevent chipping during careless handling. All this is covered with a thin layer of varnish and dries for now. Next, I plan to apply as beautiful patterns as possible. The work will be manual, so everything is possible ... I hope it will not turn out very scary)))

The invention of the onion, the oldest throwing weapons long-range, completely overturned the previously existing ideas about hunting and war. At first glance, this is a very simple weapon in its design. But over the millennia of its history, the bow has been repeatedly improved, going from an ordinary wooden stick with a bowstring to a rather complex device made of various materials.

Appearance and development

The principle of the bow is very simple. A flexible stick bent in an arc tends to straighten. If you pull off its ends with a bowstring, then when straightening it gives the arrow enough energy to make it fly at a distance significantly exceeding the range of a dart throw.

By their design, bows are divided into:

simple, consisting of a single piece of wood;
reinforced, in which a solid wooden base is reinforced in certain places by overlays of plates of wood, horn or bone;
complex, in which the shaft of the bow consists of more than one layer of material, and the wooden base is a solid piece along the entire length of the bow;
composite, in which the bow shaft is assembled from several short parts made of various materials, each of which has special physical properties.

The technology for making reinforced and composite bows appeared in ancient times in the Middle East, where there was always an acute shortage of high-quality wood. The nomads from the Great Steppe, for their part, very early began experimenting with the use of various materials in the construction of the bow and achieved significant success in this search.

Image of Amazons shooting from Scythian bows

In the era of classical antiquity, a small Σ-shaped biconcated "Scythian" bow became widespread. Images of the "Scythian bow" are presented on dozens, if not hundreds of monuments of art, from Southern Europe and the Middle East to Central Asia, and it looks almost the same on all monuments. Judging by these images, the length of the "Scythian" bow could fluctuate on average from 60 to 110 cm, which made it possible to effectively use it both on foot and on horseback. Small in size, the "Scythian" bow was very powerful weapon... According to an inscription from Olbia, Anaxagoras, the son of Dimagoras, fired from such a bow at a distance of 521 m.

Further development of production technologies led to the appearance, first, of the Kushan-Sassanid onion, and then of the Hun type - larger and more powerful, parts of which were made from various types of wood, tendons and horn pads. Alternating hard (horns and handle) and flexible (shoulders) parts of the bow with the help of overlays on a wooden base, the steppe peoples achieved excellent results in archery.

Design

The study of the remains of the bows and finds in the workshops where they were made allow us to identify the design, material and recreate some of the preliminary operations for their manufacture.

At the first stage, the base of the bow, or kibit, was made of wood, to which the remaining parts were then attached. The wood for the base did not have to be particularly strong, since the elements made from it were tested minimum loads compared to other parts. Maple and birch were commonly used as materials. The wooden base was first soaked for about two days in cold water, then steamed for about two hours, gave it the necessary shape using wooden templates and, finally, dried for two weeks.

Parts of a wooden base compound bow

In the second step, the ends of the bow were made. To make them as rigid as possible, they were reinforced on both sides with a pair of bone pads. Then the ends of the bow were attached at an angle to the base, the junction was wrapped with leather thread, and the whole structure was left in a warm and dry room for about a year.

In the next stage of production, parts made of horn were glued to the inside of the wooden base of the bow. When pulled, the bow is subjected to loads that are different in different parts of it. Outer side the bow experienced tensile deformation, the inner one - in compression. Compared to wood, which deforms at only 1 percent compression, the horn contracts 4 percent before it deforms. To achieve this result, a force of about 13 kg / mm2 should be applied. In addition, the horn quickly regenerates original shape after the force acting on it is eliminated.

The horns of a buffalo, long-horned bull or mountain goat were best suited for making bows. During processing, the horn was first cut to the required length. Then, if it was bent, it was steamed and straightened, keeping it in a special wooden form. The surfaces of the contacting materials were treated with a serrated scraper, after which glue was applied to them, and the parts were firmly connected to each other. The resulting element was bent in the desired direction and dried as such for two or more months.

At the last stage of production, the onions are bent forward and dried in this form throughout the year.

When the shoulders of the bow were completely dry, tendons were attached to their outer side. This material is characterized by increased strength with a tensile force of about 20 kg / mm2. For the manufacture of bows, the dorsal tendons of a cow or deer were used, which were dried and then kneaded.

The tendons were attached to the wooden base with glue, which was boiled from dried fish bubbles. Such glue was more moisture resistant and elastic compared to casein glue, which was digested from animal skins and bones. Before gluing, the ends of the bow were tied, and it was pulled in the opposite direction. The adhesive was applied to the base as many times as possible, then the tendons were glued. All this was dried, and the bow was pulled even tighter, then another part of the tendon fibers was attached, and so on until the ends of the shoulders were connected. Ultimately, the weight of the tendons was up to half of total mass Luke. When the process was completed, the master pulled the onion into a ring and left it to dry for another year.

Quiver for arrows and saadak of the Turkish bow of the 17th-18th centuries

After the glue had completely dried out, the bow was covered with strips of boiled birch bark or thin leather to protect it from moisture, and could also be varnished and painted. The whole process of making the bow took the master from one year to three years, moreover, individual parts had to be manufactured at a certain time of the year.

The result of this laborious effort was an unusually flexible and powerful bow... Without a bowstring, it had a reverse curvature, the tendons were very tense. Such a bow resisted pulling from the very first millimeters. On a fully drawn bow, the shoulders curved outward and acted as levers to maximize the tension on the bowstring. When pulled, the horn worked in compression, and the tendon in tension. Both materials sought to return to their original state and increased the power of the bow and the energy they impart to the bowstring. In addition, due to its greater flexibility, the compound bow could be pulled very tightly without the risk of breaking it. This further increased the bow's energy and the initial velocity of the arrow.

A quiver with arrows and a Russian-made Saadak of the 17th century

Compared to a simple, composite bow had significantly greater strength and durability, which allowed it to serve its owner for several decades. The fact is that a simple bow is rather short-lived. In a stressed state, the tree quickly lost its elasticity and deforms, so that the bowstring was pulled on the bow only immediately before the battle.

A compound bow could be taut for a long time without the risk of losing its properties. On a campaign, this made it possible to wear it almost constantly in combat readiness, although, of course, during long-term storage, the bowstring was also removed from such bows. In battle, a bowed bow was usually worn in a saadak, a flat triangular case. Saadak was hung on the left on the same belt on which they carried a quiver with arrows.

Composite bow in a loose state, with a stretched bowstring and in a position before firing

Bowstring

The bowstring underwent a tremendous breaking load when the bow was pulled, so the technology of its manufacture was as important as the technology of making the bow itself. As a rule, bowstrings for bows were made from linen, cotton or silk yarn, as well as from sheep's intestines carved in a special way. The strongest bowstrings consisted of about 60 twisted fibers and were up to 3 mm thick.

Archers always carried one or several pieces in stock, including special types of bowstrings designed for certain weather conditions. For example, a horsehair bowstring was good in frosty weather, but, unlike a leather or tendon bowstring, it easily absorbed moisture and stretched. To attach it to the bow, the string at each end was tied with a complex knot to form a separate loop from a strong and tightly twisted tendon. This method of fastening prevented wear and tear. The ends of the bowstring were inserted into special notches on the bone horns of the bow.

Various techniques bowstring knitting and the method of fixing it at the ends of the bow horns

To pull the string of a powerful compound bow, the shooter had to apply a force equivalent to 50–75 kg. This required great muscle strength and constant training. According to oriental treatises on archery, tension could be done in one of three ways. Pulling the bow with a "jerk", the shooter raised his arms up, then lowered them down, simultaneously spreading them to the sides: pulling the bow, aiming at the target and shooting were carried out in one continuous movement. When "holding" the bow gradually pulled, followed by a pause for aiming and a shot. By "deception" the bow was pulled halfway, then a pause was made and a "jerk" shot followed.

The Mongols pulled the string with their thumb. At the same time, the arrow was laid to the right of the bow, which made it possible to avoid injury to the forearm with careless or inept handling of the weapon. In addition, such a grip did not lead to overstrain of the hand, which is important when drawing a tight complex bow. For ease of pulling the bowstring, a bone or horn ring was worn over the thumb. The bowstring was lowered by a small smooth protrusion, the so-called “lip of the ring”. As a result, the load on the wrist was reduced, and the shot itself took place smoothly and without jerks.

Various types of bowstring capture: 1 - Persian; 2 - European; 3 - Mongolian

V Western Europe and in Russia, the bowstring was pulled with the index and ring fingers, and the arrow was held between the index and middle fingers. At the same time, the arrow was located to the left of the bow, so the left forearm was easily injured in case of careless or inept handling of the weapon.

Arrows

Arrows for a bow could be reed, reed, birch, poplar, walnut, willow. Poplar was used to make heavy arrows for close combat, and willow was used to make light arrows for shooting at extreme distances. Reed arrows had the longest range, but were also the most fragile and broke quickly. To straighten a wooden blank for the shaft, it was heated over a fire and leveled by hand. The length of the arrow was equal to the distance from the shoulder to the end of the middle finger, or from the armpit to the end of the middle finger, or from the elbow to the other elbow if the fists were pressed against each other. The arrow had a plumage of two or four feathers, connected in such a way that it twisted slightly in flight. For plumage, feathers of geese, swans, owls and other large birds were used. Sometimes plumage could be made from thin sheets of parchment.

Arrows and their heads of various types

Arrowheads come in a variety of sizes and shapes. The socketed tips were attached to the shaft by means of a metal sleeve, the petiole ones were inserted into the tip of the shaft by means of a thin spike and fixed in place with glue and tendon fibers. The latter significantly prevailed over the others. The arrows were carried in a cylindrical quiver, made of wood, birch bark and leather. The quiver could hold about 20 arrows. Steppe nomads, as a rule, carried arrows with the tip up, so that the archer could touch the type of arrow he needed. To prevent the feathering of the arrows from wrinkling in the quiver, its lower part was made wider than the upper one.

Application

The compound bow was a formidable weapon capable of striking an enemy at a great distance. In terms of firing range, it was one third superior to a simple bow, being able to send arrows to a distance of 375 meters and even further. However, the range effective shooting composite bow was 175 meters, and the sighting range was from 50 to 75 meters. At this distance, the arrow pierced the chain mail. A well-trained archer at this distance can hit the center of a target about a meter in diameter.

Indo-Iranian archer, 17th century

At a greater distance, the shooting was carried out "across the squares" and for "harassing fire", forcing the enemy to keep at a considerable distance. With an increase in the distance and shooting "over the areas", the effectiveness of the shelling decreased. During staged experiments, an experienced archer at a distance of 90-270 meters accurately hit the target 45 meters along the front and 18 meters deep, imitating a detachment. At a distance of 300 meters and further, the percentage of hits fell by half.

The study of sources shows that when firing at clusters of enemy manpower, horse archers fired a volley from a long distance, sending arrows with a high frequency, almost without aiming. The rain of arrows falling from the sky produced a strong psychological effect on the enemy and inflicted significant losses on him. Maintaining a high rate of fire for some time, they tried to force the enemy to counterattack at an unfavorable position for him, or to retreat.

Turkish archer on a 17th century miniature

The individual training of archers was very high. Professional archers knew how to shoot while sitting in the saddle, standing on their feet and squatting. They knew how to throw an arrow over the fortress wall and let it go under the raised shields. At a normal pace, the archer was supposed to fire 12 shots per minute, and if necessary, twice as many. It was expected that a well-trained rider, galloping, should be able to shoot five arrows while reducing the distance with the enemy from 30 to 5 meters. To maintain a high rate of fire, he kept the arrows at the ready in his left hand.

Literature:

Gorelik M.V. Weapons of the Ancient East (IV millennium BC - IV century BC). Moscow: Nauka, 1993 .-- 349 p.
Litvinsky B. A. Temple of Oxus in Bactria (South Tajikistan) in 3 volumes. Vol. 2: Bactrian weapons in the Ancient Eastern and Greek context. M .: Vostochnaya literatura, 2001 .-- 528 p.
Medvedev A.F. Hand throwing weapons (bow and arrows, crossbow) VIII - XIV centuries Moscow: Nauka, 1966 .-- 180 p.
Nikonorov V.P., Khudyakov Yu.S. SPb, 2004 .-- 320 p.
Payne-Golloway R. Book of crossbows. The history of medieval throwing weapons. M., 2007 - 415 p.
Shokarev Yu.V. History of weapons: Bows and crossbows. - M .: AST, 2006 .-- 176 p.