Bow (device)

“ As the arrow nears full draw, the weight increases to such a degree that the last few inches will register five or six pounds to the inch, depending on many variable factors in the bow.
The gradient thus formed dictates the character of a bow to a great extent. One that pulls softly at first and in the last part of the draw is very stiff, will require more careful shooting to get the exact length of flight than one whose tension is evenly distributed.
Reflexed bows are harder on strings than those that follow the string. A breaking cord may fracture your bow. ”

“ The bow is very strong, and when the warrior wishes to bend it he seats himself on the ground, puts his foot against the bow, and so has both hands at liberty, by which he can haul the cord into the notch which holds it until it is released by the trigger. The shaft is about five feet long, and is split for a considerable portion of its length. The little stick which is thrust between the split portions constitutes the trigger, and the method of using it is as follows:—
Just below the notch which holds the string is a round hole through which passes a short peg. ”

“ The handle of the bow is ingeniously split, and by a little peg, which acts as a trigger, the bow-string is disengaged, and as the spring is very strong it sends the arrow to a great distance, and, light as it is, with great force. ”

“ As is the case with the bows of the North American tribes, the chief strength is obtained, not so much from the material of the bow, as from a vast number of sinew strings which run down its back. There are often a hundred or more of these sinews, which are put on sufficiently tight to give the bow a slight curvature against the string. The shape of the bow is rather peculiar. And though the weapon is so powerful, it is seldom used at a greater distance than twelve, or at most twenty yards. ”

“ If the bow when thus bent is too stiff in any spot, file it a little there till it bends right; and when it finally bends truly from tip to tip, put on a piece of plush for a handle, and smooth and polish your bow ready for exhibition. There, Harry, that is your bow. Now one of you may go to work at another stick, while I go and feather some arrows. ”

“ It is also futile to prophesy the future of the bow and arrow. As an implement of the chase, to us it seems to hold a place unique for fairness. And in the further development of the wild game problem, where apparently large game preserves and refuges will be the order of the day, the bow is a more fitting weapon with which to slay a beast than a gun or any more powerful agent that may be invented. ”

“ If there are any ends hanging from the string, cut them off close, and see that the whipping in the middle of the string is close and well fitting. The case should be hung up against a dry internal wall, not too near the fire. In selecting your bow, be careful that it is not too strong for your power, and that you can draw the arrow to its head without any trembling of the hand. If this can not be done after a little practice, the bow should be changed for a weaker one. For no arrow will go true if it is discharged by a trembling hand. ”

“ The bow is remarkable for having the string coated with a sort of resinous substance in order to preserve it, the middle of the cord being skilfully wrapped with bark to guard it against injury from the nock of the arrow. The arrows are made of two pieces, the head being shaped from a hard and heavy wood, and the shaft being a reed. The place where they are joined is strengthened by a ligature of bark. The butt of the arrow is wrapped in the same manner to prevent it from being split by the string. ”

“ Three or four pieces of horn or wood are frequently joined together in one bow,—the strength lying alone in a vast collection of small plaited sinews; these, to the number of perhaps a hundred, run down the back of the bow, and being quite tight, and having the spring of catgut, cause the weapon, when unstrung, to turn the wrong way; when bent, their united strength and elasticity are amazing. The bow-string is of fifteen to twenty plaits, each loose from the other, but twisted round when in use, so that a few additional turns will at any time alter its length. ”

“ Almost any tough stick that will bend to a good curve will answer for a bow, but white ash such as is used in hoe- and rake-handles is probably best and easiest to get. A brittle wood like hemlock can be used, if used with great care; indeed, some Eskimos, who can get only dry, brittle driftwood, still make a splendid bow by wrapping it completely with sinew. The bow should be shorter than the archer. Plane each end tapering, first on the bottom, then on the two edges. Leave 6" in the middle straight for a handle. Notice the shape, Plate 8, of the three steps in the planing of the bow. ”

“ Doctor Sellè tells me that he distinctly remembers seeing Dodd cut out a bow from the rough plank with a curiously constructed double saw.
This is very remarkable as none of the bow makers now working know of such a tool, or can conceive the possibility of using one. Whether this may have any connexion with the much talked of "secret," it is impossible to say. It is probably another of those points in the history of the bow that seem doomed to remain shrouded in mystery. ”

“ A powerful, heavy bow is required for four–string passages and many tours de force. The bow, while elastic, should be extremely stiff, so that if dropped upon the strings the rebounds are very rapid. It should have weight to give force to these rebounds, as in many passages the weight of the hand cannot be applied to assist the bow; as in the tremolo, arpeggio, and staccato volante. In this last example the bow is thrown upon the strings and runs its length in a series of little rebounds, neither the fingers nor wrist having anything to do with the result. ”

“ We must also remember that the word "fiddlesticks" is still applied to anything that is beneath contempt in its utter lack of importance.
Undoubtedly the idea of exciting vibrations in a stretched string by means of friction is one of great antiquity; so much so, indeed, that the question of origin becomes merely one of conjecture. True, the majority of writers look upon the bow as a development of the plectrum, but this is a theory that I must confess does not strike me as being satisfactorily probable. ”

“ This can be overdone, especially in hunting-bows, where a little more solidity and safety are preferable to a brilliant cast.
And so you must work and test your bow, and shoot it, and draw it up before a full length mirror and observe its outline, and get your friends to draw it up and pass judgment on it. In fact, while the actual work of making a bow takes about eight hours, it requires months to get one adjusted so that it is good. A bow, like a violin, is a work of art. The best in it can only be brought out by infinite care. ”

“ As it is made of very hard wood, it is a most effective weapon, and not even the stone-like skull of a Dôr warrior can resist a blow from it. The bow exhibits a mode of construction which is very common in this part of Africa, and which must interfere greatly with the power of the weapon. The string does not extend to the tips of the bow, so that eighteen inches or so of the weapon are wasted, and the elasticity impaired. ”

“ The bow is completed by a woolding round the middle and a wedge or two, here and there, driven in to tighten it. A bow in one piece is, however, very rare; they generally consist of from two to five pieces of bone of unequal lengths, secured together by rivets and tree-nails.
The arrows vary in length from twenty to thirty inches, according to the materials that can be commanded. About two-thirds of the whole length is of fir rounded, and the rest of bone let by a socket into the wood, and having a head of thin iron, or more commonly of slate, secured into a slit by two tree-nails. ”

“ Similarly a lady’s bow on the average measures about 5 ft. 6 in. and her arrows 25 in. Modern bows are either made entirely of yew (occasionally of other woods) , when they are called “self-bows,” or of a combination of woods, when they are called “backed-bows.” Self-bows are rarely or never made in a single stave, owing to the difficulty of obtaining true and flawless wood of the necessary length; hence two staves joined by a double fish-joint, which forms the centre of the bow, are used, tested and adjusted so that they may be as equally elastic as possible. ”

“ In shooting at the target, the first thing is to nock the arrow; that is, to place it properly on the string. In order to effect this; take the bow in the left hand, with the string toward you, the upper limb being toward the right. Hold it horizontally while you take the arrow by the middle, pass it on the under side of the string and the upper side of the bow, till the head reaches two or three inches past the left hand. ”

“ There is probably no weapon in modern use which can boast a more ancient and distinguished lineage than the bow, and so slight is the change it has undergone during its lengthened career, that the bow of the present day is in no-wise—save in strength and finish—dissimilar to the more deadly instrument of far-off times. ”

“ This they did by holding the bow in their left hand, and grasping the arrow on the string with the right (as is usual with them) , resting the right hand on the hip; drawing the bow with all their strength; throwing themselves forward and back, and bending their bodies until their heads almost touched the ground; and all the time they were springing about, in every direction, as if avoiding the missiles of the foe, and yelling at the very top of their voices, with more than mortal fierceness. ”

“ He is allowed to feather the first arrow in the bow string, and then at a given signal he instantly shoots. The object is to see how many arrows he can shoot into the air before the first one fired reaches the ground. ”

“ To make a bow you take a stick and bend it. Then you make it fast, so it can't uncurve, by tying the two ends with a long string. That makes the string tight, and when you put an arrow on the string and stretch it and let it go suddenly, the arrow shoots a long way off. ”

“ The ends should curve more than the middle. When it bends true, smooth it well with a coarse file, or glass, and sandpaper. Do not be tempted to pull the bow too far and so break it; one that bends easily is less apt to break than one that is too strong. When the bow is strung, the center of it and of the bowstring should be marked with thread or color.
A piece of strong fish-line makes a good bowstring. A good one can be made of linen thread on the string machine shown on Plate 34. ”

“ Old Horrible first pulled eighty-five pounds. It was reduced, shortened, whip ended, and worked over again and again so to tune the wood that all parts acted in harmony. Every good bow is a work of love.
Your bow is now ready to shoot, but let us weigh it first. Brace it and put it horizontally in the vise with the string facing you. Take a spring scale registering at least eighty pounds and catch the hook under the string. Draw it until the yardstick registers twenty-eight inches from the string to the back of the bow. Now read the scale; that is its weight. ”

“ No work exists which aims at giving an exhaustive description of the various forms of bows which have been used by different nations in ancient and modern times, and such an undertaking would be far beyond the scope of the present work. The only form of the bow with which we are now concerned is the English long-bow, and especially with the English long-bow as now used for target-shooting as opposed to the more powerful weapon used by our forefathers for the purposes of war. ”

“ In shooting for distance, of course, a very light missile is used, and nothing but empirical tests can determine the shape, size, and weight that suits each bow. Consequently, we use hundreds of arrows to find the best. For more than seven years these experiments have continued, and at this stage of our progress the best flight arrow is made of Japanese bamboo five-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, having a foreshaft of birch the same diameter and four inches long. The nock is a boxwood plug inserted in the rear end, both joints being bound with silk floss and shellacked. ”

“ Your effort must be to get every part of the wood to do its work, for every inch is under utmost strain, and one part doing more than the rest must ultimately break down, sustain a compression fracture, or, as an archer would say, "chrysal or fret."
"A bow full drawn is seven-eighths broken," said old Thomas Waring, the English bowmaker, and he was right. Draw your bow three inches more than the standard cloth yard of twenty-eight inches and you break it. It is more accurate to say that a full drawn bow is nine-tenths broken. ”

“ If the limbs of the bow are given110 the slightest lateral twist as they are being bent, the horn parts are certain to splinter, and the bow is then useless and damaged beyond repair.45
45 The only safe method for a modern archer to adopt in order to string a powerful reflex bow is to use strong upright pegs, the size of tent pegs, inserted in smooth ground or in holes in a board, the bow resting during the process flat along the ground or board. ”

“ According to Ishi, a bow left strung or standing in an upright position, gets tired and sweats. When not in use it should be lying down; no one should step over it; no child should handle it, and no woman should touch it. This brings bad luck and makes it shoot crooked. To expunge such an influence it is necessary to wash the bow in sand and water.
In his judgment, a good bow made a musical note when strung and the string is tapped with the arrow. ”