Pre 1840s bow styles will it fly?

[AKstickandstring]

I know scythian recurve bows have been around forever but will a recurved bow fly at a pre 1840 rendezvous archery shoot? I just built a small recurve for my nephew out of black walnut steam bent the tips and it came out great i used a cheap snake pattern fabric for the back because my nephew wanted a snake bow but for a 7year old i couldnt justify buying 80dollar skins, I dont have any access to good bow staves up here in interior alaska all our trees suck for bow wood so I went to the lumber yard and picked up a scrap piece of hickory wood I was going to floor tiller it then steam bend it then tiller it out adding on a Linen backing, what do you saw would it fly as pre 1840 style?

[reddogge]

Any self bow should work. No fiberglass backing and on the arrows I'm not sure whether plastic nocks are allowed. You may have to do self nocks. I'd call the person in charge of the rondevous and ask.

[AKstickandstring]

ya I made wooden arrows with self nocks just cut perpendicular to the grain and wrapped the end with a little artificial sinew in the past it has worked great so far, I just was not sure whether not a linen backed recurve bow would qualify thanks

[reddogge]

Linen was very popular in 1840, at least to wear.

[KenH]

Read  The Witchery of Archery by Maurice Thompson for descriptions of bows which white Americans were using just post-Civil War. Basically English style longbows. Not exactly pre-1840, but pretty darn close.  

Native Americans didn't decorate with snake skins, but rather with paint and beadwork and feathers.  Some tribes built recurves, some didn't.  Look at the North American section of   Tratitional Archery of Six Continents by Charles Grayson for examples of the wide variety of Native American bows.

[AKstickandstring]

Thank you for your replies I will have to order the witchery of archery as our library nor bookstores have it, My pyramid style flat bow I painted up the back side with the northern lights and a small guy hunting a caribou with a lit cabin in the background. it was a fun first bow build but I just really enjoy the challenge of getting the bends just right and how a recurve looks and feels no real reason just my preference.

[KenH]

You can download The Witchery of Archery in a variety of formats here:  

 https://archive.org/details/witcheryofarcher00thomuoft

The Archery Library:  www.archerylibrary.com

has Witchery and a lot of other early archery writings including Ben Hunt's 1936 treatise on building The Flat Bow.

[wingnut]

Another option would be a cable backed bow from the far north.  It uses the wood and sinew from Alaska and would be a cool bow for a shoot.

Mike

[Traxx]

Native Americans didn't decorate with snake skins

Where on earth,did you read that!!!

Thats like sayin all non native people,ate corned beef n cabbage on saint Pattys day.LOL

[AKstickandstring]

not too sure where everyone is getting this native american and snake skin thing from, I was just mentioning that the other recurve I built was for a 7 year old who wanted the bow to look like a snake so i used a fabric backing for that and figured i would use another fabric to back a larger one,