Short or long limb travel.

[Buemaker]

I’ll try to explain in English. The drawing I made show two bow styles, the black show a moderate recurve with a fairly short limb travel. With limb travel I mean if you draw two lines between the nocks, one line at brace and one at full draw and measure the distance between the two. The red bow show a bow with severe bend close to the handle, like the Turkish horn bows, or glass. This one have a much longer limb travel. The black line bow could of course be designed to have longer or shorter limb travel. Getting difficult to explain what I think now, but will give it a try. I am not sure,but in order to stop the string dead at brace so it delivers as much energy to the arrow as possible, I think a bow designed to have a short limb travel would be better than a one with a long limb travel. Right or wrong I feel that the one with the long limb travel will build up more momentum and be harder to stop dead.
There is of course other things that come into play here, but I just took the limb travel now. What are your thoughts on this? Maybe thinking too much.

[Roy from Pa]

Bue
Take a hot shower, put on yer flannel jammies, open a good bottle of bourbon, start a fire in the fireplace and sit back and listen to Charlie Daniels Band.
Problem solved.

LOL

[Buggs]

You could experiment with arrows, increasing the physical weight until you find the optimum one that drains all the energy out of those tortured limbs.

Roy, I think Bue might be more inclined to sit back with some Akvavit and ABBA

[Kirkll]

First of all, I have never played with the Turkish design at all, or tested them either. So I can not even speculate on the performance with any degree of accuracy. But …. I believe  there may be a difference between the  “Forward” limb travel of a static tip recurve, and the Turkish design, where the limb tips are traveling a different direction and hinge at the fades, or what they call the knee portion of the bow.

When a static tip recurve is drawn, the actual length of the bow from tip to tip can increase slightly as the tips stand straight up, and this shortens the forward limb travel a lot. How much is determined on the location of the working portion of the limb, and the preload tension on the string at brace height. Your mileage will vary a lot depending on your limb shape, taper rates, and actual preload.

With a Turkish design the actual length of the bow at full draw vs brace ht is a lot different. The limbs are moving more up and down than they are moving forward.
Not being an engineer, or having any testing experience with this design, I couldn’t tell you if this makes a difference mathematically or otherwise in terms of preload tension at brace , and stoping the limbs movement clean.

On a D shaped long bow, with low preload string tension at brace that bends the full length of the bow to the grip, you have a lot more forward limb travel. This often results in hand shock in the bow, and a loss of performance with lighter arrow shafts.

 The same D shape bow built with more reflex to the limbs with a longer riser, longer fades and the limbs bending more at the tips with higher preload tension at brace will have less limb travel and stop the limb tips cleaner. The results is less hand shock, and higher performance using lighter weight shafts. Especially using a FF string.

But……. Here’s the rub…… A D shape long bow that bends the full length can shoot heavier shafts with a much higher percentages of energy transfer than using lighter arrows due to the momentum build up during the power stroke. This can even be accomplished using a Dacron string vs a fast flight….. the heavier the shaft the higher the percentage of energy transfer is.

Maybe the same theory applies to the Turkish bows? I have no idea. Does The momentum of the limbs and the mass weight of the limbs actually help the performance? And how does the arrow weight effect the performance of this design? I would think  Heavier arrows would yield a higher percentage of energy transfer with a longer draw length.

I’ll be curious to hear what you Turkish bow builders have to say regarding this.
It would be interesting to know the difference in string tension level at brace between a 50# static tip recurve and the Turkish design of the same weight.

Kirk

[Kirkll]

You could experiment with arrows, increasing the physical weight until you find the optimum one that drains all the energy out of those tortured limbs.

Roy, I think Bue might be more inclined to sit back with some Akvavit and ABBA

Buggs…. I like your style. In one sentence you pretty much summed up what it took me a page of typing to get to…. Talk about cut to the chase…

Gotta love that….   Kirk

[Buemaker]

Them Turkish style hornbows are really something. Ivar Malde of Norway set 4 world records at the Utah salt plains in 2019 with his horn bows. These bows use very light arrows, about 2 grains pr pound bow weight. He use barrel shaped Pine shafts. At that competition strings from natural material must be used,linen, hemp etc. His linen strings broke on almost every shot, with no ill effects to the bows. He have become a master bowyer  of these bows, I enclose a picture of one of his bows.

[Mad Max]

Really nice bue
The time it takes to paint the art work on those bows is incredible.

[Buemaker]

If some would like to see Ivar’s Facebook page you can search for Kviljo Buemakeri. Some interesting videos of hornbows in his shooting machine. One shows an arrow going 339 fps.
This is not his HomePage for sales.

[Kirkll]

Wow! I spent quite a bit of time going through that face book page, and that video of that bow shooting 339 fps was incredible. Thanks for sharing that…

I’d like to see some video of how they string those bows in the feild…that has got to be some serious preload on those strings….   

I found one here…. 

Kirk

[Buggs]

Five minutes to string a bow. I would have to hire a trainer to get in shape for that task
I think they string compounds faster than that. Not a weapon you would want to take to a duel, or change a string in the middle of a battle.

[Kirkll]

Now here is some interesting reading on Turkish style bows.

https://www.atarn.org/islamic/Performance/Performance_of_Turkish_bows.htm

Kirk

[Buggs]

"It is tempting to compare the Turkish composites to fibreglass/carbon bows. Data for the best modern bows show arrow velocities between 180 and 200fps for 28in draw11,14 and between 190  and 210fps for 30in draw14, both at 9 grains/lb. The Turkish bows at the same 9 grains/lb give velocities between 185 and 205fps19, albeit with the Dacron strings. With Fast Flight strings the bows would have efficiencies even higher and arrow velocities correspondingly elevated. This places the Turkish bows at the level of performance equal to the best bows made of modern materials. It would be interesting to flight shoot a conditioned Turkish bow with a 60 grain carbon arrow used today. Distances achieved may approach the current records."
 

Not much difference in comparison

[Kirkll]

Might be interesting to research Korean bow designs while we are at it here. I watched a few experienced archers while we were in Korea shooting 100 yard butts accurately with those bows.

It amazed me how they drew those things clear behind their ear using a thumb ring. I was surprised there weren’t more one eared archers walking around that target field…. How do you do that without tearing your ear off?   

[Roy from Pa]

How do you do that without tearing your ear off?

Wear ear muffs:)

[Mad Max]

People have been killed trying to brace a horn bow

[Mad Max]

Might be interesting to research Korean bow designs while we are at it here. I watched a few experienced archers while we were in Korea shooting 100 yard butts accurately with those bows.

It amazed me how they drew those things clear behind their ear using a thumb ring. I was surprised there weren’t more one eared archers walking around that target field…. How do you do that without tearing your ear off?   

If you could make a trip to Nashville Tennessee --EDIT(Tennessee Classic) in May you could shoot several horn bows and a lot of help in finishing your self bow
Lots of fun and good folks

[Kirkll]

That would be fun to make that trip, but I doubt I’ll do it…..

 One of these days I’ll roll up my sleeves and get my Osage self bow completed. But …..I’m in no hurry to do so. I’ve got too many other irons in the fire right now to even think about it….  Kirk

[Mad Max]

That would be fun to make that trip, but I doubt I’ll do it…..

 One of these days I’ll roll up my sleeves and get my Osage self bow completed. But …..I’m in no hurry to do so. I’ve got too many other irons in the fire right now to even think about it….  Kirk

I forgot to say Tennessee Classic

[Kirkll]

That would be fun to make that trip, but I doubt I’ll do it…..

 One of these days I’ll roll up my sleeves and get my Osage self bow completed. But …..I’m in no hurry to do so. I’ve got too many other irons in the fire right now to even think about it….  Kirk

I forgot to say Tennessee Classic

I've heard that is a very cool event from a number of archers and bowyers alike, but i've never made that trip. I had a close friend that lived not far from there that invited me few years ago. The the covid crap came about, and then he passed away this last year. Cancer got him..... I miss the old boy a lot. He used to post on TG quite a bit years ago.  Dave Landis.... "Doc Noc"  We swapped email almost daily for 10 years. Great guy....He had a way with words that was much appreciated too.     Kirk

[Mad Max]

The event is Thursday to Sunday.
Some people come a week early and stay until the end.
There can be 600 to 800 on Saturday at the Classic.

Glass and Selfbows at the event