06-23-2009, 08:17 AM
My contact came up with this reply;
<<Hi Conal,
You are right in doubting this common notion because it does not
appea to rely on fact. Rather it reminds of the general tone of the
many imperialistic victorian travel accounts where a foreign culture
encountered always had to be described as being inferior.
In reality the composite bow in one form or another holds all the
records:
1. Strongest bow known to exist: Manchu and Turkish military bows up
to 240 pounds
2. Largest war arrows used: Manchu
3. Distance record: Turkish flight bow at some 800 yards.
4. Distance record with rail / dart system: Korean at over 1000 yards.
But there is at least some truth in the idea that they perform well in
dry climates, but there is a little bit more to it than just that.
Composite bows are all made with isinglass, fish bladder glue which is
the same stuff that holds precious instruments like 18th cent. violins
together. And they don't fall apart in the UK either but their owners
must be very careful of excessive moist and the way they store and
transport them.
Such was the case with composites: the glue gets softer then it gets
warmer and wetter. A composite bow is up to 15% weaker in a hot and
damp climate than it is in a cold and dry climate. But here comes a
surprise: so does the longbow lose up to 15% in hot and moist
surroundings. But unlike composites, the longbow can't come apart just
like that. A composite bow will come apart when you put it in a tub of
water for a while, but this would take a week or two with a well-cured
bow so a bit of rain is not even likely to affect it too much.
Jaap Koppedrayer, perhaps todays best horn bowyer, uses a bath to
"open up" antique bows for restoration, repair and research so he
knows how long it takes first hand. The weakness of the glue has an
advantage as wel, when done right the bow can be re-assembled as if
nothing had happened and worn parts can be replaced.
The Chinese came up with of a number of coats that helped against
humidity as well. In Chengdu has hot summers and cold winters and a
humidity up to 95% in the hot season. I lived in this area for a
period of time and while the winters were dry and cold, the summers
were so hot and humid that your clothes wouldn't dry when hung
outside. Bowyers there would coat their bows with Tung oil. Other
cultures, and earlier Chinese as well, used coats of (urushi) lacquer
to preserve the moist levels in their bows. Birch bark wrappings, with
heir natural membranes, were applied to these bows to keep the moist
levels in their limbs constant, mainly with Korean and Manchu bows.
And apart form this, in humid regions the bows would be left to dry at
night in special drying boxes with candles in them to drive out any
excessive moist it may have caught during the day. These were by all
means very sophisticated devices and the ways of maintaining their
power in all circumstances have been developed and perfected over the
course of at least 3000 years.
The Manchu bow for example served on the cold dry Siberian plains, the
lush forests of Manchuria, the desert-like climate around the Qing
imperial city of Beijing, the wet rainforests of Yunnan, Taiwan,
Guangdong and Zhejiang, the hot and dry Gobi desert and the cold and
dry Himalayan plateau. Not once were the Manchus stopped because of
alledges equipment failure. They knew how to care for their bows and
they were unstoppable in climates much more extreme and diverse than
that of Europe.
Tell that to the next guy who says these bows wouldn't last in Europe!
Jaap Koppedrayer has one in the making for me, a fully traditional
Manchu replica. Once I got it I will be able to prove that there is no
problem in using these bows in our climate.
To conclude, I don't want to deny that a composite bow may not fail in
a wet climate. But probably only so when it is improperly treated. If
a bow would have been made solely for the Beijing dry climate, and was
exported to England without being properly treated for the journey,
nor periodically dried once there, there would be a good chance of
failure eventually. Maybe this accounts for the many persistent
stories of these bows not being able to function in such climates.
-Peter>>
We tend to forget the ancients weren't mugs when it came to making & maintaining stuff. I remember seeing a TV prog about Amazon tribes where a camera man dropped some film in water and the local tribes man asking him why is so upset .. he can just make some more. He was surprised to hear that the camera guy could not ... it did not occur to him that you could not make and maintain everything you need :?
<<Hi Conal,
You are right in doubting this common notion because it does not
appea to rely on fact. Rather it reminds of the general tone of the
many imperialistic victorian travel accounts where a foreign culture
encountered always had to be described as being inferior.
In reality the composite bow in one form or another holds all the
records:
1. Strongest bow known to exist: Manchu and Turkish military bows up
to 240 pounds
2. Largest war arrows used: Manchu
3. Distance record: Turkish flight bow at some 800 yards.
4. Distance record with rail / dart system: Korean at over 1000 yards.
But there is at least some truth in the idea that they perform well in
dry climates, but there is a little bit more to it than just that.
Composite bows are all made with isinglass, fish bladder glue which is
the same stuff that holds precious instruments like 18th cent. violins
together. And they don't fall apart in the UK either but their owners
must be very careful of excessive moist and the way they store and
transport them.
Such was the case with composites: the glue gets softer then it gets
warmer and wetter. A composite bow is up to 15% weaker in a hot and
damp climate than it is in a cold and dry climate. But here comes a
surprise: so does the longbow lose up to 15% in hot and moist
surroundings. But unlike composites, the longbow can't come apart just
like that. A composite bow will come apart when you put it in a tub of
water for a while, but this would take a week or two with a well-cured
bow so a bit of rain is not even likely to affect it too much.
Jaap Koppedrayer, perhaps todays best horn bowyer, uses a bath to
"open up" antique bows for restoration, repair and research so he
knows how long it takes first hand. The weakness of the glue has an
advantage as wel, when done right the bow can be re-assembled as if
nothing had happened and worn parts can be replaced.
The Chinese came up with of a number of coats that helped against
humidity as well. In Chengdu has hot summers and cold winters and a
humidity up to 95% in the hot season. I lived in this area for a
period of time and while the winters were dry and cold, the summers
were so hot and humid that your clothes wouldn't dry when hung
outside. Bowyers there would coat their bows with Tung oil. Other
cultures, and earlier Chinese as well, used coats of (urushi) lacquer
to preserve the moist levels in their bows. Birch bark wrappings, with
heir natural membranes, were applied to these bows to keep the moist
levels in their limbs constant, mainly with Korean and Manchu bows.
And apart form this, in humid regions the bows would be left to dry at
night in special drying boxes with candles in them to drive out any
excessive moist it may have caught during the day. These were by all
means very sophisticated devices and the ways of maintaining their
power in all circumstances have been developed and perfected over the
course of at least 3000 years.
The Manchu bow for example served on the cold dry Siberian plains, the
lush forests of Manchuria, the desert-like climate around the Qing
imperial city of Beijing, the wet rainforests of Yunnan, Taiwan,
Guangdong and Zhejiang, the hot and dry Gobi desert and the cold and
dry Himalayan plateau. Not once were the Manchus stopped because of
alledges equipment failure. They knew how to care for their bows and
they were unstoppable in climates much more extreme and diverse than
that of Europe.
Tell that to the next guy who says these bows wouldn't last in Europe!
Jaap Koppedrayer has one in the making for me, a fully traditional
Manchu replica. Once I got it I will be able to prove that there is no
problem in using these bows in our climate.
To conclude, I don't want to deny that a composite bow may not fail in
a wet climate. But probably only so when it is improperly treated. If
a bow would have been made solely for the Beijing dry climate, and was
exported to England without being properly treated for the journey,
nor periodically dried once there, there would be a good chance of
failure eventually. Maybe this accounts for the many persistent
stories of these bows not being able to function in such climates.
-Peter>>
We tend to forget the ancients weren't mugs when it came to making & maintaining stuff. I remember seeing a TV prog about Amazon tribes where a camera man dropped some film in water and the local tribes man asking him why is so upset .. he can just make some more. He was surprised to hear that the camera guy could not ... it did not occur to him that you could not make and maintain everything you need :?
Conal Moran
Do or do not, there is no try!
Yoda
Do or do not, there is no try!
Yoda
