Module 1 The Longbow Preview July 2018

Bow Building School
Online Class 1
The Longbow
Module 1
CLICK HERE,
to unlock class 1

In a hundred years this will be a magnificent yew grove.
Imprint
Publisher and owner:
Matthias Wiltschko, A-3920 Gross Gundholz 25
www.traditionellerbogenbau.at
Publisher and media owner takes no liability.
All rights, copying, distribution and translation rights are with the owner
and publisher.
Photos, graphics and videos: Matthias Wiltschko
Layout: Matthias Wiltschko
No liability for injuries and damage to property of the customer / reader
and third parties is taken over by the information provided and by
the objects produced therefrom (eg bows, arrows, ...). Each customer
/ reader is responsible for his / her own safety and safety in dealing
with his / her own manufactured bows and arrows. It is at the measure
of the customer / reader to judge the wood used by him / her on
its resistance to breakage. Published dimensions of bows refer only
to the bows produced by the publisher. Applying these dimensions to
customer / reader‘s own bows can result in breakage of the bow since
the same wood properties are not given.

The Longbow Module 1
Acknowledgments
I want to thank Paul Comstock. During the English translation he helped
me to make this Online Class easier to understand for novices. He
drew my attention to add important topics and to define fundamental
terms even more precisely.
I thank my parents very much. Their support enabled me to realize this
Online Course. Above all, I thank my father. He taught me to distinguish
our native trees, shrubs and their wood. Since my beginnings as a
bowyer he provides me with the best local bow wood.
I thank my mother for proofreading and for the help to make this course
comprehensible also for beginners.
Ever since I started my bow making, my girlfriend Gerda accompanies
me with constructive suggestions and supports me in my projects. She
plays a key role in the visual design of this course and my websites.
Many thanks to my uncle Erwin. He showed me, in my beginnings as
a bowyer, based on his own bows the various bow designs and bow
woods. Even as a child I shot with one of his bows from the branch
of an apple tree. Again and again he surprises me with special bow
wood.
Many thanks to my uncles Pepp, Walter and Ernst. A lot of my bows
grew in their forests.
Thanks to Ao.Univ.Prof. Dr. phil. Birgit Kartusch, my botany professor
at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in
Vienna. She taught me to look for the performance of my bows inside
the wood, supported me with valuable literature, and made the photos
of the microscopic wood samples for me.
To Dipl.-Ing. Dr.nat.techn. Michael Grabner of the University of Natural
Resources and Applied Life Sciences I owe my knowledge of wood
biology and wood quality. With his support, the X-ray images, density
measurements and strength measurements of my bow woods were
created.

When I started making bows in 2007, I only had the Traditional Bowyer‘s
Bible Volume 1 as literature, insatiable curiosity and thirst for knowledge.
I had no idea what this Osage Orange is, let alone how to pronounce it correctly.
At that time yew was still a deciduous tree and when I stood before
a supposed specimen of this genus, it was a Moravian rowan.
The small, two-meter-high yew, which my father had planted 15 years earlier,
grew in its shadow and was not noticed by my untutored eye. I knew
some of our native trees and shrubs, but I had not seen this unimposing
plant before.
After the first pages of the TBB (Traditional Bowyers Bible) I was immediately
under the spell of traditional bow making. I was amazed by the accumulated
knowledge of bow wood and the depth of this topic.

The Longbow Module 1
Overwhelming were the possibilities of bow designs. Should it be a longbow?
No, I do not have yew wood. It will not be an Osage bow either, this
wood does not grow in my area. Do I need a rawhide or sinew backing to
keep my bow from breaking? ...
Which bow design should I build first?
Initially I was fascinated by archery and sought a balance to my former
mobile computing studies, which took place days and nights in front of the
computer monitor.
For me it was immediately clear that I would shoot only with a self-built
bow. The greatest fascination was and still is to make a bow with the simplest
means and the least amount of money.
Terminal shoot of a yew. After the bowyer‘s-fever had seized me, my
father and I planted more yew trees on our property. Partial shade and
lean soil are very suitable for these trees. Where other trees struggle,
yew feels comfortable. But do not forget that all plant parts of yew are
poisonous!

I did not expect the variety of possible bow designs and the knowledge that
is needed to build a bow.
On the one hand my curiosity was even more incited, and I was glad to
have found a topic that would fascinate me for many years to come.
On the other hand, I was not only slowed down by the sheer mass of information,
the undefined stress limits of the wood that must not be exceeded
and the freely selectable variables such as bow wood, limb width, bow
length, ... In my intention to build a simple bow, I was stopped.
The TBB offered a lot of valuable knowledge and gave me all the possibilities
and the liberty to build an infinite number of different bows.
But actually I would have searched for one particular sentence in the
book:
„Your first bow will be a longbow!“
Yew bark with the typical small shoots that drive out of the entire trunk.
Not only bark, wood and needles, but also the pollen of male yew is
poisonous.

The Longbow Module 1
Elaborately crafted longbow made of Osage Orange (origin Nebraska)
with deer rawhide backing, leather handle built on the back of the bow,
flax windings and buffalo horn overlays for the string nocks.

Your Bow
It does not always have to be Yew. Our well-available bow woods such
as Hazel, Maple, Ash, Elm and many more allow us to make outstanding
longbows. Longbows from white woods are in no way inferior in their performance
to the highly acclaimed yew bows and can even surpass them.
It is always important to adapt the bow design to the wood used. I will show
you how to assess the wood density, wood strength and restoring force of
bow woods and how to find out the right dimensions for your longbows.
Since very fine dust is released when debarking Yew staves, a high
quality dust mask should always be worn.
But you can make it much easier and less harmfull by using our wellavailable
bow woods such as hazel, ash, maple, ....

The Longbow Module 1
Hazel longbow built with the least expenditure of money and material.
In terms of performance, this bow is identical to the very costly Osage
longbow shown above.

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The Longbow Module 1
A selfbow can be a powerful weapon. While testing my first Ash bow,
one of the arrows was abruptly stopped. The high voltage power line
was split by a simple field point and the tip got stuck between the wires.
After a few cold days the arrow popped out again.
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This is how it continues in Module 1
Avoid inefficient tiller shapes
Long bows vs. short bows
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12

The Longbow Module 1
Minimizing Set und Stringfollow
Longbows vs. Flatbows
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Module 2
Trees and bow wood - Basics
Wood structure,
quality determination,
wood moisture, wood
strength, modulus of elasticity,
X-ray pictures with exact density
profiles, mechanical properties of
wood, elasticity, flexibility, restoring
force, ... and much
more.
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The Longbow Module 1
CLICK HERE,
to unlock class 1
15

Module 3
Saplingbows - Bows made from
small diameter trees
Buildalong for a Longbow
incl. Tillering and Video
Wood harvesting,
drying, defect handling,
storage, curvature correction,
correct use of tools, increasing efficiency,
how to avoid set, stringfollow
and chrysalis,
bow finishing
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to unlock class 1
16

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The Longbow Module 1

Module 4
The Ash Snake
Making of a Character bow
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The Longbow Module 1
Proper handling
of torsions, grain
alignment, deadwood,
bark defects, character
bow tillering, tip reinforcements,
...
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to unlock class 1
19

Module 5
Draw Knife - Bowyer‘s hatchet
Handling and
hand posture, cut
types, prevention of fiber
tearing, methods for fast
wood reduction, blade
steel, blade shapes,
...
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The Longbow Module 1
CLICK HERE,
to unlock class 1
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