Willow for bows

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  • October 9, 2009 at 3:18 pm #40919
    bivol
    Participant

    hi!

    there is a restaurant up in the old town where they serve the best lamb minced steaks, but they also have some old ox yokes.
    on one of them (the type with bows) i noticed the bow is probably a bent willow shoot. now, i have no experience with willow and its use, so i wonder if they (thumb-thick willow branch) are strong enough to be used as a bow… if they indeed could be, it could solve me lots of problems bending bows.

    the size of the yoke doesn’t mean much, here the oxen were harnessed with surprisingly small yokes, so i don’t know the size of ox.
    the yoke is a single yoke similar to a new england yoke.

    i do know willow shoots have to be soaked in water to become bendable.

    anyone have experience with willow for bows?

    October 9, 2009 at 9:36 pm #54422
    CharlyBonifaz
    Member

    anyone have experience with willow for bows?

    Fabian!may be pm him….

    October 10, 2009 at 7:50 pm #54423
    fabian
    Participant

    do you mean yokes like these ? :
    http://www.istrianet.org/istria/fauna/cattle/boskarin-album.htm

    May be that I repeat myself again:
    I use Rattan-bows. The can easy be bent and are strong enough for the daily work. May be, that they will bent under heavy draft(like pulling contests), but if the Rattan has a good quality, they won’t break.

    October 10, 2009 at 8:53 pm #54421
    bivol
    Participant

    yes, Wolfgang, similar to these, only squarer in the neck seat.

    i knew you use rattan, but rattan is a type of palm, while willow, in part. white willow (salix alba) is a tree.
    does willow act similar to rattan under stress?
    i mean a thumb-thick willow?

    i wanted to use willow because unlike iron pipes, it makes possible to bend bows like a falling drop of water.
    such bows need to be a little bent to go over the neck, possible with willow, not so possible with iron.
    and besides, willow seems less trouble to bend than ladonja, that i’d have to use otherwise to make a traditional style histrian yoke.
    they use “ladonja” for bows, a tree from the elm family. don’t be confused by its latin name Celtis Australis, “celtis” comes from the greek word “celt”, which means “the one who drives”, or “the whip”, as ladonja was both tough and bendable, and was used for making sticks and whips, and “australis” means “southern” as this tree was.
    don’t know how they bent them, though.

    i guess more research next year:rolleyes:

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