Are round staves a solution for a "bowless" country

@fabian 24825 wrote:

Up to this time I use unpeeled rattan as stuff for my bows. I’m medium satisfied with them. I can haul out the two axled waggon with manure with the cow team, but I think that I can not use the whole power of the team without the risk of bending the bows.
Then I tried to bend wooden bows from white ash. Ihave a professionel steamtube, which not only produces steam but also pressure. After some more or less successless attempts the last bending worked satisfying. But bending is it not alone. The effort after bending is high.
Considering that I have a “real” job in which I should spend more time than in my passion, I wrote a mail to Alyson Bronnenberg asking her whether she would be willing to ship oxbows overseas, AFTER getting the money for them. But up to now I didn’t get an answer. Perhaps she thought my mail was a spam…….
Then I read at Tiller’s (I read much and much about neck yokes, oxbows aso. last time) http://www.tillersinternational.org/oxen/resources_techguides/ImprovingOxYokesTechGuide.pdf
that they improved ox yokes with a dropped hitchpoint aso.
A picture of an improved ox yoke in areas where bendable wood can not be found you can see at the last page. The use round staves instead of bows.
Because I have round wooden staves enough in my workshop I considered this a solution for me. Tomorrow I will test it with hauling out a waggon of manure.
Where do you see the drawbacks of staves to bows ?
Would like to get many answers. (one shortfall is that I need for every stave a pin, but if this is the worst drawback I can live with it.:) )

Thanks
Wolfgang

P.S. How can I delete pics in this forum ?
In the past I attached some pics with a big size and it seems that my account of pics is limited at 10 MB. I would prefer to attach more but smaller pics in this forum because my account is nearly “filled”.

The staves must be a lot easier to yoke up with. How about replacing the cords on the bottom with a hinged wood piece that would fasten to the opposite stave with a pin?

I don’t know when you tried to contact Alyson, but she just had a baby in January. I suppose she’ll be back to work now. Try her again.
If you’ve contacted Tillers, ask them about using PVC pipe. For some of the smaller yokes we’ve done that. Apparently, Tillers is using a heavy duty PVC to make bows in some of the African countries where they are training teamsters.
oxnun

My stepdad is a wood craftsguy, he can steam and bend things – if anybody could give him exact dimensions etc I’m sure he could do this? He’s up for carving a yoke for me one day so I’m sure the extra business would be welcome?

Well I checked with my stepdad just now and he says he’s perfectly happy to do this for the european people 🙂

if people know what sort of wood they want and what size they need – feel free to contact….Obviously neither of us know much about yokes, so you need a clear idea of what you want! Likewise yokes. pricing would depend on what you want, we’d have to give you a quote.

I have a tame harness maker and if stepdad can copy my wooden hames, we’ll be able to provide 3pad harnesses too 🙂

Not asking you to – but I know there’s others in europe looking.