Archer's New Bow, Katherine
Archer's bow is 14 hands long, measured along the belly of the bow and highly reflexed, the distance between the tips being nearer 12 1/2 hands. The girth of the bow near the centre is about 3 inches tapering gradually to each end. Completely covered with birch-bark of a rich brown-red colour, with very smooth and glossy, almost satiny, surface. It has been laid on in small rectangular pieces, each wound transverseley round until one edge meets and overlaps the other a small distance. The adjacent pieces of bark join one another so as to leave no space between, and in this way they form continuous weatherproof sheath from end to end, at the same time protecting the delicate structure of the bow, and hiding its complexity from view. It's currently unstrung and other than the hints of carving he plans for it, it's polished to a high gloss. Archer's few tracings on it will resemble Irish knotwork, if he had ever encountered it to make the comparison, on the top and bottom of the bow with a small bit around the grip.The materials used in the construction of the bow are: yew, birch, black horn, sinews of animals, birch-bark and glue. The central core or "backbone", consists of a piece of yew tapering toward the ends, which runs the whole length of the bow. This wood is flattened to an oblong in cross section. The surfaces are roughly scored with grooves to give a hold to the glue. Against the edges of this core are glued side-strips of a harder birch, with flattened inner and rounded outer surfaces. These strips also run the whole length of the bow, and are wider than the thickness of the core, and by thus overlapping the edges, make a kind of shallow channel along each face. In each of these channels lies a wide strip of dense black horn from the fallen bison, extending to the extremeties of the limbs.
These strips exactly fill the channels, the strip along the back being thinner than the one along the belly, corresponding with the shallower channel. The inner faces of the horn strips are scored with grooves, in the same manner as the central wooden core and side strips, to which they are firmly glued. Overlying the thicker horn strip is a second strip of the same and of nearly equal width, rather more than 1/16 inch thick at its center and bevelled away to nothing at the edges. This produced a kind of low ridge along the belly of the bow in the central line. The horn strips are laid out in pairs meeting at the center.
Overlying the thinner horn strip which occupies the channel along the back of the central core, is a thick mass of longitudinal disposed sinew, taken from the neck and back of the buffalo to form dense layers nearly 3/16 inch near the centre of the bow, becoming reduced toward the ends, as is the case with the horn strips, This sinew 'backing' is lapped round the edges of the bow, and enclose the two side strips of wood.
Near the ends of the bow, sinews are wound transversely round the whole, so as to bind the parts firmly together, and enable them to withstand, the great strain at these points.
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