Hi it's Tod here and I've got a film for you today where I hang out with Joe Gibbs and we
talk bows and we look at his workshop and he goes and shoots in the field. We talk about accuracy,
we just hang out. Now the intention was to use it as part of the fundraising drive for
our Arrows versus Armour 2 film but we've raised all the money. Thank you guys,
you are just amazing with that. Everything that we want to do in this block of filming
we can do, but right now just enjoy the film. It's a nice one. Myself and Joe talking.
Hi it's Tod from Tod's Workshop and I'm here in Joe Gibbs's workshop. The reason I'm here is that
three years ago Joe and I made a film with some friends, called "Medieval myth busting:
Arrows versus Armour" and we're back and we're back bigger and stronger and with definitely more
armour, so we're doing the helmet, we're doing the helmet, the neck defences, the breastplate
again. We're going to shoot the breastplate from the side, we're going to skid arrows up under the
neck, we're going to put cameras inside the helmet so we can see the arrows coming into the face,
we're doing all this stuff and the idea behind this new film is that we take the most accurately
made objects that we possibly can to do these tests with, otherwise it's just pointless
and part of that, not that he is an object, is Joe Gibbs. We've got to get it right, so Joe is
a phenomenal archer, but also he's a phenomenal bowyer with Hillbilly Bows as your company.
We're going to have the best bows and the best archer we can, with the best kit to do this job,
so that's why we're here, so Joe tell us about this bow. So it's it's the same bow
we used in the first video, so it's 160 pounds at 30 inches. I mean that's just monster yeah
for me. It's OK for you. It is a big bow made a Swiss yew. So we we know you need a certain
amount of draw weight to get you know a 75,80 gram arrow which is 1200 grains right to be moving fast
enough to do any damage. Our only reference is the bows of the Mary Rose. It is such a shame
that that's all we've got, but it's all we've got. Exactly that's all we've got, so this is
the same kind of grain ring count? Yeah same kind of density of wood so it should be giving
the same kinds of performance numbers and that's as good as we can be, that's as good as we can
be you know? Like you say, it's it's not one of the biggest bows off the ship for dimensions you
know I've looked at all the bows and they're from around 100 pounds right up to really big numbers
180 plus you know. The guy who was shooting the hundred pounder must have felt so inadequate.
So I've made a few bows Joe and I'm not brilliant at it and certainly nothing like this, so how long
have you been doing that? I can remember as a really small child sort of cutting some hazel
out of the thing and putting some binder twine on it and doing that, but making sort of actual bows,
selfie bows since I was 14. So really, self you at 14? Yeah 20 something years you know. Wow
so a long time yeah a lot of mistakes over the over the years but yeah that's how you learn
isn't it? Yeah it is, yeah but it still must hurt when you blow up a 400 pound ($500) piece of wood.
Yeah oh yeah definitely yeah but what I'm loving about your bench here is I know we've got a few
power tools here; chatting to you don't use them that much, not for self yew. I'm, I'm just looking
you know you've got an adze, so you've got planes, spokeshaves, side axe, rasps; they're medieval
tools, you know a Roman would know this stuff. Exactly you don't need anything else for a self
yew, I don't even put put lines down it, I may put a center line on it just so I know know where the
center is without having to re-measure it and stuff but apart from that it's all done by eye
you know, this isn't a particularly huge stave, but if you've got a really big stave and you draw
a line on it, um I don't know whether you've ever sawn on a piece of wood before and then it moves,
but if you're slowly uh working it down with a plane or a draw knife or something you can
correct those mistakes before, knots and faults in the wood are hidden yeah, so if you just cut
through the other bands or you've just cut right through that problem issue area yeah and you can't
fix it, whereas if you're slowly planing it you can "ah there's an issue there i can work
around that" or leave some wood there or or do something you know. That explains everything,
the reason that you are working like a medieval craftsman is that you have to work in the
medieval way, it's the best way, it's the best way to to you know, these staves are rare they're
hard to get hold of were even in medieval times, it was still hard to get a nice piece of wood,
expensive you know. Well I mean that that's interesting actually because
my understanding of it uh is that the wood that was generally used for English longbows
was not from England, you know the EU, but it was imported, so there's lots of laws about
if you import wine and things you have to bring in both staves and all that kind of stuff because the
wood wasn't available in quality and quantity from this country not from England. I mean,
can you make a decent bow out of English yew? Can do, I've made really good English yew bows um the
trouble is there's not that much you around so um you know in all all areas of the world you
get good you and bad, you but somewhere that's got a lot of you the percentage of good yew obviously
going to be a lot higher, so that's why no one really bothers with English yew. Could cut down
10 yew trees and they'll be rubbish, yeah somewhere where there a lot more you trees you
know your selection is going to be higher yeah and the rest just becomes firewood or whatever. Yeah
exactly, so what is it you look for when you're selecting a piece of wood to make a 140 pound
bow? Well what I like to do is instead of going "I've got a piece of wood here I'm going to force
this piece of wood to make 150 pound bow", but it might not be any good for that piece of wood um
so you'll only find that out once you're in there, when you're starting to work it down. So
I've got you know a few bows in storage that I've started to work and gone "that is not gonna make
that bow" and there's no point in forcing a high draw bow out of a piece of wood that's just not
going to make it, yeah you just make a rubbish bow and and vice versa. There's no point making
a hundred pound bow out of a piece of wood that's could make 160 bow, you've just wasted that wood
um so do you just part work it and then put a note on it yeah that's how you get the best bows
is not trying to force the bow out of the piece of wood. Yeah that piece of wood there I mean to me
okay there's a couple of little pins in it but fundamentally that looks like a
fantastic piece of yew. How does that compare with the bows that you saw in Mary Rose, I mean
better quality? Same quality? Pretty much same quality, they're all fairly high ring count you
know obviously very dense yeah really some of them are really high some of them were,
but medium but um yeah this one's probably got 50,60 rings to the inch um
it has a few knots in it but that's no big deal it's you you has is always it's just one of them
woods but basically what you're looking for is clean sap wood um straight and a high ring count
or as high as you can get. So with the Mary Rose, were any of the bows particularly notable well
you you would say to yourself i'd never tried that you know I wouldn't have made a bow out of
that bit wood? No they're all good, good bits of wood yeah. Okay so you've got your bow stave here,
now some of the people who are watching this know exactly how that becomes a bow other people have
got no idea at all; give us your your 30 second version of how you make a bow. Okay so basically
I'll get the stave, look down it measure the center, put a center line across it and then
in my head I can look down that and know what taper it needs to make make a bow oh you know
start off with a side axe and that pretty brutal yeah yeah just to take the real big meat off
and then probably go with the plane you know just to flatten everything up a bit,
yeah um for the belly you've got your yeah this is a lovely tool I love that, um perfect for just
just chipping away at the belly you know all the way down again, just all by eye, by eye yeah. And
do you put any flex on it by this point? No just all by eyes so you know that you're gonna have
something that's kind of about on the way yeah. But it's not about it's kind of bow-ish yeah and
then you have to it resemble a bow. yeah yeah it resembles yeah. It's interesting to see what
you're looking for really as you typically how you turn that now crudely shaped bit of wood, kind of
into something which bends and shoots and doesn't break. Yeah it's the first stages of tillering are
really critical in in a heavy bow so I mean it is extreme patience really it sounds like to me from
the beginning. Yeah because yeah I want to get on the power exactly. Um but you can't, no you can't,
the only power tool I use is a drill driver to drill the hole up the horn nock right apart from
that I said. You can get away with that. Could you just show us the basic what you're looking
for when you are tillering something because I'm always fascinated by that process. So tillering is
when you take the bow and you start to bend it and you look at the shapes and the curves of the bow
and you decide where to take material off and where you leave material, but yeah talk us through
it. Yeah so I've got a few bows um we'll chuck one up there and yeah see what it's like. Right
so you've got a roughed out bow on your tillering jig here and and then the long cable what's going
on yeah so the idea is you stand sort of eight, ten feet away minimum really so you can see the
whole bow see see what's going on so you've got to see the whole curvature the way the whole piece of
timber is it's curving basically. Yeah so you know difficulties like this, is slightly reflexed here
so obviously that's going to be earlier on that's going to be a lot stiffer than this deflex limb. I
don't know whether you can see this, so that one's curving down and that's curving up, exactly so you
know that's this is a really hard bow to tiller or something like this got some nasty knots down it,
has got some nasty nots, a piece of uh Italian yew. At first I'd only be pulling it to like here
to see what's going on for sort of like a first bend yeah it's it's actually looking alright you
know, there's no good pulling it down once and having a look because you need to see
the wood moving yeah so you got to keep moving it you kind of end up feeling it as well. Yep
and so let's just say that it's too stiff in this area yeah you're gonna do what, you're
gonna scrape away a little bit of wood? I'll take the thing out of the tiller, in the vice,
go over it with the scraper if it if it's not that much, if it's looking really stiff then
I'll probably get the rasp on it and then put it back in there, tiny bit, tiny bits,
tiny bits. Patience, patient. Yeah and then give it you know work it for a bit yeah. So I mean the
bow you're gonna be shooting for us against the helmet, how long does it take to make a
bow like that? It's probably like three or four days right from start to finish yeah three days.
If you're anything like me with my work, sometimes a piece will just fight you all the way, other
times it just flows and it's just easy. Yeah some bows can be pigs, just do not want to be tillered,
yeah they will fight you right up to the last point and some almost like this one actually
is looking pretty good straight away, you can spend you know a day tillering one and an hour
tillering the next one, so and you don't you don't know until it's on the table, no you don't know
until you start tillering it. Right so we found out a little bit about how you make the bows,
should we go and see you shoot? Yeah let's see if you're up to it. Let's go. Well here we are
in a bit of beautiful Dorset countryside and we've got Joe and a bow and we've got a knight target,
now he's got the vulnerable areas highlighted in red, so the face he's got his visor up,
uh around the neck, armpits, groin, so that's all the places which Joe as an archer is going
to want to be hitting. 25 meters what do you think? I reckon it should be pretty pretty okay,
i'll probably mainly be aiming for his breast plate just because you'd probably get some of
the weak points anyway from from aiming from that. I'll give it a good go, so I mean not every arrow
is going to do it. No not every arrow, but um you know if I did six arrows, I should be able to get
him in some vulnerabilities yeah . And I guess if you don't, your friends will. That's it, exactly
yeah you know. So visor up, if there's five of you shooting at him one of you is definitely going to
get him in the face, yeah let's watch you shoot Joe because it's a good thing to see. Good luck
Thank you
Nice! Can we see what you got?
So here we are with our guy, no warm-up,I mean that is just as impressive as heck. So we didn't
get him in the face, that's the first thing that we can see, but that's a strike on the helmet and
that would be interesting to know how loud that would have been, but like we said you didn't,
but one of your friends would have done. That one that's going to be trouble, that's going to
be big trouble because now that is either just above the breastplate, certainly above the V
yeah, maybe it's enough to skid up and under his neck, don't know. Those two though; absolute dead
certs right in the armpit, right there so that's his left arm, if not out definitely, in a lot of
trouble, I mean that's shoulder joint area, yeah. That one we know is not going to do anything
because we saw that in the last film yeah that's right that's obviously a miss and that is,
well might make him a bit deaf and certainly very worried, so out of those,
out of those six shots you have got three which are definitely danger, one a complete miss,
the other one an annoyance and that one is more of an annoyance. Knock him about a bit, that way yeah
yeah I mean it's going to make you nervous because what he is worried about is the arrows
coming through those air vents or those eye slits and uh there's there's only one archer isn't it,
you know, another six archers that's a lot of arrows yeah and he's had to already walk through
yeah a hundred yards, hundred meters of this, 200 meters of it you know. Oh good luck in yes right
well I think you need to go again so 50 meters can you hit the guy? Let's move him back and find out.
Why not let's do it. Out at 50 meters now, uh not a target bow obviously, warbow,
so built for power not accuracy. Can you? Yeah I reckon I can get a couple on him from here
yeah. Well let's find out, I mean going again cold so do you think?
My let's go see. Good stuff again Joe, so for me again this just illustrates two really important
things. One why we're going to be doing our filming and our testing at about 25 meters
yep because it allows you much better control obviously. Second thing is it's all luck
and chance isn't it? Now you had two misses, because he's got loads of people all around him,
behind him, those arrows weren't wasted, but then look at that one, let's hit him on the inside of
the gauntlet just under the thumb there almost certainly no armour, or if there is it's mail
right close to the skin. He's lost his thumb yeah but the other thing actually about this one of
course is it's not very far from another danger zone you know, well you got to remember, so him
walking forwards he's just getting hit constantly with just odd arrows, the mental aspect of walking
into arrows must be absolutely crazy because it might not penetrate, but you've only got the word
of the armourer that your armour is steel you know, you can't tell how good your armour is
until somebody starts sticking arrows, until you've got one, yeah. Well thanks Joe I mean
just great to see you shoot every single time, but what I'd love to do is see you do some
long stuff too, so can we just go for some full full distance? Definitely, let's go. Lovely
right let's see you shoot for distance take it away, let's go.
And down. Goodness. I didn't follow that one
And down., They are up for a long time
and those are big arrows. Yeah uh half inch bob tail down to three eighths. (12.5mm to 9.5mm)
Down
So Joe before you do that next challenge, only just thought this,
can you get two in the air at the same time? I can give it a go, yeah, yeah,
it's a big bow mind. Yeah, yeah its all right, you doing it, not me, i don't mind! Okay ready.
Yeah easy, so first one's down you could have got a third off actually. Just about,
me yeah yeah just about but yeah. Oh brilliant Joe, really good, so let's go see how far they
went, have a look and call the day after that. Yep that was great to see Joe, especially like
the two arrows in the air, but you ever done that before? Never done that before no. You will do it
again? Maybe yeah, give it a go. But anyway what we all want to know is we're shooting 273 yards,
245 meters and for such big bits of wood yeah you know that's a good distance you know. They're not
flight arrows or anything, heavy 70 gram arrows you know, they pack a punch when they hit still
at this this range so. And that is what we want to find out in a few weeks time yeah,
so we're going to see this for real, come and join us, helmet, Joe Gibbs, bow. Let's make it happen
guys, check the notes out, come and donate. Joe, pleasure as ever. Cheers. thank, you thank you.
I hope you enjoyed Joe and I just hanging out really, but remember it is not a fundraising film
that's what its intention was, wasn't needed, couldn't really edit it out and leave a good film,
so just ignore it. We've got all the money we want for the stretch goals and the main
film itself, so thank you very much. You have been amazing, see you another time.