Hi it's Tod of Tod's Workshop and Tod Cutler here and today we're going to
talk about this which is a 14th century munition grade crossbow made by myself
with a faux composite, a fake composite bow. Fake is a bit of a dodgy word I know,
but I'll explain what I mean by that. Basically around about 1,300
maybe 1330 steel crossbow limbs started to come in. Before that they were wood or
they were composite. Now composite is a mixture of components, two components
put together which is horn and sinew and then obviously the glue to hold them
together and then a waterproof outer covering. Those bows were very
powerful, very fast, but very, very labor-intensive to make. So the steel
ones came in I suspect, I mean none of us know, but I suspect really because
they're virtually maintenance-free and they're very reliable and once you get
one working as long as you don't overdraw it, it's basically gonna stay
working. Yes they can fracture, but so can a composite bow. The injury you're going
to get off a fracture off a steel bow is higher but you know if you over
stress them during manufacture and then the the actual draw length is lower
during use the chance of you actually getting an accident are fairly low. What
I would say is in the modern context when I make bows the steel is much
better, it's a homogenous steel, its computer-controlled in the heat
treating. I treat them so that they will bend, not fracture, so my bows will not
break. Historically that was not the case. But coming back to the horn and sinew
bows they are very difficult and very time-consuming to make. I don't know how
to do it, if I could do it would I do it commercially? Probably not, because the
amount of time involved, you're never going to get that money back, so I stick
with steel bows. Now that's a bit of a problem obviously if I go back into the
14th century because certainly at the start and a long way through the 14th
century and even really into the 15th for sort of Central European bows they
didn't use steel, they tended to use composite. So what I've done here, is I've
taken a steel bow and I've clad it with some wood and then an
outer covering to make it look like, or reasonably like a composite bow. This way
allows you to get a bow at a reasonable cost, good reliability and reasonably
good performance. There is a slight drop on performance because you've got an
outer covering with some mass in it. Now if we come back to the composite bows as
they were because the glue that they use is usually a fish glue, swim bladder glue,
but the fish the glue that they use is not proof against water, so you have to
keep moisture out of it, and I wonder perhaps why they weren't so popular in
England because of that and that reason. Although Germany is not too dry either
but for whatever reason they were never enormously popular in this country. But
it does mean that you have to have an outer covering to keep the moisture out,
now in this case I've used the waxed linen, very often, even on military
bows you get beautifully painted and beautifully finished bows but this is
a munition grade bow, this is made to a price. Make to a price now, but it's
copying the ones that were made to a price back then and so the super fancy
decoration wasn't there. But if you do want to see some extraordinary composite
bows modern ones that are made and used. It's a guy called Andreas Bichler you'll
find him on YouTube German guy (actually Austrian), never met him, don't know him, but his work is
extraordinary. So go check his stuff out. So if we come back to this bow we've got
an ash stock, very plain and these sort of munition grade bows from this period
really were quite plain they're almost like they are sawn out of a plank, a couple
of side plates here, cheek plates, which reinforce the whole lock area and the
trigger system. One of the reasons for that is the nut is obviously eccentric
and an eccentric force as it vibrates, as it goes around
so without the plates here, this area is quite susceptible to chipping out. Then
we've got a bone deck on here, a bolt groove, the customer requested that on
this. Linen string, hemp bindings and it's there again the stirrup is slightly
later design than I'd usually put on this period of bow but it's what the
customer wanted. Then we have these two lugs here and these are for a goat's
foot lever. So this bow here is is running around
about 470 pounds something like that in draw weight, so that is two hundred and
twenty, two hundred ten kilos. I can't pull that, can never pull that, but with the use of
a goats foot lever what I am able to do is use the mechanical advantage. I've got
another video on these actually which explains all the different spanning
methods, but I can do that and pull it back and you can see here, I'm actually
suspending it on one finger at that point, so that allows me to draw the bow.
Now what this guy also wanted because the goats foot lever was around but in
the 14th century spanning belts were also around, he wanted this one set so
that it was able to use a spanning belt and that is what this little lug at the
back here is for. So I'll just show you the detail parts again so if we start
with the bow here you can see it is quite thick, composite
bows were thick. We've got more of our 15th century style stirrup at the front,
hemp bindings, with this sort of standard tensioning knot that you have there on
crossbows. Steel cheek plates, trigger (actually nut), fairly straightish bar. 14th century
crossbows had fairly straight trigger bars on the whole and you can see again
the stuff is rather boring, and then at the back here we've just got the little
lug where the spanning belt connects. I'll show you how to span this with a
spanning belt in a moment. We're going back now
so the spanning belt is here, so it's tough. It's three and a half, four
millimeter thick leather, nice forged steel, ring hemp cords and then a doubler
pulley. That eye there is what loops, hangs, on the peg on the stock.
Now the doubler pulley is important because as i said this thing is around
about four hundred and seventy pounds in draw weight. I can do it with the goats foot lever.
I cannot span this by hand and I cannot span it just with a regular
spanning belt, I can draw around 200 pounds in draw weight,
I'm not a bodybuilder but I'm an active guy, yeah with some practice I could
probably do a bit more. I'm 200; with the spanning belt I can get up to about 250
280 maybe a little bit more, never really looked to be honest, and spanning belts no
longer just rely on this, on your back muscles and on your arm muscles. They now
rely on your leg muscles as well because you crouch down and you stretch up. So
you've now got your whopping thigh muscles and your back muscles coming
into play and even your arms a bit. So you can with a spanning belt, draw more
than you can just with a regular hand span. That still is going to get me
nowhere near the 470 pounds of this bow. So what you then have is a doubler pulley.
Now as we all know, a straight pull is a one-to-one ratio, with the doubler pulley
you have got a two-to-one ratio. So you can draw twice the weight that you can
draw without it. The disadvantage and I'll show you this in a moment, is that
the movement you have to go through is much bigger, because of course you've now
got twice the movement needed than if it was a straight pull. So they're a bit
awkward and I don't particularly like doubler belts, don't like spanning belts
at all actually, but they were effective and it means that you can use it now to
get up to I guess if you're practiced maybe 500 pounds in draw weight. But. You
might think that it would be a straight two-to-one but actually it's not quite
that way because these have not got proper bearings in them, they're
just running steel on steel so you do get friction losses in these doubler
pulley systems. So I'll reset now and show you how it's loaded standing up
because that's where you do it, with the goats foot lever and with a spanning
belt. First up I'm going to show you the goats foot lever, so with that one what
you need to do is set the nut so the teeth are just slightly down because
it's the string striking the back of the nut that rotates it around and locks
it in position.
I'm just opening up the goats foot bring that in the crease between my body and
my leg, nice positive lock on the trigger.
Now for the spanning belt. So first of all the buckle goes at the back, but you
can't buckle it up. It needs to be tight, needs to be high above the waist.
You can twist it around and this of course rather an inelegant looking object,
it's very difficult to run in it, so I imagine if you're a crossbow man, the
first thing you'd do if you had to run, is to ditch the belt. Previously the
nut is in this position here, right that's how it works for the goats foot.
But this time you need to engage the nut and you hook the the cord over, hook the
string over it. now get it on, get it central then what you do you hook your
foot in give it a little pull, hook your foot in, you can push down there and the
whole thing....... then we're in. So as you can tell I'm really at the limit as to what I'm
able to do. So that's it a 14th century faux composite munition
grade crossbow. Faux composite because it's got a steel bow in here but it's
made to look pretty much like a composite bow. Thank you very much