Making English Longbows from Common Woods

The question has been asked a million times - "Will _____ wood make an English Longbow?"

I'll refer to them instead as D-bows, because the design was quite widespread throughout history and is relied on by several of the remaining hunter-gatherer tribes to this day.

Several different trees are used for traditional English longbows -- most famously Yew -- but also Ash and Elm which were referred to as the "meanewoods". The Native American longbowmen of the eastern seaboard preferred Mulberry, Hickory, and Black Locust.

Many of the archery books and bowyers' forums repeat the same mantra : these woods are not suitable for a D-shaped cross section. If you do make one from, say, hickory -- it'll follow the string terribly, have subpar performance, and most likely fail in compression.

You sure about that?

In this video, we examine D-bows made from common backyard hardwoods. After running my own tests on dozens of longbows made from second-string woods over the past 18 months or so, I've decided to respectfully disagree.

Let me know what you think in the comments below. If you have experience with meanewood longbows, I'd love to hear about it.

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