Hi,

I have just completed this bow based on an original on page 3 of www.digitarc.com and thought a few of you may like to see it. I know myArmoury is mainly a blade site, but although I am an avid knife maker I am going through a bit of a crossbow stage at the moment! There are a number of differences which are principally there due to budgetry constraints, but I tried to capture the essence of the bow and hope I suceeded.

The stock is of walnut with bone plaques and inlay, the bow is of steel and is in fact a quite modest 180llb but it is still quite a goer and the string is linen and is bound on with hemp cord with a leather top binding. The nut is antler and is bound on with waxed/greased hemp cord. The bolt clip is from an antler tine that took some searching to find.

I made a change to the shape of the trigger bar partly because I didn't like the original, especially the after market binding and it was also positioned too far out to be comfortable.

I hope you like it.

Tod

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Quite nice Tod, as are the other crossbows on your site. As I'm sure you know, the myArmoury team strongly encourages discussion and posting of historic arms and armour of any type and origin, not just blades. :) So thank you for sharing this one and rekindling my interest.

Quite nice as the browsing goes. :D

Very nice work on the crossbow: With the metal crosspin in the mid to rear stock I assume that this for some sort of pivot point for a cocking mechanism ? Cranequin or goatsfoot level: Just curious. :D

Since the draw is 180 pounds one could hand draw it with the stirrup and/or a belt hook.

Oh, and the site does seem to be mostly a sword or blade one but this is mostly because it's the main interest of a large proportion of the members who post here but any historical weapons related subject is welcome as Gabriel mentioned.
( Although as a moderator his opinion is official and mine is just an opinion, but I wanted to say that I personally enjoy learning about a wide spectrum of historical related subjects. :D :cool: ).

As always, nice work! I checked out your site again today. You've been doing a lot of crossbows recently. Looks like fun. :)

To repeat what has been said, we don't try to be a blade-oriented forum. That's just what people keep asking about. :) We want to be a resource for all aspects of arms and armour. If more people post non-blade topics, we'd discuss them. I'm happy to learn new things as are many others.

After all, we can't discuss things if no one posts them. :)

Just looking at the moment but for an interesting but not expensive first purchase this might be nice:
http://www.todsstuff.co.uk/slings.php

I guess sending an e-mail is the easiest way to find out, but there are no payment/shipping information that I could find on the site ? Just curious ? Creditcard, Paypal, other ?

I guess that Chad could give a quick answer to that for the U.S.A. ? In my case it would be Canada. ;) :D

I've been curious about slings for a while by the way and anybody knowledgeable in the history and use of the sling should start a Topic. ( Hint, Hint ).

Nice site for slings here . ;) : http://www.slinging.org/

The Todd stuff site shows a great deal of variety and many " tempting " things: One baselard dagger is very " Tempting ":
http://www.todsstuff.co.uk/baselardstwo.php

Thanks Chad: Yes I think I saw those things in the review and that other Topic about the baselard, but it was way in the back of my mind and didn't re-read the review, so I forgot about it. :blush: :D

In any case in my " defence " asking the question may have helped others who may have not read the review or forgot about some important details ......... and may also have not found that information on his site. ;) :cool:

hi Tod,

Very nice work. I've seen your stall at Laverick's market and like a lot of your pieces. We have a stall on the other end of hall, but of course it's pretty hard to take a very good sampling of our stuff over from CA. Anyway...

I've got a 500# prod and crannequin that I had made by a chap named Mikal Dabek (a Polish gent living in Quebec) several years ago. My intent was to make the tiller and finish the piece myself, but the big stumbling block was finding the horn for the table. I looked at importing some camel bone scales from India, and even thought of scaling out some of the bone dog-chews sold over here, but neither seemed a good option.

I hope you might be willing to suggest a source for bone scale material like you used on your crossbow table. It's just for my own personal use. I'd love to get this piece finished at long last. Any help would be appreciated.

That crossbow look so cool :D

Thanks everybody for your input and I will certainly do all I can to post up a few more bows as there seems to be a run on these here in Oxford at the moment and I have a very special one on the way............

There is a long and tedious story about the weight of the bow, but yes 160-175 which is what this measures out at is light enough to hand draw and in fact I loaded it by sitting on my bum and putting my feet inside the bow to span it but the lugs are for a cranequin that is not yet made.

Jeffrey, seeing as I bought a green velvet doublet, black hose and a shirt from you this spring I suspect I have noticed your stall and thanks for the compliments and I will make sure I come over and introduce myself to you properly this fall seeing as I didn't when I cam shopping before. You can buy camel bone slabs at about 35mm wide by 300mm long (1.25" x 12" ish) from www.highlandhorn.co.uk at about $12 a pair plus shipping. it is dense, hard and works easily.

On the note of slings, they are great and more people should play with them. You can dowload instructions on how to use one from my site from the instructions page. I once found the perfect beach and ended up having to make a leather 'ring' because I threw so many stones my finger was getting raw. Egg duelling is also fun.

Tod

Simply fabulous.

I really cannot wait until such time as I can afford to add something by Tod to my tiny-yet-growing collection of... stuff :)

Jean Thibodeau

Quote:

How is shipping to Canada like ? I haven't committed to a purchase YET but if I don't order something major soon I might just order a sling sooner. ( If I do buy something like a dagger I might combine it with the sling for a single purchase/parcel ).

Shipping is annoying from the UK because it is not easy to precalculate and I suspect quite expensive and anything airmail over 2 KG (4.4llb) goes through the roof. My usual solution is to charge a fee that I think will be in the right area and sometimes I win and sometimes I lose.

As a rough guide (by Royal Mail) a small thing like a sling will be £6 a dagger would be £15 and a sword may be as much as £40-50 and these prices would include insurance. Airmail should take about 4-6 days to either US or Canada and I can ship by sea which makes heavy things much cheaper and will take 3-4 weeks. Courier charges like Fed Ex etc will come in more expensive as I don't post the volume to get good rates.

I hope this helps

Tod

Thanks for the reply: Shipping costs are a relative thing, even when high, and by that I mean that for a small inexpensive item the shipping cost can double or more the total cost. For an expensive purchase +/- $20 or more is proportionally less a disincentive to purchase something over $500.

Good reason to combine something inexpensive with something expensive that can be shipped as one package: The sling wouldn't add bulk or weight to the package and should add zero to the shipping cost.

A bunch of varied stuff combined would vary depending on weight and bulk I guess. ;) :D

What is really funny is that shipping one paperclip would cost around $12 Canadian for something of zero value or close to it.
:eek: :p :lol:

Airmail taking 4 to 6 days is pretty good, and as with USPS, I imagine that Canada Post takes over when the package crosses into Canada and there should be " tracking " ?

I would have taken this to P.M. or e-mail for specific answers dealing with an actual purchase but posted this here as the information should be useful to many. ( Will go to e-mail when/if I'm more than just " talking ": Mostly have to budget my purchases considering other custom stuff in the pipeline ).

Very nice looking crossbow! I've been researching/buying crossbows lately because I'd like to make my own eventually. It's great to see what's out there. I appreciate all weapons so it's great to see reviews/posts about crossbows, longbows ICBM's etc... :lol: