Jousi

[MikaNuotio]

[Kuvat HH archerystä ovat poissa koska linkin ennättivät vanhentua]

Tuossa pitää jonkin verran korjata puheitaan sillä ainakaan nykyisiä Howard Hill Archeryn jousia ei ilmeisesti tehdä mitään ilman lasikuituvatsaa ja selkää. Olen mielestäni nähnyt mm oikeita bambu vatsaisia jousia ja pitänyt itsestään selvyytenä että mm Marjakuusi ja Osage vatsat tehtäisiin myös puolipyöreänä ilman lasikuitua mutta ilmeisesti sitten eivät ole kuitenkaan kyseisen firman tekemiä malleja koska sain customointipyyntöön vastauksena seuraavaa:
"I am guessing that someone could make this, but we don't build any bows without fiberglass on the belly..."

No ainakin 1942 Ben Pearson Bow katalogissa oli vielä maininta vanhemmista bambujousista...
"Howard Hill Bamboo Bows
The patented construction of this bow (patent No. 2,256,946) permits the use of only the hard outside shell of the bamboo in full length strips which are tapered from the handle to the ends of the bow. The natural contour of the bamboo is followed in gluing and is protected by a backing of vulcanized fibre. Deep narrow handle with special leather grip and built in arrow rest."
"The fiber that they are refering to is not fiberglass, but a different material. Fiberglass wasn't released to the public until after WWII. Howard first started using it on his bows in 1947. When he did, he used it on both the back and the belly."
"The last time Howard made a self bow was 1947."

Osittain olin siis väärässä eli HH jouset ovat kaikki olleet sitten vuoden 1947 jälkeen lasikuitujousia eikä HH enään puujousia tehnyt. Kuitu mitä käytettiin vuotta 1947 ennen ei ollut lasikuitua jotakin muuta kuitua. Ennen lasikuitujousia HH käytti muitakin jousia kuin kuituvahvisteisia jousia ja HH koetti lähes kaikki mahdolliset vaihtoehdot ennen kuin lasikuitu jousimateriaalina vei voiton helppoudellaan.

Q "Dosent even modern glue get tired when join wood and fiberglass ?"
A "Yes, you are right that the glues might eventually get tired. The reason that Howard went to using glue was that he could spend many hours building a self bow only to have it break in just a short time. So he started laminating woods together for more strength even before going to fiberglass..."

Eli jopa Howard Hill jousten valmistaja on sitä mieltä että nykyaikaisetkin liimat ovat kovilla kun yhdistetään lasikuitua ja puuta keskenään mutta siinä on samalla valotettu syytä siihen miksi HH alkoi laminoida puujousia jo ennen näitä kuitu- ja lasikuitujousia.
Sellaisilla jotka haluavat keskittyä vain tai ainoastaan ampumiseen ei juuri ole aikaa tehdä jatkuvasti jousia. HH suositteli kuitenkin että olisi hyvä tehdä ainakin yksi jousi itse.

"The H.H. bow is more a slim flatbow with a deep(high) handle, glued on. First Hill bows were english D-shaped longbows. Later Mr. Hill starts to glue on the typical handles. Some H.H. bows (the latter with glass backing) were tillerd by rounding the belly so they look like having a D-crosscut. In Craig Ekin´s book "Howard Hill - the man and the Legend" you can see some of Howard´s early selfbows and some glass backed bows. Mr. Ekin´s H.H.-Archery longbows are still copies of the true Hill style longbow."

Ainakin filmissä The Last Wilderness (1935) Howard ampuu vielä ns Englantilaisella pitkäjousella.

Lisää otteita omasta sähköpostistani:

"He always used the "D" shaped self or self composite bows as that was all there was. After the development of fiberglass, he tried it on one of his bows and liked it so much that he never went back to the self bow."

"After the development of fiberglass, he tried it on one of his bows and liked it so much that he never went back to the self bow. He once said that he made his living shooting the bow."

"He once said that he made his living shooting the bow. It was to his advantage to shoot the best he could. So he shot the longbow and shot the best one he could make."

"I have a couple of bows from the 20's and 30's that are laminated and not just from one piece of wood."

"You are right... longer bows are more stable. I was comparing equal lengths and refering to less likelihood of twisting and more consistency."

Täyspuisiakin versioita vielä löytyy HH tyylisistä jousista joita kutsutaan varsinaisesti Amerikkalaisiksi Pitkäjousiksi sanan varsinaisessa merkityksessä. Tyypillistä varsinkin näille jousille on usein puolipyöreä vatsa mikäli vatsa on tehty muusta puusta kuin bambusta. Esimerkiksi John Schulzin jouset joka oli Howard Hillin oppilas ja Hitting 'em Like Howard Hill kirjan kirjoittaja.

Sellaista jousta ei olekkaan jossa olisi lasikuitua selässä ja puuta vastsassa... Schulzin oppilaat vain tekevät pyöreämpänä vatsan jolloin sivusta näyttäisi ihan kuin siinä ei olisikkaan lasikuitua ja kuitenkin on. Ainoastaan John Schulz itse tekee täyspuisia jousia joita aloitti tekemään kymmenisen vuotta sitten tehden siihen asti lasikuitujousia. Ilmeisesti lasikuidun työstäminen ja pöly kävi hermoille.

"Allwood American Longbow by Schulz graduate Van Normand from Wildfork Archery." John Schulz jousien hinta on jopa lähes kaksi kertaa kalliimpia kuin Howard Hill Archeryn lasikuitujousien.

[MikaNuotio]

Wanha Howard Hill artikkeli:

From Popular Science Magazine - 1935

Hunting Wild Beasts

ARMED only with a bow and arrows, a hunter stood on a slope of the high Wyoming Rockies and swept the surrounding country with his glasses. Suddenly he ?froze,? as the lenses picked out a huge bighorn on the side of a mountain six miles away. The sheep seemed to be staring directly at him; in fact, bighorns have been known to see a man as far as ten miles away.

Without moving, the hunter called to his companion to bring the horses up within view of the sheep, and told him to keep the animals in that spot until sun-down. Noting carefully the exact spot where the sheep stood, he faded among the trees and set out along a hogback leading to the distant range.

For five hours he slipped and climbed over slick rocks. Crawling carefully be-hind the crown of the mountain, keeping himself always hidden from the object of his long hunt, he advanced around a small promontory with an arrow ready to fly to the mark. As he raised his head slowly over the crest, he saw, not a hundred feet distant, two powerful horns, then the head. After having kept his lone vigil a full half day, the sheep continued to watch the distant horses and their keeper.

Rising silently, the archer loosed an ar-row. As the deadly, steel head struck the animal in the neck, the sheep leaped into the air like a tarpon. A second arrow crashed through his right leg. Four times the bighorn leaped, then fell 300 feet down the mountain side and slumped, dead? the first ovis canadensis known to have been stalked and killed by a hunter using bow and arrows.

It was Howard Hill, famous Alabama archer, who went west and bagged the monarch of the moun-tains. Though still only in his early thirties, Hill has proved many times that steel-tipped arrows in his hands possess the deadly accuracy and killing pow-er of bullets from modern rifles.

This man?s list of tro-phies reads like a catalogue of the animal world. He has loosed arrows at charg-ing wild boars, black bears, buffaloes, wild jackasses, and wildcats when a miss would have meant death; he has killed sting rays and sharks as they sunned themselves off the Florida coast, rattlers and rabbits on the desert; possums and coons in southern pines; fish, alligators, and snakes in the bayous and canals of the South, and birds on the wing.

Trained by the Seminole Indians to stalk game warily, Hill dresses for the part. He never appears in solid blue or khaki, whether in the Big Cypress swamps of the South, in Canadian birch, or on the Mohave Desert, but camouflages himself by wearing dark, mixed colors. Hill is so accurate that he never hunts ?backed up? by a gun bearer, for he can pump five arrows into an enraged animal with the rapidity of a repeating rifle. His concave broadheads possess a penetrating power equal to that of steel-jacketed bul-lets. Equipped with an English-type bow five feet, ten inches long made of Florida snake-wood or split, laminated bamboo, requiring a 110-pound pull, he will face any killer of North American forest or swamp, confident that he can send at least one killing shot into the chest cavity before the beast reaches him. The spring-steel broadheads which Hill designed for his own hunting pro-vide a cutting width of one and one eighth inches. He has, on oc-casion, driven such an arrow entirely through the body of an infuri-ated 1,000-pound black bear as it lunged straight for him.

Begin where you like, on a western des-ert, in the Wyoming Rockies, or deep among Florida pines, and you?ll probably pick a spot where Hill has stood silent with his bow, awaiting that split second when he could loose a feathered messenger of death.

On the Mohave Desert, the other day, he observed a coyote mother bringing a rabbit to her young. Before she reached her den where the babies lay waiting for their breakfast, a wildcat stumbled across her path. The coyote dropped the rabbit and sailed into the wildcat. So furiously did the battle rage that neither animal saw the hunter as he crept up on them. He approached within twenty-five yards before nocking an arrow and, with a snap shot, drove an arrow through the cat.

Meanwhile, a second wildcat, apparent-y thinking it was anybody?s fight, ap-proached from the side of the trail. See-ing his first arrow fly true to the mark, Hill whirled, nocked another, and, from a distance of fifty yards, loosed this one at the unsuspecting intruder. Shot through the heart, the desert maurauder died in-stantly, not knowing what had struck him.

At the end of a long hunt on the Sho-inone Reservation in Wyoming, Hill dropped on one knee, took careful aim, and fired at a black bear. The arrow flashed across a narrow canyon and struck the bed on which the bear was resting. The second arrow missed, and the bear, now thoroughly aroused, charged. As the brute crashed through undergrowth and trees, Hill loosed a third shaft, the steel head striking the animal in the left leg and sending him rolling in the snow. With the speed and skill of a rapid-fire marksmnan, Hill drove more arrows into the in-furiated bear. The seventh found the chest cavity, the eighth and last cut through the skull. Thirty seconds later the animal breathed its last, dropping almost at the arch-er?s feet.

Hill attributes his amazing skill to long and constant practice and great physical energy. He pulls a powerful bow with the ease of a child bending a twig. He shoots steel-tipped hunting arrows long distances with the pre-cision of an artilleryman, bracketing his prey in case he misses the first shot, until at last he sends a killing arrow straight home to its intended mark. While hunting wild turkeys with several Seminole Indians among the pines of Florida recently, Hill demonstrated, with possibly the longest killing shot ever fired from a bow, how he aims, adjusts his fire, and finally kills. Through the branches he saw a horned owl sitting seventy feet up on a dead limb, ton far distant for the Indians to reach the bird with their shotguns. The bowman nocked the ar-row, aimed twenty feet above the bird at a tassel of pine needles, and loosed his arrow. The missile shot forward and up, descended in an arc, and whizzed between the startled bird?s legs. On the second shot, Hill aimed six inches higher. This arrow zipped over the owl?s head. For the third, he lowered his aim three inches and sent the arrow directly through the heart, the bird dropping dead to the ground. When he measured the distance, he found the ar-rows had traveled 146 yards?with deadly accuracy.

Hill uses the end of an arrow like the peep sight of a rifle. He draws halfway between the low draw of a target archer and his eye. At fifty yards, he shoots point-blank. Beyond that distance, he elevates his bow and really aims either at a fixed or an imaginary point upward and slightly to the right of his quarry. He keeps both eyes fixed on the game, and when, out of the corner of his eyes, he sees the arrow come in line with his ?aiming point,? he lets fly.

Once he rode out onto the Mohave Desert near California?s famous Death Valley, com-missioned to kill such wild jackasses as he might find. These descendants of sixteenth-century Spanish donkeys bully the desert wild horses, lynx, and mountain lions. Twice as fast as mustangs, they kill coyotes with a sin-gle kick of their flyiag heels. They hog the water holes, biting, trampling, and driving cattle away to die of thirst. Weighing 800 pounds, these wild jacks are real marauders of the desert. They are, in Hill?s opinion, the ?toughest animals to kill? he has ever faced.

He stalked a band of five surrounding a water hole early one recent morning, creeping up within sixty yards through the mesquite before one noticed him. Quickly nocking an arrow, Hill let fly, striking the biggest jack high in the back. Enraged, the animal wheeled to face the hunter and jumped three times toward him. Coolly, Hill drove a second ar-row behind the right ear, and a third into the left flank as the animal spun around. Beaten for the first time in his life, the wild jack wheeled back with the herd, trotted 100 yards and dropped dead.

This expert has killed too many birds and beasts with clean shots for his uncanny skifi to be called luck. He bagged an elk in Wy-oming at 135 yards with a single arrow. After missing a Rocky Mountain rattler at twenty-five feet, he put the second arrow through the reptile?s neck. Again, in Florida, he shot an arrow through another rattler at twenty feet. On several occasions he has killed birds on the wing, sending arrows through their bodies as they sped through the air.

Perhaps no experience brought him more thrills and chills than one which took place on Santa Cruz Island, off the California coast. Hill had gone there to hunt wild boar. For 300 years this wild band has developed until today, with their long noses, short ears, and lung hair, these six-foot hogs resemble grizzly bears when seen from a distance. Curved tusks, sometimes reaching seven inches in length, jut from the lower laws of the males. Afraid of no living thing, these boars will dt-tack without provocation. More than one careless hunter has met his death by under-
rating the ferocity of these beasts. Hill came face to face with a 200-pound boar shortly after setting out along the trail early one morning. Knowing that retreat would invite attack, be stepped forward one pace, at the same time drawing his bow. At that instant, the boar turned broadside. The turkey feathers tipping the arrow, soaked by the fine rain then falling, gave off a fine mist as the missile leaped forward and disappeared in the animal?s chest cavity. As a second ar-row grazed its rump, the boar charged. By some mischance, Hill had only one arrow left. Knowing this was his last opportunity, he held his fire, ready to send a final, killing shot into the head when the infuriated animal reached the fifteen-foot deadline he bad men-tally set. But the boar wavered after running twenty yards, slowed, and crumpled in death twenty-five feet from the point where Hill stood ready to leap from the trail in case he missed with the one remaining arrow.

CLOSE as was this call, it hardly compares with his experience near Thermopolis, Wyo., when he rode into the midst of a buf-falo herd seeking a fine bull whose hide he wanted. There was no rifle within five miles to protect him in case the wiry Indian pony unseated him while dodging the battering-ram rushes of lowered heads.

Hill found the herd on a small flat, hemmed in on two sides by low hills. Riding to the nearest hill, he strung his bow and nocked an arrow. At that moment, a 2,000-pound bull saw him?and charged. Instead of retreating, Hill kicked his pony toward his intended vic-tim, drew his arrow, and loosed it. The stricken buffalo changed from a short gallop to long, bucking leaps. As Hill stopped the bronco to nock a second arrow, a second buf-falo charged. Hill saved himself by grabbing the pony?s mane with his powerful right hand, dodged a second rush, and, on looking around for his first target, saw the young male lying dead. Able now to give all his attention to the charging monarch of the herd, he fired a dozen shots as rapidly as he could draw and loose the blunt-headed arrows, peppering the buf-falo on head and loin until, after only a few seconds, the big animal galloped away, unin-jured but thoroughly beaten.

The most difficult game to stalk with bow and arrow, in Hill?s opinion, is wild turkey. He found a flock on a California ranch, but was unable to come within shooting distance. So he decided to wait them out. Twice daily for three days, at eleven in the morning and four in the afternoon, he hid himself in brush near a water hole. Finally he got in a single shot at a gobbler. The arrow flew straight to its mark, and the surprised bird walked a hun-dred yards into near-by undergrowth and dropped.

SHOOTING into the water, which, because of the refraction of light, requires a special aiming technique, this skilled archer has killed alligators, water moccasins, bass, snook, needle-fish, bream, mullet, and alligator gar, as well as sharks and sting rays. When shooting fish, Hill uses a special arrow attached by a line to his belt. This arrow is fitted with a single lily iron, which swivels out at one end from the ferrule at the base of the arrow point. The line is tied with piano wire through a hole in the middle of the lily iron, which turns cross-wise when a tug of war cummences.

In twenty minutes he has bagged twelve gar, one bass, one bream, and two water moc-casins while standing on a bridge across a Florida canal. One of these snakes he cut in two at a distance of thirty feet. Another time, he killed ninety-two fish and a snake during a two-hour ?still?
hunt. With heavy arrows he has killed fish swmming as deep as five feet. By increasing the length of the heavy, stiff-spined arrows from twenty-eight inches to five feet and us-ing needle-sharp bullet-type heads, he be-lieves he can bag finny game twelve feet down, while a bullet from the highest-powered rifle will penetrate effectively only two feet.

Hill stalks all game, whether in the high-lands or in the sea, and never exposes himself until he is ready for a killng shot. For in-stance, while hunting sting rays and sharks among the small keys off Key Largo, Fla., be cut up an eagle ray and dropped a trail of small pieces overboard to lure sharks in to-ward land, where the water is both shallow and clear. While waiting for sharks, he put out in a small boat and whipped an arrow into a stingray. Stung by the barb, the creature made off at express speed for deep water, a mile distant. After zipping through the water a short distance, it stopped as suddenly as it had started. Hill pulled in the line until only twenty feet of water separated him from the monster, stood in the prow of the frail craft, and twanged a moose arrow into the stingray. After he had dispatched a third arrow through the base of its brain, the six-foot, whiplike tail lashed once and the captive died.

BUT alligators! This bowman has seen these lightning-fast creatures dodge arrows when they seemed to be asleep. More than once has he crept up on a ?gator, only to have him slide like an eel at the twang of the bow, and the arrow strike the sand at the spot where the animal had been basking less than a second before.

Hill drove a broadhead through one alligator from a distance of forty yards, only to see him leap into the water, bent on escape. Knowing the habits of the creature from long experience, the archer crossed the canal, stood silently nearly a half_hour observing the bubbles as they rose through the murky watel and then drew half back, ready to loose arrow when the ?gator?s nose appeared. Hard-ly had he raised the bow when the gray nose broke the surface. Hill aimed eighteen inches below it, and fired. The alligator ducked, but too late, and the wicked head ploughed through his leather hide, carrying the shaft in to the feathers. For a full hour the doomed animal thrashed, then disappeared. Next day he was found, dead.

This modern William Tell believes he can kill any animal with bow and arrow. Having taken the fiercest and largest in North Ameri-ca with 110-pound bows, he hopes to prove his skill on elephants, hippopotamuses and rhinoceroses. He has secretly designed a bow and arrows of great penetrating power which he thinks will turn the trick. In a test he shot one of these arrows through nine truck tires.

FOR five years Hill held the world?s flight record of 410 yards. To achieve that record his powerful muscles pulled a 172-pound bow, strongest ever used. He introduced shorter ar-rows and bows for distance shooting and was first to use longer feathers on hunting arrows to make them fly truer. His white birch hunt-ing arrows leave his powerful bow at a speed of 300 feet a second and bore through the air, turning once for each ten feet of flight. He fits his bows with linen thread, so strong it will withstand a puil of 600 pounds.

He fashions all his arrows, sandpapering and shellacking the shafts until they are as smooth as owl grease. His concave heads, while lacking the stunning power of a lead builet, possess the penetrating power of a .30/06 steel-jacketed bullet. The shaft measures three-eighths of an inch in diameter and, with the steel-saw head, weighs 800 grains.

POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY
DECEMBER, 1935

[MikaNuotio]

En tiedä tuleeko kerrattua vai mitä mutta koko tarina lyhykäisyydessään meneen jotakuinkin näin,

Howard henkilökohtaisesti ohjasi Johnia jousen valmistamisessa. John päätyi tekemään Howardin henkilökohtaiset jouset. Howard Hill Arheryn Craig Ekin ei koskaan ollut Howardin opissa. Craigin isä Ted Ekin teki bisnestä Howardin kanssa ja Tedin jätettyä bisnes siirtyi Howard Hill Arheryn bisnes Craigille. Mm Van Normand ( US www.huntlikeaman.com) ja Stephen Childers ( US www.millerlongbow.com ) ja Dave Walker ( UK ) oli Johnin opissa.

Johnin jousista että Johnin valmistama suora Bambuinen ALB jousi mikä kellotettiin chronolla oli 257fps ja tuo on kyllä raakallakin arviolta enemmän kuin mitä kellottavat Howard Hill Arheryn tarjoamat mallit joita mainostetaan ja tehdään varsinaisina Hill jousina. Vaikka nuolen painosta ei ole tiedossani niin tiettävästi Johnin valmistamat jouset ampuivat hyvin myös 700 grainia painavampiakin. John lopetti jousten valmistamisen 2002.

Kuva: Lisää Johnin tai yllä mainittujen valmistamia ALB puujousia.

[Mika]

Tarkennusta aikaisemmin mainitusta Bambujousesta.

Gene Wensel:

"The Hustler" is a Howard Hill Half Breed (reverse handle) longbow made by John Schulz for me in the late '70's or early '80s. It is 61" tip to tip unstrung and 73# @ 27". John made it and chronographed it but I don't remember what speed it shot although if I remember right, he used a very light aluminum arrow (this was pre-carbon days) ... It has an old string on it too. I would imagine a new string made of modern string material with fewer strands would boost speed as well. It would be fast but how fast, I'm not sure..."

Eli John Schulz itse testasi tuon jousen nopeuden kevyehköllä alumiininuolella ja jousi melko lyhyt customjousi.

[Simo Hankaniemi]

Mielenkiintoinen tuo Hill-artikkeli. Jutun kirjoittaja ei tainnut olla jousihistorian tuntija kun mainitsi Hillin ensimmäisenä tuoneen lyhyemmät jouset ja nuolet pituusammuntaan ja pitkät sulat metsästysnuoliin. Mutta näinhän se USA:ssa on ollut, että vain valkoisten miesten suoritukset noteerataan. Muistan hiljattain lukeneeni jostain valkoisesta miehestä, joka esiteltiin "Arizonan ensimmäisenä jousimetsästäjänä". Ukko eli 1900-luvulla.

[Mika]

[Simo Hankaniemi]

Mika on oikeassa siinä, ettei ensimmäinen todellinen tekijä tee sillä tittelillä mitään. "Ensimmäiseksi" pääsee yleensä vasta yhden tai kymmenien sukupolvien jälkeen, kun media on kehittynyt kyllin pitkälle kiinnittääkseen asiaan huomiota. "Ensimmäinen" onkin tietysti ymmärrettävä ensimmäiseksi tapaukseksi, johon media on tajunnut kunnolla kiinnittää huomiota.

Katselin hiljattain dokumenttifilmin punk-rockin keksineestä Ramones-yhtyeestä. Niillä oli tämä sama aidon pioneerin ongelma. Matkijat ja perässähiihtäjät veivät maineen ja Ramones jäi newyorkilaisiin klubeihin soittelemaan.

[Mika]

Kuka tekijä tarvitsee mainetta... maine vain estää monia asiaoita tapahtumasta ja mahdollistaa harvoja. Mieluummin kääntää asian tietoisesti päin vastoin ja varmistaa rauhan tekemisilleen. Ei kaipaa tekemistä, kun kaipaa mainetta... ja mikäli tarvitset mainetta tehdäksesi, niin kaipaat vain pilalle hemmottelua asiallesi.