rtjstevens
New member
The ILAA states
M1. Bows are to be constructed only of natural wood. No laminates are to be impregnated with resin or any other material.
M2. The only deviation from natural wood allowed is the use of bamboo, (strictly a grass), for a back laminate ie. the laminate in tension. This concession is allowed for safety reasons.
However, in bows used in distance shooting no bamboo is allowed in any part of construction.
Though it does not say why some 9 years after rtjstevens wrote the above quote that the ILAA still holds onto this now old fashioned and outdated thinking, not just in regard to this topic. Is not as though the use of bamboo in bow making is new.
All materials are available for use by anyone wishing to build a bow to enter distance shooting or indeed any other competitions and it is certainly not necessarily apparent what materials have been used in the construction of any bow without taking a sample for analysis which would of course damage the bow. Its only distance shooting that is living oin the past apparently as bamboo may be a bow component in all other disciplines.
Perhaps it is time the ILAA woke up, new, or more often non-traditional materials and advances in and uses of new technology and and have been incorporated in many sports.
The earliest references to tennis are from around the 12th century and the ball was struck with the hand, now racquets of wood aluminium carbonfibre and even ceramics are allowed.
The orginal longbows were one piece of wood throughout and self-nocked ..this is no longer the case so there has been room for change in the past so why not now.
Thanks Phil; nine years ago...? I'd almost forgotten I'd written it!
You're right of course, time to move on. Original longbows weren't made of 'British" yew anyway (in the main). We now use hickory and other woods from the Americas, so it is not as if only indigenous woods were used. I can't help but think that if bamboo had been available to the ancient bow makers then they would have used it.
It does make one wonder what the definition of 'wood' is. Lignified xylem? Dicots not Monocots?
BW
Richard.