My main cast is shooting recurve bows and my MC's best friend is very over-competitive and over-confident; he's the type of person to talk smack beforehand, and then fail in comically pitiful fashion. That's exactly what he does here: somehow, he does something wrong, and either the bowstring or the bow itself breaks when he attempts to shoot. They're using recurve bows. Can someone who knows something about bows tell me what exactly he might do wrong to make a recurve bow or string break when he tries to shoot? Breaking the bow is preferable for the scene, but just the string would be acceptable too.
My grandfather, Russ Willcox used to make recurve bows for a living, he was kind of famous for it. From my experience growing up around him and in the company of archers, it is far more common for a bow to break than the string. The string is a common wear item and like tires, when they show their age, it is obvious. Bows can break without an warning and does happen, that is even rare. From the net that might give you some more info about wood and recurve bows Re: Russ Willcox recurve « Reply #2 on: May 01, 2011, 09:58:00 AM » I assume that you have one of his bows that is referred to as a duoflex bow, which he - with assistance from Dr. Hickman - designed, but which Russ made. There is an excellent article on Russell Guile Willcox and his famous duoflex bows that appeared in the most recent issue of the "Journal of the Society of Archer-Antiquaries", Vol. 53, 2010 entitled "A Duoflex Miscellany in Words and Pictures" by the late Roy King, a world reknown traditional bowyer. Russ's bows were especially favored in Europe. There is one Englishman who was buried with one of Russ's bows - he liked it so much. If you have Dr. Robert P. Elmer's book - "Target Archery", there is an excellent write-up on the bow along with pictures of Russ. Russ was from So. Egremont, Massachusetts located in the corner of MA, CT and NY. Dr. Elmer, one of America's pre-eminent archery historians, thought very highly of Russ's bows. I just wrote a short article for the "ARROWHEAD" [a newsletter of the Society of Archer-Antiquaries] on Russ that will be published shortly] detailing my encounters with Russ. He was also a master woodworker and made minature furniture for collectors. His bows were designed in a way that maximized the "working" area/length of the limbs. They were fast bows as well as light in hand. It sounds like you are the fortunate owner of a very special bow.
A breaking string would be quite a dangerous event. The amount of tension that goes into a bowstring, and the fact that it's near your face at the point of maximum tension is asking for an eye to be put out.
I was an archer for like 5 years, but unfortunately (for you) I've never seen either a bow or a string fail in action. The closest thing I can think of was my own recurve bow (you know, the kind with an aluminium central handle part and two wooden wings that you have to click into the central part). Upon the first shot after spanning my bow, it used to emit a loud bang. It startled everyone at the range. After a while I realized it was the connection between central part and the curved arms/wings/whatever-ya-wanna-call-it settling in, more or less. It was easily remedied by pressing them together after spanning. Maybe your over competitive character can set up his bow too quickly, and rather than a loud bang, something breaks after he looses his first arrow. I also had an incident once where I swapped bows with another guy (of course that's a great idea). Though we were of similar height, my arms were much longer. This resulted in me over-drawing the arrow until it was no longer resting on the bow. This startled me, and I reduced the tension on the string, but then the arrowhead got stuck against the central part, the arrow bent... And broke. I was lucky the arrowhead didn't slip into my hand or something, which was about an inch away. It was an aluminium arrow, so it didn't break violently or anything, but I can imagine this happening with a carbon fiber arrow, or with a wooden longbow with 5 times the draw weight... Maybe these anecdotes can give you some inspiration.
Hi I have worked with instructing people to shoot English longbow (just 25 pounds), historic setting. The string broke once or twice per season. And that was because it was worn. Bowstrings of tendons, horsehair, linnen and nettle tend to whip when it breaks (bonus info: the first two will expand if they getting to wet while the second two won't). Therefore did we use synthetic bowstrings that don't whip when it snaps. I hope that help you a little.
