Making my own bowstring
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
- Billy, a viewer of mine, sent me a load of retted flax. With the able help of my friend Mark, I make an authentic flax (linen) bowstring for my longbow. How well did it turn out? Er... well, watch and see!
Correction: while chatting, I say that the reed boat that crossed the Pacific was called the Kon-Tiki. The Kon-Tiki was a different boat also sailed by Thor Heyerdahl, which voyaged in the Pacific. The Atlantic voyage was made in the "Ra II'.
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A Lindybeige video about a relatively niche topic with a generally exploratory nature and a “we’ll figure it out” attitude? An instant classic
Its not two hours long :(
@@loso8381 The magic of time warping.
Yes
Isn;t that every video of his?
And he knows a bit about it. Not everything, but he has some background knowledge from his study of history and archery. Just the sort of thing that stimulates wonderful discussion in the comments. We need way more of lindy explaining old words and ideas while exploring traditional and historical life.
Can't wait for episode 6 when you raise your own standing army!
It'll be released 2 years from now like the sword forging series.
making my own grand levee, i cant wait
Episode 4,308 you mean.
Only if they're still using forks!
I think the thing I love most about this channel is how every episode is a complete roll of the dice. You never know what you’re going to get, and yet it’s always absolutely fascinating. Bravo
like a box of chocolate
Bro casually returned after a month just to make an authentic bowstring, respect
Very British the more I think about it
Far longer than that. His last legitimate video was many months ago. His most recent content was just the interviews. They were awesome. But this is the first classic lindybeige video in quite a while.
Probably filmed 5 years ago and not been edited too. Anyone an expert on ageing Beigemen?
Dude you are everywhere
@@CausticTitan I thought I was crazy for noticing this.
enough flax to make a hundred bowstrings, or enough flax to try 100 methods of processing
I go with the latter, or enough for 99 failures... XD
@@PerfectAlibi1 99 failures but the bow rope ain't one
Nothing stops an arrow like a good Frenchman
It seems to be the lot of Frenchmen to be skewered by English arrows.
Mad Jack Churchill decided the Germans also worked well in this regard.
I have met multiple German seniors pocking their heads into active archery ranges… so mad jack probably had some very cooperative targets. ;p friggin nominees for the Darwin Award…
And you know what the only good Frenchman is...
I never knew it would be entertaining to watch people make a bowstring for 40 minutes
If it's a Lindybeige video, it is interesting!
36min
"Couple of guys, who know a bit, giving it at go" feels like a perfect series to enjoy. I for one will look forward to the spoon whittling episode, and the flint knapping one too of course!
"How do you know that you cannot make a bowstring, if you never tried to make one?" A lot of things is quite easy (but still time consuming) if you give it a try. Can you mix concrete? Well, it is easy, just try it. On your third try you will be pretty good. Make sling from string? Well, first two or three were a bit rubbish, but the next one was good. Sew trousers? Version 4 was not bad and version 5 I had for few years until the fabric fall apart.
If you want anything flint, chase up Phil Harding and his hat on Time Team.
He’ll smash out Stone Age tools in cut off shorts.
@@man.inblack I'm personally a fan of Will Lorde. He's got a TH-cam channel and talks about a lot of Neolithic stuff.
Typically, bowstrings are waxed. This strenghtens the cord by sticking the fibers together, reduces fraying and waterproofs it somewhat in the bargain.
I suppose it might inflict a permanent -50% fire resistance debuff on it though
I appreciate how genuine Lloyd is. It doesn't get any more classic than shooting a cardboard box with a homemade bow - didn't we all do that as kids? :)
we yes. But our children will not be allowed to
@@16m49x3 you could just... allow them to?
@@vincent-of-the-bog
I bet the government will find a way to ban homemade bows...
I didnt. But I did make artillery pieces out of cork and matches
Cardboard boxes were rare but the apple trees had plenty of apples
'Two guys who know a little bit giving it a go'
That's the mentality that built the empire
Mildred: Harold, you remember that strange bloke next door. He's got another bloke with him and they are hitting straw with a pretend sword then trying to make spaghetti with it
A few hours later...
Harold: Mildred, he seems to have used the spaghetti to make a bow now.
Harold should keep an eye out.
@@adamcetinkent"eye" see what you did there 👀
My Mum's family were in the linen trade in Ireland for generations (Ireland was one of the global centres of the industry). That wooden sword thing you refer to will be a scutching knife - we still have one hanging on the wall...
Fun fact: all Englishman are imbued with unerring accuracy with a bow, provided that the target is a Frenchman.
Saw this before the French invasion, thought it was a joke. I should’ve known better
Does anyone know where I may acquire an archery target in the shape of a Frenchman?
@@bickyboo7789 why, Agincourt, of course 😁
Or France, but those ones tend to move about a bit.
YES! Been missing a classic style Lindybeige long form video. Thank you.
Same here!
@@Wintermute909 and here! ❤️
Same… the Ukraine bollox was making me rethink subscription.
@Spindlegrind fair enough, too. I like his classic style, but I couldn't get into them, i did watch the first one and then stopped watching. I'm sure it was well intentioned, I just prefer my politics and politicians dead and in the past (*dark humor). I'm glad to see him back in his "wheel house", which oddly is almost ANYTHING else, this is the first subject he ever covered that didn't leave me riveted in the moment and more knowledgeable by the end :)
❤️
Glad I stayed to the end for the sing along.
Ah just in time, I was wondering how to make a bow string from scratch!
I thought Kon-Tiki was trans -Pacific and made of logs. I believe Lloyd refers to a prior adventure of Thor Heyerdahl with the trans-Atlantic reed boat relating to Egyptians travelling to the New World.
Yes, Kon-Tiki was green balsa logs starting from Chile and sailing west with the Pacific currents. They lashed it together with hemp rope, likely originally made in a similar fashion to the flax bowstring!
However, where Kon-Tiki was 1947, the Thor's reed boat voyage crossing the Atlantic was 1970, so it was later, not prior.
Yes, the Ra-II was the boat I was referring to. I got the names mixed up. Sorry.
Your Merlin impression was spot on, one of my all time favourite films and soundtracks.
I am a dream to some, and a nightmare to others.
On the Conan anecdote, what you said is actually incorrect. Arnold got cast because he was the only body builder who DIDN'T have to lose weight to lift his arms because he had been training in a slightly different way that allowed him to retain more flexibility than was typical of body builders of the time.
I have heard this said specifically of Arnie and Conan.
What a forking hell of work! Based on the foliage in the background and on the progress you made, it dawned on me that you must have recorded this video in early autumn...
... of 2018. 😂
Well done!
Keeping civil while you string us along. Great first attempt. By the 100th bowstring, I'm sure it'll look professional.
I didn´t know that it was called "abseiling" in English. As a native German speaker it´s always funny for me to hear German words in the middle of an English conversation
I used context clues to determine abseiling is British for rappelling!
Oh yes! I edited that bit out, sorry. I meant to leave it in. Whoops.
We bigfoots have to make everything ourselves out here in the woods
I loved this episode. Trying to do things our ancestors mastered helps show just how human and clever they really were.
It's easy to act smug thinking we would know better, but the truth is very few people can replicate the level of technology from the past, and fewer still could replicate our current technology when starting from scratch.
Replicating our current level of technology would be impossible without millions of people working together. Creating a chip fabrication plant from scratch requires a ton of other factories to create the parts.
@@shaneintheuk2026 the thing no one seems to get is that recreating current tech after a hypothetical collapse wouldn't be from scratch. It would be from salvage/ruins. It could be from scratch, and the more time has passed since such a collapse the more and more likely it will be from scratch. But it would most likely be from salvage. Which a single person can do. I'm currently in the process of doing electronics fabrication from salvage actually. My biggest hurdle is stealthy "dumpster diving" into landfills. Which wouldn't be an issue really in a post collapse.
But if you want to counter that it took many to make those original parts, then yes. But it also takes many (not humans) to make rocks and trees and other natural materials for humans to then process. No man is an island.
@@himan12345678 interesting and viable in the short term but longer term I think it would be extremely difficult. Once the easy salvage is gone, trying to educate the next generation becomes a massive problem. How do you get people to degree level when the population is much smaller and everyone is trying to survive. David Brin’s The Postman discusses it nicely.
Few people know the basics of past technology because people don't care about museums that try to keep the knowledge alive.
I know *how to* work flax into thread because both my parents took care of a museum for common household *stuff* as it'd had been around late middle ages tech wise. Never done it myself, but I know how to - and especially *why* some parts of the process are required. I know ye-shite-tonne of past-common stuff that have absolutely no use in modern age. Taught when I was a kid, now in mid 30 a lot of them are things I'd like to actually try to make by myself just to see if I can...
@@shaneintheuk2026 Depends on how genetic intelligence was affected by a collapse and what sort of population one has to work with, and what level of knowledge or skills were retained.
Salvage would make trial and error much less necessary though, because just having an example to work from is what makes it possible for non-geniuses to make things. It takes a rare and intrinsic talent to come up with, say, the idea of the printing press. But once it's been done, it's relatively easy to copy.
Love ya, Lindy 👋 You’re someone I’ve routinely searched for once every few months for almost a decade now.
Here’s to the decades yet to come! 🍻
If this is an example of "Bush craft" I keep wondering if the forks were naturally sourced. I tend to doubt it. It's the wrong time of year in England for the forks to be ripe.
We have these wonderful inventions called greenhouses, I had a haul of spoons in the dead of winter last year!
@blunderingfool so you're telling us it wasn't true bush craft. I was imagining Lindy went on a long walk in the countryside to sorce the forks. But all he did was pop into the garden.
Constructive suggestion: spin thin strings of full length flax furst, then ply several together ( opposit spin) then there will be no joins and enough twist onnthe fibres to lake them stable. Can spin with a drop spindle or a long stick rolled along the thigh
Nice to see my former physics teacher again
have a feeling he likes lasers
Your feelings are accurate.
I've read the books. But Arny is so iconic in that role it's so hard to seperate the character from the actor.
Intersting topic. It seemed like eons passed since the last upload from Lloyd, glad to see him back !
I hav'nt done any bowstring for years, and those where made out of dynema or fastflight... really cool to see one made out of natural fibers. Even with modern materials, I needed loads of trial and error and a lot of time to make, so I'm very impressed by this video !
As alwais this channel is full of suprises and a lot of fun to watch.
STRICTLY NO MUTTERING "I wasn't muttering! I was just mumbling!"
It seems likely to me that our ancestors would have used a hackle kit and carding comb for this sort of thing, but it looks like a pair of dining forks will work in a pinch.
they just had to wait for the fork to be invented first?
I wonder what people used to pre-stretch the string during the middle ages, if anything; to stress it until it settles. Your accuracy is very gratifying to watch ;)
Me wondering why Lloyd uploaded a video at 1am but what does it matter, it's a proper Lloyd crafting video.
All that work for 15 crafting xp. And here i was thinking making a bowstring only took 3 ticks
My gosh, can you just imagine living in the middle ages and this was your job _all day?_ The king is going to war and his army needs bows which means they need hundreds of bow strings. So, you and your family just have to sit there for days just making fibers. Or would it be the bowyer? Would he make the whole bow, string, arrows and all? I guess a fletcher fits in there somewhere, also.
We take for granted just how much easier the industrial revolution makes our lives.
How about making your own book. 🤔
Love your videos Nikolas, some more WW2 tank videos? But what about your graphic novel, in search of Hannibal, even just an update would be nice.
The script is finished, waiting on the art
Yes! Finally a continuity of series of "Ancient versatile crafts, as demonstrated by an incompetent".
This kind of content is a favourite for me. Watching you try stuff out is great
Is this a bad time to say that you should work with flax while it's damp to reduce breakage as the fibre is stronger when wet (the opposite of cotton)? Waxing the string will also help to strengthen it.
That moment when you find yourself explaining to the postman that it is flax and not the pelt of cousin It :o)
I made a trash bow from a tree branch, strong elastic and some real arrows.... it went dangerously far, all the way across the park (was much more careful after the first launch). The branches break, but are easily replaceable.
Hours of flax into bowstrings. I'm having horrible Runescape flashbacks.
@SallyPointer has some great videos on making cordage from plant fibres. Also some on repairing knitwear which might also interest you @Lindybeige considering your collection of lovely knit jumpers.
Wake up babe, Lindybeige released a new video
Lmao. Was think exactly that and ready to type but you beat me to it.
everyone knows lindy’s viewers consist only of the male variant of the humans
@@nodrog302 lol
@@meyr1992 yes
body pillows aren’t sentient
My wifes family is ojibwe, natives of Canada/Minnesota, and her dad told me something cool one time. He said that in the past their tribe would kill a turtle, and cut a spiral pattern around the skin of its outstretched neck(2 person job) in such a way that you ended up with a long skinny "rope". They would dry the skin, twist it tightly and tie it off, and they used that as bowstrings, successfully. It was like he was passing on some sage wisdom. That was a cool moment 😎
You can also make very strong string from nettle. In a more bushcraft and less agricultural setting. Nice greenish colour!
Apparently, the best period to gather them would be in May - June. You can cook nettles to make delicious soup too !
I'm not five minutes in yet, but this is already amazing. Lloyd denies us a video for a million years, then makes one about bloody bowstrings! The man is a hero!
As an oil painter I used to paint on linen (made from flax) and there was always a problem with it going floppy over time or with changes in weather...did this happen to bowstrings? Did archers have different lengths of string if it got humid? Curious minds would like to know.
Perhaps instead they would just have spoils of the stuff. Or the strings were longer than needed with excess tied up round the ends of either the bow or the string and then simply retied the loops if extra length was needed. Perhaps that’s how the English discovered adding tufts to the ends of a bowstring quieted the twang
Don't be afraid to leave it uncut, doing long ones like this can be kind of therapeutic
Sent you enough for a bow string… and many attempts.
For the first 15 minutes I was thinking a violin bow, and was slightly surprised Lindy also plays violin.
8 years ago you announced your Hannibal graphic novel. Where is it?
Too right
Definitely update required one way or other!
The script has been finished for over a year, it's the artwork that's still being done
Damn, it's been 8 years
It has been an absolutely hellish week..
I needed this. Thanks Lindy!
Im so glad we're back to normal vids.
What were the not normal videos? I’ve not been keeping up.
we ❤ marks physics lessons
Our Beige Saint has returned. Hello Again Lindybeige. Glad to see you again.
This is the beautiful thing about newcastle, the history, the lovely buildings. and knowing somewhere among us Loyd is making bowstrings
his back garden
Well done indeed. In Montana we don't have much flax, but animal sinew makes wonderful bowstring. 🤙
Edit: tow was compressed into bullets for duelling pistols.
Cripes, that must have been a great source of infections!
Is that the first "less lethal" round on record?
I think if you guys had info on flax to linen processing it might have been helpful at the beginning. When he described the tools he needed it made me think of this immediately. Rope or yarn the processing overlaps! Love for this channel! ❤
Washer rollers for the first part then a spinning wheel.
Oi! No muttering Atkins! Yes, YOU Atkins! I heard you muttering!
I wasn't muttering, I wasn't! I was... I was murmuring! Yes, it was just a bit of murmuring!
You need finer fibres, to twine them more tightly, neater joining in, and then... double up the fine twine to make a thicker twine.
Any sport school go see strung bow with fray at lip to n'ose. Naughty boys climb to the top shelf and grab the strung bow and look for something to fire, pencils ?.
THE SHOCK OF THE STRING SNAPING TAUGHT AND
" NOT TRANSFER THÉ FORCE TO AN ARROW "!
yes I have yelled that .
It hurts me that you might hurt yourself, this pains my mind.
I tried braiding a bowsting from artificial sinew. It stretched way too much. I went back to my old standby: Baling twine used for tying bales of hay together. It's plastic, generally orange, and definitely anachronistic, but where I live, it's cheap, easy to find, and doesn't break too much. I don't know that I would have the patience or the skill to make one from scratch like you did. Will you be adding serving to it?
And DARN NICE SHOOTING!!! 3 for 3! Remind me never to tick you off. :)
If Billy comments can you pin it?
It was pretty good for a first try. I sent him enough for a quite a few more
Northern Irish linen will always be the best in the world. Belgian is the poor man's derivative. The wooden sword is called a scutching sword (dehulling). How any Englishman could not know what a scutching sword is beyond the Pale. The nails would be for carding- aligning the fibres- they'll na do much for yer scutchin.
My gran worked in the linen mills in Randalstown, County Antrim. From the ballad of William Bloat: "But the strangest turn to the whole concern, Is only just beginning. He went to Hell but his wife got well, and she's still alive and sinning. For the razor blade was German-made, but the rope was Belfast linen.."
Belgian (not a nation really I agree with Farage) linen has always been the poor man's substitute, the other great product of Ireland being Europe's finest lace that excelled that of Bruges (admittedly very good), introduced by Anglo and Anglo-Irish aristocracy to return industry and prosperity to Ireland through cottage labour.
The Ballad of William Bloat:
In a mean abode on the Shankill Road, Lived a man named William Bloat; He had a wife, the bane of his life, Who always got his goat. So one day at dawn, with her nightdress on He slit her bloody throat.
With a razor gash he settled her hash, Oh never was crime so quick. But the drip drip drip on the pillowslip ', of her lifeblood made him sick. And the pool of gore on the bedroom floor grew clotted and cold and thick.
And yet he was glad he had done what he had, when she lay there stiff and still. But a sudden awe of the angry law
struck his heart with an icy chill. So to finish the fun so well begun, he decided himself to kill.
So he took the sheet from the wife's cold feet and twisted it into a rope, And he hanged himself from the pantry shelf,
'Twas an easy end, let's hope with him facin' death with his dyin' breath, he solemnly cursed the Pope.
But the strangest turn to the whole concern, Is only just beginning. He went to Hell but his wife got well, and she's still alive and sinning.
For the razor blade was German-made, but the rope was Belfast linen.
How bout making an authentic graphic novel and actually sending it to the people who paid for it, HALF A DECADE AGO
The best thing you could have done in the first phase is to take your time and do it one stalk at a time.
It takes longer but pulling off each one individually avoids breaking or ripping them as much as the beating and forking business does.
This ultimately gives you a stronger string relative to its thickness - because each fiber wound into it is longer and hence contacts more of the adjacent fibers.
PS. This is especially true if you are going for an authentic method, since they were time-rich and resource-poor, wasting time was preferable to wasting material.
I recall a similar principle was discussed when you made your sword - your man talking about how it's better to beat the shape rather than grind it.
Ohhhh Lindybeige, I always love your goofiness. Please never stop being yourself. Blessings and hugs from Texas!
There used to be a process called "London Shrinking". Possibly anachronistic both ways, but probably people knew about textile shrinking and what it does before it was an industrial process?
Some people in the 1400s certainly knew that a wet rope tied to a boat would pull it off a sandbank when it dried where manpower had failed.
Hello!
What an interesting experiment!
It seems to me that your thread would benefit being spun much tighter. Probably using a drop spindle would help. Perfectly period technology, and one could easily imagine the archer's wife spinning thread for his bowstring in-between spinning for cloth.
I must also say that the build up reminds me a lot of shoemaker's thread. That too could be done more easily by stacking threads, and holding them around a fixed point (hook or nail or tree branch), and rolling the threads, under mild tension, on your thigh with you flat hand to furl them together. Once again, it would help making a much tighter and stronger string than free-handed method. There is a very nice video made by a Lausanne shoe maker showing the process.
Given the similarities in technology, I wonder if a bow string would also have been waxed or pitched, like shoemaker thread, for cohesion and weather resistance.
I mean, a well spun and pitched 6 thread waxed end is rather thin, and virtually unbreakable by hand (it would cut you before braking)....
What happened to the graphic novel
The artist says he's still doing it, but I've seen so little artwork to prove it.
We love you Lindybeige!
This is one short step away from watching two middle-aged men braid each other's hair for half an hour. I couldn't look away.
You really should get with someone with truly knows how to make flax into linen bowstrings. Have the proper tools would definitely make it easier but the knowledge and experience is where you truly lacked.
You randomly showed up on my suggested videos - but yet we did student radio together more than 15 years ago.
Hello old friend :D
32:47 "Its a bit hairier than I like it" 😂
Where did you source the children's intestines...nevermind, I'm good not knowing.
It seemed to be a torture to prep this thing and there are better modern alternatives but only to see this I got a clue how to prep plants to get some rope... So this not only is a true experience to try out on a self build bow in the outdoors it also come in quite handy to make some rope if there is no other option or you wonna make this experience. It's quite impresses me how simple it is to make rope in theory (but not to make it happen xD). So learn a new skill I just have to try out. I quite have to think about how a hundred years ago every body know this but today most guys just being lost without paracord. Thanks for the inspiration. Overall it may would help to wax the bundles and than string it together, it would generate more friction and helps to withstands the rain.
As someone who works or musical instruments for a living, I was pretty excited to see this show up in my feed… oh wait…
Lindy you were right about the composer. It was Basil!
Gosh, if i were a make-a-wish kid, my wish would be to spend one day nerding out with Lindybeige.
Nice to see two friends doing some hand crafts and having a yarn. I wouldn't want to be on the other side of that bow. I'm thinking about growing some of that flax myself.
"I'm starting to get something a bit hair-like" Not only this, but it's also beige!
You should try the old boy scout trick of making rope out of dried long grass. It's really easy and surprisingly strong.
Neat I've looked up a lot about old school bows over the years. Never looked up how the strings were made
Well, that was a fun day with a friend.
So, this is that Matt Parker of bow strings?
It was
The de husking as the first process would have been done in a millstone ????
Authentic bowstrings were often coated with beeswax. Modern sorce often state that this is to protect the string from water, but it might also help to bind the strings together.
This video brought to you by Flax and Forks
The "virgin bits are quite stiff" oh my.
for a good few years everytime i watch a lindybeige video ive noticed that theres a mistake drawn in line on the lindybeige title at the end of his videos and ive always wondered if he knows about it or not i was gunna email him about it but i hope he sees this cos i want to know if he knows and its too much to deal with or whether he doesnt know i cos i bet almost everyone hasnt noticed it!
all this work to make a rope just so later a damn rogue comes and cuts with with a dagger.
When doing the rope making part put the loop over a nail in a board. Allows you to keep some tension on it and allows full use of both hands.
Should be made from animal sinew or metal cable or something.
I wonder weather the video Lloyd watched was the one by the lovely mr Torbjörn Åhman
Remark @ 7:55 reminds me of a concept in literature wherein e.g. the Galadhrim in lord of the rings or Gunnar in Njála make (or propose to make) bowstrings from elf or human hair. Any accounts or experiments of this being feasible?
What I really appreciate is going to that extra step to test it against wizardry.