Review: "Elfin" Rattan Recurve by Bows of the Risen Son

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Greg
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Review: "Elfin" Rattan Recurve by Bows of the Risen Son

Post by Greg »

I was skeptical, but sufficiently interested when Eothain posted photos of his freshly re-vamped kit a few months back, and the photos included a Rattan recurve bow. It was absolutely lovely, and quite short, which piqued my interest. I have a long-abiding and uncompromising love for short bows, and his, particularly a photo of it drawn, was rather lovely. It reminded me sharply of the bows carried by the Rohirrim in the New Line trilogy, which seem to rarely get discussed, but have always held my attention.

You know...'cause they're short.

I had long since given up my hope that I could find a bow that was close to theirs, however, because theirs were made of injection-molded rubber, and I had not yet found a bow that could hold poundage, come to full draw, and not explode at those lengths. At least, not without fiberglass and a good deal of prayer.

And now here we are, with something that claims to fulfill the bulk of these requirements.



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Manufacturer: Bow of the Risen Son, LLC.
Model: "Elfin" Recurve

Specs: 51" nock-to-nock, 50# draw @ 28"
Material(s): Rattan, Leather Grip Wrap, Paracord
Cost: $100+S&H
Store:http://bowsoftherisenson.maxgroupbiz.com/

Alright, for starters, I'm not going to lie...I was a little put off by the spelling of "Elfin". Not sure if that was done this way due to fear of copyright or something else, but when compared to Tolkien's comments on why he writes Dwarvish instead of Dwarfish, and similar things, I get the feeling that "Elfin" instead of Elven" denotes Santa Claus-type "Elfs", rather than the bow-toting tall-and-fair fantasy Elves we all know and love. Little bit confusing, but, well...the bow can stand independent of its name. Moving on.

I emailed rather extensively with BOTRS before ordering, and was assured of three things: 1) It won't explode, even at 50# (something I was very skeptical about), 2) Yes, we have customers that still use theirs after 8+ years, and 3) Yes, we take paypal.

That was enough to justify the $100. I've paid way more for bows, so it could be worse. Heck, I've paid more than that for a dozen arrows. Not doing that again.

When it arrived, I was pleasantly surprised. This bow is lovely! Bamboo as a backing material isn't at all uncommon, but the somewhat vague photos on their website didn't show what I discovered when the box was opened. The outer rind and nodes of the rattan are on the BELLY of the bow, not the back. This bow is tillered backwards! All of the work was done on the back, and the raw exterior of the rattan faces the user. VERY interesting, and quite unique. The nocks are nicely carved, though a little rough. I've found no noticeable twist in the limbs.

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Now we start getting to some oddities.

The string is paracord, and they don't try to hide it. It's army green paracord, tied in knots on both ends. Does it function? Sure. Is it ugly? Yyyyep.
Still, at the price they sell these bows, it probably wouldn't be economical for them to try to hand-wind a flemish-twist string for every bow they sell, so I can't really blame them. An easy fix, that'll improve performance a bit...replace it with a real string.

On to the grip. The grip area is slightly narrower than the limbs, but the bow flexes straight through the grip area...no stiffened riser section here. I was pleased by this...shorter bows that don't bend through the grip tend to stack...too short of a working limb. HOWEVER: the grip itself is wrapped, not stitched on. It's a 1" thick strip of leather that spirals up. This creates an uneven grip surface that makes consistent hand placement a bit of an issue. Since there's no shelf, shooting off the hand is expected, and if you can't count on your hand placement to remain consistent, you can't count on your "shelf" to be consistent, ergo your shots won't be either. I'd call this another allowance due to the cheap initial cost of the bow...but I wouldn't recommend you leave it as is.

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The tiller is nice and even, overall, with only one minor, barely noticeable flaw...there's a hint of the beginnings of a hinge on the lower limb (left) seen here, but I haven't seen any problems from it, and no materials lifting off the back from it. That being said, the back IS fuzzy in a few places, as several on the forum here have mentioned. That being said, a quick polish (NOT heavy sanding) with some 5-600 grit paper should smooth these out, and a nice thick lacquer should hold it all down. I'm not at all concerned.

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The draw is very smooth...far better than I could have expected for so short a bow at this poundage. The recurves are a working part of the limb and they flex very nicely. The draw starts with a good presence of initial weight, and then maintains this and grows all the way back to anchor...no let-off at the back end, but no easing up towards the front, which is a notorious cause of low arrow speed in "fantasy" bows.

Now that we've got all of that out of the way, I let go of an arrow, and nearly soiled myself. This little bow's a nail-driver! Got my foam block rocking on its hind legs a few times...I'm very pleased. I would have no moral issue with shooting this at live game...it has the power to do it.



Bows of the Risen Son provided me with some excellent communication and customer service during this transaction. They even went so far as to remember an early request I'd made, to send me a few small scraps of Rattan so I could color-test some stains before I start working on the bow itself. Something they really should advertise better is that their bows all apparently ship with three arrows...I had no idea. Granted, they are clearly lightweight youth arrows, with plastic nocks, short fletchings, and not something I would shoot out of a 50 lb bow, but they're there, included, and completely unexpected. Nice gesture...and I needed a few for something else anyway!

To sum it all up:

Pros:
CHEAP!
SHORT!
Gorgeous lines/overall shape
Fits well within Middle-Earth in more than one culture, with the right work
Smooth Draw
Solid Arrow Speed
Highly Customizable

Cons:
String is not appropriate
Grip could be re-done for better performance
Overall, bow kinda requires customization to really look nice

I would DEFINITELY call this one a win, and will detail my own customization process in another thread.
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Re: Review: "Elfin" Rattan Recurve by Bows of the Risen Son

Post by Eledhwen »

Bamboo and Rattan are not the same thing. Rattan is a vine, a member of the palm family. Bamboo is a member of the grass family. The former is solid, the latter is hollow. They can be used in a lot of similar ways, but they have different properties. Bamboo tends to have greater versatility.

From the photos, that bow is made of Rattan. Interesting. I have bows using bamboo, but only as a backing, never belly.

I am entirely intrigued and will have to check them out.

Thank you for the review!

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Re: Review: "Elfin" Rattan Recurve by Bows of the Risen Son

Post by Greg »

Yeah...sorry if I didn't make that clear. I'm aware it's Rattan...I mentioned Bamboo in an attempt to contrast the uses between the two materials. I'll go read through and see if my wording needs some help. Thanks!

FYI: On their website, they have a "Horsebow" listed. I have on good authority, from Eothain who owns one, that it is just a shorter version of this bow...no static-tips, no siyahs. Their photos didn't make this clear, so I wanted to make that known.
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Re: Review: "Elfin" Rattan Recurve by Bows of the Risen Son

Post by Peter Remling »

Nice review and please post pics after you sand and rewrap.
One question, the grip looks a little thick, what's the
circumference ?
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Re: Review: "Elfin" Rattan Recurve by Bows of the Risen Son

Post by Eothain »

Great review Greg! I am very happy to hear that you like it! As you already know I got their horse bow, and noticed the leather wrapping is different than the Elfin bow I bought from them a year ago. My Elfin bow is wrapped with a very thin leather, and seemed to have been wrapped with more care than that of your Elfin bow or my newly aquired "horse bow". Maybe they thought the look was better or, since it looks so rough, maybe cheaper? Couldn't answer that question though. And I whole-heartedly agree with you that it resembles the bows of the Rohirrim in the films. I imagined the bow with a darker shade and, after firing it a few times, was totally sold on it. The "horse bow" has been working great, and is so comfortable I can shoot it cross-legged and keep hitting my mark! I am very happy with both bows I have purchased from them. Like you said, very affordable, and the customer service is very solid.

Hopefully an archery competition in the future, HA!

P.S. It bugged me a bit too, the way they spell "Elfin"
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Re: Review: "Elfin" Rattan Recurve by Bows of the Risen Son

Post by Manveruon »

Great review, thanks a million, Greg!

Bows of the Risen Son sell at my local renaissance festival, and I've often considered procuring one of their pieces for myself. However, I have been put off by the fact that several people I've met over the years have disparaged the use of rattan as a bow material. Upon reflection, however, I find I don't actually know why they felt that way about rattan bows. Over the last couple of years I've seriously been tempted to pick one of these up for myself, and now your excellent review makes me lean that direction even further. I will be very curious to see what customization you do to the bow (more pics! More pics!), and moreover, I will be extremely interested in seeing how the bow holds up over prolonged use. It's all well and good if the thing shoots great for a month, but if it doesn't last, it's not really worth it, obviously. I know they said they've had customers shooting their bows regularly for long periods of time, but I would be most interested in hearing your feelings on it after a while, as I trust your judgement on these matters. Overall though, with some personalization, this looks like it could be a great little bow, and an excellent option for someone who wants to shoot primitive, without using a longbow or an Eastern style horse-bow.
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Re: Review: "Elfin" Rattan Recurve by Bows of the Risen Son

Post by Greg »

The main thing that drew me to purchase one was its similarity to what I intended to make myself...a steam-bent D-section Yew recurve. Seeing as how the starting materials for this would've run me ~$300...that was a long ways off, and a nerve-racking project. When this arrived, not only was I impressed with it overall, but I've noted that because the natural exteriof of the rattan is on the belly, the bow actually is a D-cross sectioned bow, nearly just like a European longbow; flat on the back, round on the belly. This shape lends itself SO well to compression, it's not even funny. At first I thought the bow had taken a set, but further examination and emailing has revealed that the shape it's in is the shape it was steamed to originally...it hasn't changed since. Impressive stuff.
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Re: Review: "Elfin" Rattan Recurve by Bows of the Risen Son

Post by Ringulf »

The one negative aspect of rattan for making a bow that I would have concerns about would be that rattan takes a "set" very quickly. They may have gotten around this in the manufacturing process but I know that it is a big factor in SCA sword making for heavy weapons combat.
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Re: Review: "Elfin" Rattan Recurve by Bows of the Risen Son

Post by Greg »

Yeah, I'm keeping a close watch on this. I don't leave it strung for long.
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Re: Review: "Elfin" Rattan Recurve by Bows of the Risen Son

Post by Manveruon »

That would probably be fine for a ranger's hunting bow, since one would theoretically not need to leave it strung for long periods of time. Now if it was intended for use as a fighting bow, that might be a problem. I figure a composite Eastern style horse-bow might be the best design for that, because it's compact, powerful, and can be left strung for longer periods of time than other bows without developing a set.

I wonder, though, if there is a way to make rattan take less of a set. Possibly by backing it with another material? Even fiberglass? Dunno.
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Re: Review: "Elfin" Rattan Recurve by Bows of the Risen Son

Post by Greg »

Sinew (rawhide) might make for an appropriate backing...I've thought about it. That's what is used often opposite horn on composite bows.
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Re: Review: "Elfin" Rattan Recurve by Bows of the Risen Son

Post by Ringulf »

Yup sinew and hyde glue used like chop matt and resin in fiberglass construction for build and flex is used for many of the eastern type horsebows. I thought it was interesting that they were using it that way, as fluffy as wool at first then a layer or so of very strait "grained" stuff, all linier for the outer sheathing.
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Re: Review: "Elfin" Rattan Recurve by Bows of the Risen Son

Post by Manveruon »

That sounds awesome. I'd love to see one of these done up with some backing like that.
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Re: Review: "Elfin" Rattan Recurve by Bows of the Risen Son

Post by RikJohnson »

My daughter and I saw those at the Ren Faire some years ago and almost bought a couple but it was the end of the day and we were broke so passed. Most were being sold to kids with the 3-free-arrows.

Plus: they look nice and being short easy to carry.

Minus: They advertize these as the "Bow that Jesus would have carried" which is a load of *** and kinda offputting. "Rising son" get it!

On their short demo-range, they took some getting used to. I kept hitting real high even though I double checked my nock position.

I've talked to people who say that Rattan bows are low-power only. 35-40# Getting a rattan bow past 40# is difficult. Something about how the Rattan is formed prevents heavy draws. It's been a couple years but there are a number of reviews on them over the years.

I've used rattan a lot in the SCA so have personal experiences with the stuff. I like rattan, i'm no longer certain that I like ratan as a bow material even though they look like fun.
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Re: Review: "Elfin" Rattan Recurve by Bows of the Risen Son

Post by RikJohnson »

I've been doing some re-reading on rattan bows and it seems that they make excellent children's bows because they are easy to work and almost unbreakable. At least you have to really work at breaking rattan which is safe for kids.
This explains why so many were sold to kids at the Ren Faire.

That said, it appears that you CAN make a longer or heavier bow from rattan and there are a few websites out there that give limited instructions on this. Do an Amazon search for rattan bows and you'll find a book that is more comprehensive. This should tell the good, bad and what to expect.

I've always curved rattan by soalking it in the bathtub but the sites imply that making a recurve by dry heat works.

That said, they appear to be excellent child's bows but can be made larger and/or more powerful though people despute this.

Still, I also prefer a short bow and own a 42" hickory flat-bow that I like. I store it in a PVC tube that straps to my kayak deck.
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