What are the ancient Chinese bow tires made of?

The traditional Chinese bow is a composite bow made of a variety of materials bonded together, and its production process is complex, using a wide range of materials, and the workmanship and selection of materials are based on the appropriate season and climate.

(1)Bamboo: The bamboo used for making bows is mostly produced in Jiangxi Province, where the bamboo is thicker, stronger and more durable. Usually to beat the bamboo to listen to the sound of whether the sound is clear solid method to evaluate the good and bad bamboo. It is best to use bamboo that has been dried for a year after harvesting. Bamboos with uneven thickness at the top and bottom, or those with insect holes in the center, should not be used for making bows. Consider the wear and tear when buying bamboo.

(2) Horns: A bow should use two horns, and should use buffalo horns with a length of more than 60 centimeters. The current purchase price in Beijing is about 30 yuan each, the horn is mostly from Hubei. Because now Yang Fuxi often trust people to buy, so the received horn, when to cut and whether it is a pair of horns are not very good to grasp, can only be roughly equivalent to the length of a pair of choice.

(3)Tendon: Tendon is a very important elastic material in the production of the bow body, taken from the back of the cow next to the spine of the cow's piece of tendon ①. After buying the sinews, they are put on the edge of the room to dry, and when they have dried to eight or nine percent, they are wrapped in a coarse wet cloth. The next step is to smash the tendons, which is convenient if you live in the countryside, as you can put them on a mill. But there is no mill in Beijing, so you have to use a wooden hammer to smash, not too much force, but also slowly. Because too much power to smash it, and slowly smashed it can be smashed split. After smashing, you can see the tendon has been split into a state. Then little by little, tearing, tearing into the desired thickness, and finally into a trace of a trace. The process of tearing tendons is a slow work, and in the old days, women used to do it. A common saying in the bow and arrow compound was, "A good man can't tear 4 taels of sinew a day. The torn sinews are tied into bundles and soaked in water in advance, and the longer they are soaked, the better. In the old days, there were soaked tendons in front of the stores in the Bow and Arrow Compound all the time. When you use it, you need to rinse it with clean water, so it works well and makes your bow smooth. If the tendon soak time is not long enough, the master will say that the tendon "more dirty, hard, not moist", made of it, the bow surface may appear a crack, they often call it "water crack".

(4) Swimbladder: "Swimbladder" is the name given by the masters of Beijing Bow and Arrow Compound to the animal glue used for pasting various materials, and it is a very crucial material in the bow and arrow industry. It is a very crucial material in the archery industry. The amount of swim bladder used in a bow is very large, and it is often said that "a bow has four swim bladders". Moreover, the quality of swim bladder is one of the key factors directly affecting the quality of the bow. Fish bladders were first used in the archery industry. Fish bladder is a very good sticking material, and its production method is to use the fish bladder of the kingfish (Chinese name: Daihuangyu, scientific name: Pseudosci aenacrocea) to boil it. First wash the fish foam with water, and then soak it in warm water to make it rise. After soaking for a period of time, it is boiled over a slow fire. When boiled to a certain extent, mashed and filtered to remove the dregs and hard lumps. When used, it can be diluted with boiling water. Although swim bladder is the preferred adhesive in the bow and arrow making industry, nowadays it is mostly used as pig skin bladder. According to Yang Fuxi, the swim bladder has not been used for almost 100 years. There is a history of the invention of the pig skin swim bladder used nowadays. During a dinner party in the Bow and Arrow Compound, one of the fellows who loved pork but did not like pork skin spit it out on the table. When the table was cleared the next day, the skin was firmly stuck to the table. From this, a man named Qi came up with the idea of making pork skin swim bladder from pork skin, and after trying, he succeeded. He sent out the pig skin bladders to all the bow and arrow stores to try them out for free, and then paid for them when they found them usable. This method was adopted by Master Yang. To make the swim bladder, the skin is first washed with alkaline water and then boiled in warm fire until it can be penetrated with chopsticks. Then put it in the iron pot pounded, continue to boil, and finally filter the dregs and hard, dry and cut into strips can be used to adjust the concentration according to requirements.