Abe the Wizard

Chapter 34: Compound Bow

Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

With the free time that he had, Abel decided to use it for some power-up first. By “power-up,” he would like to start with his weapons. Thinking back to his encounter with the worgen, he did remember himself wanting some sort of long-range weapon in his hands. Even if he couldn’t make the right aim, he could’ve at least slowed it down.

Abel had spent a great deal of his time thinking about making projectile weapons. He did do his research on the kind of bows that were produced in this world, but his main interested lied in something a little different. He wanted to craft a 70-pound compound bow, the same one he had used during his time on Earth.

The greatest thing about compound bows was how energy-efficient they were. To put it mathematically, if you were to save up 80% of your total strength, you would only need about 14 pounds of force to hold the string while it was being pulled. Conveniently enough, all that remaining strength would be used for improving accuracy and adjusting the wielder’s postures. If you were to save up 60% of your total strength, you would need about 28 pounds of force to keep the bow in its fully-pulled state. When you do, the shot would be a lot faster and much stronger.

With the blessing of the Power of the Will on his side, Abel could recall memories with an extraordinary level of detail. That being, he had a very clear memory of what a compound bow should be like. He knew what parts were essential to make one, and he knew all the sizes of these parts.

Let’s see. Idler wheel, cam, upper and lower limb, grip, arrow rest, string slider, string stabilizer, handle, buss cable, cable, limb pocket, string silencer, and cam. Apart from the main pars, there were also parts such as an attachable arrow rest, sight, release aid, a stick for reducing vibration, a peeping hole, and a wrist rope. That’s pretty much all the parts of a complete set of a modern compound bow.

While this world was not blessed with technology, the people living in it were much stronger than the people on Earth. It wasn’t hard to figure that out. As far as Abel knew, he’s never heard of someone slicing a human and a horse in half with just one swing of a word. And remember, the Knight of Marshall was an Intermediate Knight. As insane as his achievement, there was no telling what people stronger than he could do.

If anything, Abel was already stronger than most people on Earth. At a ridiculously young age of thirteen, he was able to release a total of 400 pounds of force with just his raw strength. During his time on Earth as a bodybuilding trainer, the tightest bow he could pull was only about 70 pounds in total.

While it was impossible to find the same raw ingredients here as one would on Earth, Abel was free to craft the bow in however ways he desired. That being said, he could use some very sturdy materials with little to no regard for the resulting weight of the bow. He was a strong kid, and everyone was pretty strong in this world.

Having made a list of the things he needed to make, Abel started drawing sketches on multiple pieces of paper. When he was done, he would label the size of these parts and think about the sort of materials he would need for them.

For the idler wheel and the power wheel, Abel thought that he would use one bearing to support both of their rotating motion. There were a couple of reasons to do this. Reducing friction. Improving the accuracy of the spin. While it was a crucial part of the bow, he would have to make the two wheels by treating them for a hundred times.

Because of how much time the upper and the lower limbs would take, Abel decided that he wasn’t going to make them himself. So how was he going to get them? Simple. He would go to the storage room and take them out of two heavy bows. There were a few 200-pound bows in the storage room. While they were the finest bows in Harry Castle, almost nobody in the castle could use them properly. For starters, one would at least have to be above being a rank four novice to pull the bow’s string. And even if one could manage to do that, he would have to use the same amount of force to aim at his target. In this sense, you would, technically, need about 300 pounds of force if you want to use the bow properly.

If Abel could get his hands on these heavy bows, he would have himself a bow limb and two extra strings. He was going to make a massive limb for his new bow, which would use up to two whole limbs of a heavy bow for its upper and lower limb.

For the stabilizers, Abel would use the same timber as the ones he could take apart from these heavy bows. For the handle and the arrow rest, he would make from bases of one hundred skills.

Abel commenced his work after he did all of his blueprints. Having taken two heavy bows out of the storage room, he found himself a bowmaker to help him make the compound bow. While he was not very confident in his bow limb, he decided to have a professional checking it for him.

The bowmaker, being a professional in his area, had a sad, “what a waste this is” look on his face when he took apart the two heavy bows. He cut the wood into the sizes that Abel had drawn on paper and glued the limbs together with some fish gel. Abel was very pleased with the resulting product.

For the stabilizers, Abel found himself a carpenter, who followed his instructions and made the parts as requested.

After every other part was done, it was now Abel’s turn to make his bearing.

While it was not known to many people, the bearing was the most important part of every machinery on Earth. A bearing would consist of three parts: the inner race, the outer race, and about several balls that would roll around the space between the inner and the outer race.

As difficult as it was to make bearings, they were mostly made in factories by mechanical beds. Abel didn’t have access to a mechanical bed, of course. He would have to rely on himself only which, even for a master blacksmith like him, was not an easy job to do.

Abel started with the balls. He made himself a Vernier scale, and after hitting small pieces of iron into little spheres, he would use it to make sure that he’s got the exact measurement that he wanted. It was a very, very exhausting process. For a single small ball, it would take him about several hours to make.

After making his first ball, Abel used some clays and water to build himself a molding model. It was kind of like the wet sand casting process, which was used to replicate pieces of metal from liquid form. By making one ball with his hands, Abel was able to make thirty copies of it with just his clay mold.

While only twelve balls were needed for one bearing, Abel decided to make some spares in case he needed them. With that mind, he got himself some iron so he could melt them for casting. He had expected this to be the most annoying process, mainly because he would have to use charcoals to slowly liquefy the metal pieces. Luckily, Master Bentham gave him this ointment for raising a fire’s heat. With just a few drops into the flame, the metal pieces started melting in a very short time.

Abel poured the liquid iron into thirty of his clay mold. Once they had all cooled down, Abel took them and filed the edges for a bit. Once he was done, he’s got himself thirty perfect small iron balls.

Next up, Abel had to combine the inner and outer race with the iron balls. Whilst looking back to the many physic lectures and documentaries he had watched in the past, he got out some pieces of ice and stuffed them into the inner race. He took the outer race and put it inside the stove. That’s right, he was using the thermal expansion and thermal contraction to combine the three parts in order.

After he was done making his bearing, Abel made his idler wheel and power wheel and attached them all. Soon, he’s got himself the first compound bow of the history of this world.

Realizing how late it was, Abel hid away the compound bow and went back home.

The next morning, after playing with Black Wind for a while, Abel went for some testing in the shooting. He got himself fifty arrows with the intention of shooting them all in one practice.

Abel took out his first arrow, placed it on the arrow rest and pulled on his release aid. Unlike what he had imagined, the tightness of the string was unlike anything he saw before. With the combined power of two heavy bows, the compound bow would take more than 400 pounds of force to be pulled. As hard as it was for Abel to pull on the string, it was a lot easier for him to hold it after he did. That’s the beautiful thing about a compound bow. Once having pulled it apart, you wouldn’t even 100 pound of force to keep the arrow in release mode.

Abel aimed towards his target, which was about fifty meters away from where he was standing. With a light press of the trigger on his release aid, the arrow was fired away at a pace that was not visible. It shot right through the center of the target and continued to fly for thirty meters more into the back wall before it finally stopped.

Damn. This shooting range was already the longest one in the entire Harry Castle. Abel did confirm that there was no problem in the bow’s release and aim, but he didn’t have a chance to test its maximum range of fire.

Still, just look at that clean whole in front of him. For all his experience with archery, Abel has never heard of an arrow that could still fly straight after fifty meters. Anyways, one thing was for sure, though. No matter how bizarre his compound bow was, it was the most technologically advanced in this world.