Effects of Natural Adhesive “Nibe” for Drawing Kyoto Bow

Abstract

In Kyoto bow fabrication, in order to bond each material, the glue which is made from the skin of the deer (Nibe) has been traditionally used. Recently, the synthetic adhesive is used instead of Nibe. The purpose of this study is to clarify the effects of the type of adhesive on the performance for the archer to draw Kyoto bow (Nibe bow and Synthetic bow). The measurement of motion was performed using MAC 3D system, and in order to clarify the relationships between the deformation and the load required to draw of the Kyoto bow, the motion analysis of the archer during the drawing motion of the Kyoto bows was performed by attaching markers and load cell onto the bows. In addition, the velocity of the arrow was calculated by the image processing. The loads and the maximum velocities of arrow with both bows were similar, however the arrow of Nibe bow drastically accelerates rather than that of Synthetic bow at the some point. Additionally, the time required to draw the bow of Nibe bow was significant shorter than that of Synthetic bow.