Maybe this falls outside the scope of this thread, but...I'd consider a longship a weapon of sorts.

I recently got a chance to go look at an honest-to-goodness viking longship, which was really cool since I got to examine it's construction some. But what I forgot to check out was how the prow and stern were put together.

The spine of the ship is basically one piece of wood, but the prow and stern are too steeply curved, so they use additional pieces of wood and put them together to get the right shape. Like (slashes are additional pieces of wood);

\........................................../
.\.________________________./.

What I forgot to find out is how those pieces are fit and secured together. Does anybody know?

Also, for the planks which made up the sides of the ship, how did they get them to bend in order to take the proper shape?