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preventing sinew drying cracks

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sonny:
speaking of ERC by the way..........

...so when I rough out a bow that I plan on sinew backing I will generally round the back before applying sinew,, mostly as I don't care for the look of a flat back (though I may have to get over it). unfortunately the last one I did cracked so severely along the edges of the limbs that I'm worried about proceeding. I went so far as to squeeze some Gorilla glue in the cracks but the foaming action of the glue left voids,, when I hoped for a good "filler".
so I think I'm going to soak the sinew off of that bow as well as another that I broke some time ago. my concern is that the next one may crack.
looking for suggestions on how to keep the limbs edges as well as belly cracks from forming.
if I think about it I'll post a pic or two tonight to show how wide these cracks are.....

episaacs:
I don't know for sure, but it seems intuitive that laying only one layer at a time and letting it dry before laying another might help.  Less force from shrinking at any one time.

Pat B:
Persimmon ;), Lots of Jay Massey's sinew backed bows checked in the belly due to moisture being added to dry wood and the sinew pulled the checks open as it dried. He mentioned that it happened particularly when he used well seasoned wood. My friend Alan has a Jay Massey bow and the belly is checked all to hell. He doesn't shoot it and probably never will because it doesn't want it to break. It probably wouldn't anyway.
   Maybe like Ed said, do a layer of sinew at a time and let it cure before adding the next. Also, you might try using unseasoned(green) wood and let the sinew and wood dry together.   Pat

Hillbilly:
Reginald Laubin said in his book that glueing a layer of rawhide (or even tape) on the belly and then scraping it off after the sinew cures will keep the belly checks from happening.

tom sawyer:
I've had it happen a time or two, nothing extensive though.  I've had mroe problems with the sinew poppiing off, so at least you know you're doing good on prepping your surface.

You might need to pretiller your bow more before applying the sinew.    If the blank is so stiff that the sinew can't pull it into some reflex as it shrinks, then it might pull the wood apart instead.  That, and you might let it dry more slowly so the wood has time to adapt to the increasing reflex.  Sometimes reverse-stringing the wood just a bit prior to sinewing, gets the reflex going in the right direction.

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