Main Discussion Area > HowTo's and Build-a-longs

sinew moisture resistance

(1/3) > >>

BowEd:
Has anybody out there done something on this order to help sinew resist taking on moisture or humidity.It starts with using distilled water[from a dehumidifier].Boiling this water with ground up oak bark a couple of hours to change the water color brown.Anyone who has steamed osage has seen the water change to a yellow.Now strain the heavys from it through a cheese cloth or cotton cloth.Leaving you just the colored water.Now this water has tannic acid in it the same acid that tans and cures leather for a vegetable oak tan.Smoking brain tan deer hides acquire the same acid for moisture resistance.I know this because I've brain tanned well over a hundred hides and can vouch for it.Now use this water for your hide glue mixture for your sinew to go into before applying it to the bows back.One of these days I'm going to try it.

BowEd:
Have to see whether the tannin in the water has a negative effect on the hide glue as far as bonding goes etc.

JW_Halverson:
IN the first Traditional Bowyers Bible there is a section on glues where they talk about adding tannin to help hide glue resist moisture. 

Couple years ago I filled a 5 gallon kettle with shredded oak bark, topped her up with water and proceeded to simmer that for over 24 hours.  Eventually I boiled it down to a gallon of water, added a bunch of scrap sinew and rawhide and made a nice batch of glue.  Black as sin, thicker than snot.  It's been sitting in the freezer ever since.  One of these days I need to parcel it out in smaller batches and send it out to people that are interested in doing some glue strength testing.  If it works, cool.  If not, I have a big batch of unsweetened oak flavored Knox Blox. 

BowEd:
Wow!! JW you would'nt need to dye the back black before putting snake skins on would ya.Cool.I was just going to prepare some tannin water then freeze that and use a bit at a time to put some powderd glue in for sinewing.Either way it gets on there.Sounds like an investment of about at least a year and a couple of bows and standing in the rain hunting these bows to see if it has an effect.LOL.Or at least the bow not being affected by the humidity as much.I read that too about an engineer Tim Baker conversed with about the tannin water.You know the Indians left some of their bows hanging way up above their fire by the smoke flaps for reasons other than keeping bugs out of fresh bows I believe.Have a HAPPY HAPPY Fourth there young man.

zinger:
 Hasn't anyone here heard about using skim milk with hide glue crystals instead of water for making the hide glue waterproof? Just heard about it a couple of months ago and will be trying it out w/in a few weeks or so.  Now while it may not keep the sinew in a backing from absorbing humidity, it does seem like it would be a step up. As far as the oak bark tea goes, I would naturally think that all that tannic acid would keep that the glue from ever setting up, but some have apparently experienced different results (bowyer's bible). Will post my results with the skim milk experiment.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page