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Sinew backed juniper bow

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Pappy:
 I never tried chewing it for backing but chew it all the time when I am using it from a wrapping, Love to see more also. :)
 Pappy

Pat B:
Like Pappy I chew sinew for wrapping on arrows but not for bigger projects like backing a bow. When you chew sinew your saliva and the sinew makes it's own glue but I never thought about chewing sinew for backing a bow.

pierce_schmeichel:

--- Quote from: Del the cat on January 03, 2024, 03:23:26 am ---Nice, Can we see an unbraced pic please?
Del

--- End quote ---

Of course!

pierce_schmeichel:
Here's a pic of it drawn back to 18".

Also I have sinew backed a bow before without glue at all. I've just chewed the sinew and layed it flat on the bow.that worked great and that bow hasn't had any issues so far. I figured why not because we chew it to bind fletchings and that works well. My guess is that could have been how it was done at one point in history just because of the simplicity of it. Early man chewed it for bindings so why wouldn't they have chewed it for sinew backing? I don't know it just makes sense in my mind.


Another thought....this bow stave warped when drying into a dflex. My solution was to make the belly of the bow the back haha. I figured it was going to be sinew backed and most of the load on the wood was going to be in compression so I was going to be able to get away with all of the violation. It's been working great so far!

pierce_schmeichel:

--- Quote from: Kidder on January 03, 2024, 01:56:55 am ---Awesome work. I want to see some more pictures and also hear more about “chewing the sinew” opposed to soaking it - is this the historically accurate way sinew was applied? And welcome.

--- End quote ---

My guess is that it is or at least at one point has been a historically accurate way to apply it. My reasoning is that you wouldn't even need clay pots to make hide-glue. It just kind of jumps over that step. It also just goes on way more easily. You don't have a sticky mess, it dries quicker(probably because there isn't any hide glue forming an outer shell that prevents moisture from escaping easily) and the whole process only took me about an hour, start to finish...all 3 layers. Also if you want to take a break it's super easy you just stop chewing on sinew. You don't have to worry about heating up the hide glue all over again, you have the flexibility to add a little here and there.

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