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Hold my hand when I sinew my first bow
jameswoodmot:
Yes the actual putting the sinew on the bow doesn’t take long at all does it? Glad I took your advice
and got it all sorted and laid out and ready to go. The stainless brush worked well to clean the short stands out when it was wet.
I mixed the glue up to 25%, I think maybe the people I’ve seen do it on videos have just used thinner glue.
Tomorrow when I take the wraps off can I fill in any gaps with more sinew? When I swapped the bandages there were a couple of small channels where bundles hadn’t met.
I guess warm the area, put down some glue and then put in more sinew than I think it needs so it can shrink down?
superdav95:
Glad to help out. I would hold off in filling in any gaps just yet. I would wait at least a week and then see what it looks like before going to that. You may find that it won’t matter and shrinkage is still occurring right now. They may became insignificant as it dries further. If it’s a twisted strand or strands causing a gap however it may get larger actually but deal with that also in about a week or more. My method of dealing with little gaps is waiting a few days at least and then using hot thin glue use a porcelain mug and rub it down hard to compress the fibers and I think you find you won’t need to add any later. I just use a little brush to coat the top layer sinew and then go at it with the smooth side of a mug or anything smooth that you can get a good grip on. I’ll post a video on this too on my channel and put a link here. It will not harm your sinew. It will only need to be done once at like the 3-4 day dry point. Do not try to do this when your sinew is not dry enough or at least looks mostly dried through the entire layer. You will see no white remaining in your layer. I say this because dry times vary wildly depending on where you live. I’m in Alberta and it’s pretty dry here. I plan to burnish mine at like day 3. If after all this burnishing and compressing you still find you have unsightly voids you can decide after a week or so to fill those in. Always add a little more to voids then you think as it does shrink obviously. Take that into consideration. I’ve also wrapped my patches depending on size. This helps to match it up better with the rest.
jameswoodmot:
Humidity is about 65% here, much dryer in my house mind. I’ve got it in one of the cooler rooms.
Had a look this morning, missed a bit on the tip past the nock and a couple of bits on the edge that was away from me. Things to know next time!
The gap seems pretty big to me but I’ll see how it looks in a few days, I gave it a little squeeze and it’s quite squidgy under the top dry layer.
I was thinking about my process and why I got a bit mixed up on the second limb. I put two layers on the first limb, I should have done one across the whole bow and then put the second layer on over the middle section. I think I was concentrating on trying to get the first limb looking even and getting that one done when the glue was still tacky and I ended up feeling a bit rushed.
Then when I came to do the second limb it took a lot more thinking about where the bundles needed to go and the layout wasn’t as clear. Totally obvious where I went wrong in hindsight!still I don’t think it’s a problem, I might have shifted my distribution of sinew slightly towards the second limb, I’ll find its balance point and worst case I guess I’ll be able to sand it down a bit.
Should have some horse legs by the end of the week to strip the tendons from
superdav95:
Looks great! Give it a week or so and you’ll have a better idea what you need to do.
jameswoodmot:
I’ve just filled in a few bits on the edge. Not sure it’s necessary at all but i don’t think it’s really going to increase the drying time and it was annoying me. Several bits along the “back” side, the other side to which I was standing.
Got about 6” of reflex now.
I gave it a quick burnish at about day 3 (I was away day 4 to 8) but having watched your video Dave I wasn’t aggressive enough. I was worried about getting it too wet and rucking up the top strands of sinew. It’s better but nothing like yours. I’ll leave it as is and remember for next time.
It looks like I think it should and I’m feeling confident about bending it.
I’m thinking wait for it to stop loosing weight then give it a few more days?
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