Hold my hand when I sinew my first bow

[jameswoodmot]

Brilliant!

No worries, I’ll go back to 46 grams and I’ve got some processed ready to go for the next one. I have no reference for how much sinew will give how much extra draw or draw weight so I’ll start there and take my notes and then work from that for the next one. Mostly I just want more draw length for now.

I’ve got my bundles re sorted. I weighed them out this time which was much better and quicker, 2 grams per long bundle and 1 gram per short bundle.

My plan is to put a centre strip down with 1.5gram  bundles on the tips, the run a strip of short strands along both edges and then fill in the gaps with long bundles. Keeping it slightly heavier along the crown and around the middle. I’m going to do one heavy layer. The strands in the  bundles vary a fair bit in length which should make for a good overlap

[Robert Pougnier]

That's looking great!

I like your system for reverse bracing it. Looks like you glued some wood at the tips on the belly side to tack on some length with extra nocks  to have access to the whole bow when it's reverse braced? Good thinking. I will try that next time.

[jameswoodmot]

Robert, yeah that’s exactly what I did, I just super glued them on. I got a little crack under the nock the first time I braced it so I’m going to give them a bit of a sinew wrap under them, didn’t want the string in the way. Also got the double string wjth a pencil in it so I can just twist it up as it reflexes.

Well, I did it! Looks a right mess at the moment 😂

So I did one limb then the other, not sure if that was the best way, next time I think I will do a row at a time maybe. It felt like a lot of sinew to get on in one go, and I got a little confused about where to put some of the bundles as I didn’t keep them the same width as I spread them out. Over all I think the placement is fine. I had two short bundles left over which I couldn’t work out where to put so I broke them into smaller bits and I was able to use them to fill in a couple of little gaps

The glue was much stickier than I expected, I think it’s a thicker mix than I’ve seen people use before and I struggled to get it as hot as I wanted in the slow cooker, strange as it was getting too hot last night. I under up heating each bundle infront of the halogen heater after soaking in the glue.

It was more difficult that I thought rearranging the bundles once they were on the bow, the glue tacked up faster than I thought it would. Whether that is because of the temperature of it or just how it is I don’t know. I think a combination of both but I had the heater there to warm it up when I thought it needed it. I’ve got a layer of plastic wrap over it and then wrapped with with strips of T-shirt, the T-shirt didn’t behave very well so I’m going to the shop to get some bandages.

Once the bundles were down I’d say I had 30 seconds to a minute to move them around before they were pretty well where they were staying. I actually removed the first bundle after putting it down as it cooled way too quickly, I don’t think the bow or the glue were warm enough which is when I get the heater out.

[jameswoodmot]

It’s only been half an hour and I’ve already checked on it three times! I want to pull it!

Two weeks to cure?

[superdav95]

Looks great.  Now that you’ve done it each time you will find efficiency for the next one.  You’ll be happy you took the time to get organized too.  It makes for better consistency.  The heater is good but another idea that you may try is just a heat lamp or a couple of them aimed at you work.  I found this works good for me on bigger projects.  If you move swiftly though you don’t really need one.  The little bow I sinew last night I had two strip per side so it went quite quickly and just used water on my hand to smooth out and blend.  It’s hard to tell from the pics how thick your glue is but I do mine around 25-30%. 

[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.