Was given a couple pounds of elk leg sinew scraps and I decided to make up a batch of hide glue. Naturally I went to the Bowyers Bible Vol 1 and read up on it. Two things caught my eye:
1) Plumping sinew with lye. Soaking the sinew in lye to degrease and "open" up the fibers.
2) Adding tannin to make the dried glue water resistant.
So I grabbed a bucket of wood ash, leached some rainwater thru it a few times and used that to soak the sinew for three days. They plumped up pretty nice. I drained the water, rinsed a couple 5 gallon buckets through them and then poured in a quart of vinegar to just settle out any residual caustic action.
Then I grabbed a bunch of oak bark from the backyard woodpile and filled a 5 gallon boiler and filled 'er up with water and let 'er rip on the stove until I had a gallon of the blackest oak dye ya ever laid eyes on. That gallon of oak dye would have really made nice dye for a backwoods linsey-woolsie hunter's frock coat for my historical re-enactment git-up, but it went into my big turkey roasting pan along with the sinew. Popped the whole shebang into the oven and set it at 180 degrees F, and left it the heck alone for 24 hours.
I strained out the syrupy glue and it set up pretty good and stiff at room temperature. I melted down a pint of it and poured it into a breadpan and then let that set up. I left that breadpan out in the cool garage for a week to let it dry down, then pulled out the leathery remains. It has now dried down to rock hard consistency. I guess the next step is to borrow a hefty torque wrench and duplicate the sheer strength test from TBB V1.
Anybody else ever use these techniques?
