help on Hupa bow

[wally]

After seeing the Hupa bows in last month's PA I've decided to make one about 40" long (short?  )
Getting along o/k then I saw a guy on Utube from 1961 making one.
His was very thin, looked to be about 5/16 which is thinner than I thought. He says that the wood is only a former to hold the sinew back?
The bow is then pulled backwards (deflex?) so it looks like a drawn bow, but backwards. The sinew is then glue on what looks like in this position the inner curve (belly). He chewed sturgeons air bladder then spat it into a cup and that was the glue. I don't think I'll be doing that! Hide glue for me.
The inner curve was fully covered in sinew then left to dry. The bow is then strung the other way so that the sinew backing was under great tension.
My question, I thought that if you did that the sinew would be too far stretched and would 'whiten' when fully drawn causing it to weaken.
Has anybody applied sinew like that on a bow with that much deflex/reflex forced into it(I can't work out which it is)? With string off the bow is not flat but looks like severe string follow, the opposite way though! I hope that makes sense.
I know the mongolian horn/sinew bows look like that unstrung.

[wally]

I've looked again and the bow he is making is a Yurok? bow, which apparently is thinner than a Hupo bow.
But is it still made putting forcing a big deflex in it before sinewing as I explained in first post.
Here is link to youtube. Worth watching

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPcE2HkH-AM

[crooketarrow]

   Yes it dose and those few words bring back a ton of memeory's. The old guy well that I guess you can was my mentor.Even though I'd been building bows for 4 years and only knew him for 10 be fore his death. This is were my name CROOKETARROW comes from.His dad was IROQOUIS indain and he built bows for over 50 years. He favored his own version of eastern wood land bows with a stwist.
   I said mohawks use to do this with there little recurver tipped bows.So he did this with straight limb bows.He said he was told other tribes did this.He had to be told because he could'nt read. He like 54 to 58 inch bows.And if they didn't have a little deflex in the stave.He never heated. He'd been it back this way just a inch or so.Be cause it you did this to much.The drying of the sinew made it's own defex as it dryed making it's own reflex 1 to 3 inchs depending on how many layers you added.If you flexed it back to muck then the sinew did it's flexing when drying.It would creat to much deflex.For the sinew and it come apart.
  So you had to know to know how far to bend it back before you added the sinew.So it would hold together. I don't know it you can follow that or not. Hope this makes some kind of sence.Sorry I'm a hunter not a writer.

[wally]

crooketarrow,
Yes I understood it fine. I see that it would take some knowledge to know how much reflex sinew on the bow can take.
Thanks for your help. I'll have to get some knowledge by doing one. I think I'll only put a bit of backward bend on before I sinew and see how it goes.
Thanks again
wally

[crooketarrow]

    Thanks I'd forgot I'd seen that film in the mid 80's. That was alsome for sure. Nothing like the bows my frind made. I can see why they say it's just a wood form for the sinew.The poundage comes from the sinew totally.
   But my friends bows used the same pimsable.JUST NOT TO THAT EXSTENCE. I did a primitive bow making class a long time ago.My bow did'nt look no where like his. I can only fell for the bowyer that built bow after bow useing those tools and we think we build primitive bows.
   And I can just see the gamewardens face when he walked into my shop and see the hawk laying up on the bench.
 

[loefflerchuck]

The bow was bent backwards before sinewing, reflexed, not deflexed. This lets the sinew dry to bring the bow to a greater reflex. I have made many of these bows and use up to 6 layers of sinew, although 3 to 4 works well on wide thin limbed bows. Go to www.heartwoodbows.com to see a few of these bows

[wally]

Chuck
thanks for that answer. I have just checked you're fantastic website. You've got some truly wonderful bows there! The knowledge you have studied and gained must be tremendous. Well done and thank you.
I cannot match your level of bow building in these unique smaller bows, but I am going to try to finish my bow off. I'm using Hawthorn which I don't think you get there but it makes great self bows.
With the knowledge and insights I have gained I'm going out to my shed now and start tillering the wooden bow down a bit!
I've also got a lot of sinew to prepare

[loefflerchuck]

Good luck Wally. My next door neighbor has a english hawthorne tree that was growing into our yard. A late snow broke off a nice branch into our driveway. I will try it out when I have a chance