Sinew Processes ?

[BowEd]

I usually end up after preweighing and reweighing things with a 1/3 to 2/3 weight ratio of glue to sinew cured on my bows these days.Good enough for me.

[BowEd]

willie...after it gels.

[willie]

anybody ever use something like these...

[gorazd]

Willie ... these rollers are for laminating the glass cloth with resin (epoxy or polyester) I think...
To get the air out of laminate.

[willie]

yes, that is the market that they are usually sold to. they work ok for getting air out, but there are better styles for bubble busting.

these rollers are very useful when working  directional strands in resin. they help to orient the strands and are useful for helping to saturate and consolidate the fibers,  you can apply pressure without sideways squishing . Also useful for
bringing excess resin to the surface, for removal or starting the next layer.

[BowEd]

Pat M...I hear what your saying about not wasting sinew and I agree and your method makes a superb finish on it.Thing is when making horn bows  there always seems to be a certain little amount of thickness adjustments along the length of the limbs staged at different intervals along the limb that the maker wants before tillering.So most times a little sanding or fileing is usually always done anyway before final seasoning.Even though horn and core have been pretapered to a degree.
With self bows being sinewed those inconsistencies are tillered out with wood removal.Not the best or desired option with horn removal on horn bows.
willie....interesting tools.No I have not.I did not see those in Adams' arsenol of tools to make a horn bow but look very useful where required to use.

[Stick Bender]

I wonder if any body has noticed any difference in type of leg sinew used it seemed to me the elk sinew was less coarse then the white tail or moose sinew and seemed easer to get flattened and on , I haven't tried the horse sinew yet might give that a shot on the current bow , wish I could find easy access to some fish bladders I think mixing that with the rabbit skin glue might make for a nice mix I think Adam mentioned using cattle sinew and said it was used in some of the original bows , I also wonder if there is any strength difference between the different sinew , this sinew topic is infinitely interesting a lot of different aspects to it ?

[bradsmith2010]

i think it varies from batch to batch,, if you pull a strand and try to break it , you can tell the difference in batches and in different let sinews,,, I think its age and how it was cured,,, has an effect on strength,,

[BowEd]

Proper preperation maybe the key.Personally I think sinew is sinew if prepared/cleaned/and dried right most times.Sinew from the ungulate species of animal would get my vote.Never hear of pig sinew do ya?

[willie]

consider all the nuances we put into the selection, collection and care of our bow wood.
there is undoubtedly much lost knowledge, about similar concerns with sinew

[gfugal]

when we weight train and get stronger, it's not just your muscles that change. It's also the tendons and ligaments. They get stronger too. There have also been studies that show professional athletes, in events such as the high jump for example, have much stiffer (and longer) achelies tendons than the average person. By quite a bit actually. So it goes to say that the lifestyle, strength, and size of an animal would affect the quality of the sinew we get. I would say the larger the beast and longer the tendon the better, considering we don't know their lifestyle. That is unless we raised them and controlled their activity (maybe sinew from passed away equestrian or race horses would be good? not like you would be able to get it anyway). Otherwise I would say elk sinew would be superior to deer, and moose possibly the best. But I'm not sure. cattle and buffalo is intriguing, since they are massive beasts but they don't run or jump nearly as much as deer, elk, or maybe even moose so I'd say they wouldn't be quite as good, but who knows.

[gorazd]

In my one-year yourney into hornbows I have worked only with ostrich, cow and pig sinew, all ahil tendons..
-pigs tendon sinew feels pretty soft and pliable in hands and doesnt feel any more greasy than ostrich/cow .... I have managed to cut out maybe 10-13cm in length max ... but pigs legs are not cheap at all - because some people eat it as specialty - and butcher sells them well !
I tested it only - glued on bamboo board

-ostrich feels a bit coarse compared to cow and pig, even  more when shreded to the tiny parts (looks like thicker), I have used it for first layer in my present project...when combed with korean method - it absorbed the glue and get even thicker  ?   more than cow sinew ! For second layer I used cow tendons... (I run out of ostrich)
I bought ostrich sinew from pet shop but there is problem with these pet food processors - they obviusly dry the tendons in heat - and you get a lot of damaged tendons (shrinked or turned into brown crystals - glue !) - I used the damaged ones for glue ...

There are pictures of dried cow tendons (actualy young beef) which I extracted.
 They throw away whole leg (under the knee) - I managed to cut out the tendons leading to the finger-cave (in hoof), pretty tedious labour !

[Stick Bender]

Some interesting thoughts there the age thing crossed my mind also I know my tendons are not as good as the where 40 years ago.....lol  & prep is key in my mind also , but one thing I have noticed particularly with white tail & moose tendons is there is always one tendon that the sinew is more coarse & dense almost hard and abrasive feeling , and resident to absorption , usually I set those a side & even when soaked in warm water the stay pretty much the same , I think on my current bow I will try the horse to see if it ads any HP....HaHa ! Although I will have no way to compare , but preparation Ect , the thing that crosses my mind is the Turks certainly had access to horses but used cattle among others ?  Maybe a tractor VS sports car thing , this is one aspect of bow making that your left on your own more so then non backed bows as far as knowledge goes not a lot of books on the topic ! I know it's not necessary to have max stressed material on wooden ,backed self type bows but makes sense to me to make the best bow possible bow with the best performance you can get !

[PatM]

Apparently at the strand level the sinew of all species is very similar. Variation seems to be more at the cross linking level  which everyone wants to break down anyway. There was a lengthy discussion on this subject on Paleoplanet a while back.

[gorazd]

Some good reason why turks used cow/beef tendon is I think ... the quantity of sinew you get from it ... fresh beef tendons are very thick - like human fingers !
If you dont shredd the sinew in tiny parts you get 20-30 g of sinew from one tendon.
I shredded in very fine long strands - and got maybe 10g of longest ones of it - exactly for one combed sinew layer (one bow limb),... and lots of small pieces for ears covering (ot glue making)