sinew backing backset...

[nowhereman]

Hello,

I've made a short flat bow of well cured red oak about 50"x1.25", and want to apply sinew backing, was thinking of stringing the bow 3 - 4 inches backwards before applying to get the desired extra's. Thing is the bow's back is an unworked shallow crown and i dont want to touch it, and, crucially its almost tiller complete so does anyone recommend stringing it the other way round at this late stage in the process? Bending it the opposite way at present seems a very bad idea...



Regards

v

[toomanyknots]

You can take a couple gallons of water and tied em to the ends as the bow dryed with the bow upside down on something so it pulls it a bit into reflex... You could fill em up just halfway or something if you don't want to stress the belly too much if thats what you mean...

[PEARL DRUMS]

The sinew will pull the bow into some relfex as it cures. You could always clamp the center down and lift the tips up a few inches, then sinew and let it cure as is. DONT string your bow backwards!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[crooketarrow]

  He's right the sinew will add the reflex. I'd wait and but the sinew on then finish tillering. THIS WAY YOU CAN GET THE DESIRED WEIGHT TO YOUR LENTH. If you tiller then add sinew you still have to retiller to get the weight you want. SINEW WILL HAD  DRAW WEIGHT.

[nowhereman]

Hey thanks for that all -

crooketarrow - so i'll sinew then tiller...

pearl drums - think i may just let the sinew do its work, maybe that will reflex the bow enough...did you have a bad experience backwards stringing then?

toomanyknots - thanks for the tip, my concern was that if I strung the bow backwards it would damage the back, chrysal or fret  or just plain snap (although its oak and i havent broken any oak bow i've made to date).

cheers dudes

v

[blackhawk]

Long string tiller your stave to the point of where you wood brace the bow(but don't actually string it to brace) before incurring any set in the bow. Then you'll have nice even reflex when you reverse brace it to lay the sinew down. You can reverse brace to sinew back a bow. I've done it before up to 6"+ reverse braced then sinewed while brace,and left it for a month before pulling the string off. There's a photo in one of the TBB's of a guy who reverse braced a bow 9",then sinewed it. And after the bow was tillered and shot hundreds of times it still retained 5" of reflex immediately after unstringing. Go for it. 

[Eric Garza]

You could string it backwards. I do that all the time, and I make pretty short bows (haven't made one as long as 50 inches in a while). As long as the bow bends through the handle and the tiller is even enough that there aren't any hinges, stringing it backwards won't hurt a thing. You can adjust the string length to decide how much reflex to put into it (probably not too much, at that nock-2-nock length) and lay the sinew down.