Sinew and ash?

[The Gopher]

I am ready to try my first sinew backing and was wondering if ash and sinew is a good combo?

[Hillbilly]

According to the Lakota, Cheyenne, and most of the other Northern Plains tribes, it is. Or at least they made a lot of bows using that combo if the museums are any indication.

[Gordon]

If you are going to go to the trouble of sinew backing a bow I would pick a wood that is stronger in compression than ash - yew, osage or juniper preferably.

[adb]

I wouldn't hesitate to sinew back ash. Keep it short and wide.

[bambule]

I think you need a very good ash for sinew. To weak in compression mostly...
I would choose another wood.

Greetz
Cord

[Hillbilly]

I've made many good bows from white ash and never had any chrysaling or compression problems whatsoever on any of them. I consider white ash to be really good bow wood, and I can get almost any kind of wood to work with. Many of the other ashes are lighter and weaker, though.

[JW_Halverson]

Of the three Native American bows I have been able to look at closely, two were definitely ash, and probably green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanicus), both of which were sinewed.  Neither one was over 40 inches and both were in pretty rough shape and no one even suggested trying to brace them.  Sadly, the owner of these two bows will not let White Eyes touch them or even look at them anymore,  so I cannot get photos or even measurements even though I have full respect for the history and culture. 

The third one looks to me to be chokecherry and is also sinewed and it appears in the Museum of the Fur Trade in Chadron Nebraska. Sinew backed, recurve/decurve, painted, about 50" (if I remember right), with several arrows and full provenance of where it came from, when, etc.

Back to ash and sinew.  If you are wanting to recreate a known technology and be historically correct to a certain tribe in a certain place and time, I would give you a hearty thumbs up for the combo.  But if you are looking to build one bow with sinew backing that you can count on day after day for years to come, then I would point you at yew, osage, or another bow wood combination that resists compression failure.    Having said that, I am going to sinew an ash bow this fall and leave another osage unbacked. 

[PatM]

When you add sinew you greatly enhance the compression properties of wood.  A large percentage of Northern Plains bows are short, narrow sinew backed Ash.
 It's authentic and works well. I have cut some Green Ash that was exceptional wood. I believe the Western bows were "Red" Ash specifically but that is actually just a regional variation of Green Ash.

[JW_Halverson]

Not sure if your "red ash" is a modern cultivar or another species/subspecies since you didn't mention the latin name.  Sadly common names aren't common to everyone.  Where I live in the Dakotas there is really only the green ash, or Fraxinus pennsylvanicus.  At the very eastern edge of the two Dakotas there are some other ash trees, but beyond the confines of the Red River Valley of the north, they are pretty much only planted from modern nursery stock. 

Wish I had some access to "white ash" around here because I have heard very good things about it's balance between compression and tension strength.

[PatM]

It is the same tree, just a slight regional variation.