sinew "bandaids"

[George Tsoukalas]

PatM, have you tried it? Jawge

[PatM]

    Of course.

[George Tsoukalas]

Is the bow still intact? Jawge

[bradsmith2010]

there are varying degrees of chrysls,,,, just because you have some minor ones does not mean the bow is gone,, I am shooting a 20 year old black locust bow,, that had some chrysls when when I got in a hurry tillering,, I didnt remove wood from that spot and tillered the bow more evenly and it is still shooting great no set 20 years later( with no increase in damage),, I shot this bow alot through a couple of tournament seasons,,, it really depends on how bad they are,, and if you can even the tiller to take stress off that part of the bow,,  I have a friend that damaged his first bow and it chrysled,, we evened the tiller and still shooting fine,,years later,,,, that being said I am sure some bows have been damaged beyond repair,,, if the bow is slightly overbuilt you have more of a chance,, if the bow is stressed to the max,, then chances of recovery are less,,, that is why when first building a bow ,, an overbuilt design gives you a better chance of success,,,, as far as patching I am not an expert on that,, but if you can make that part of the bow stiffer,, and reduce stress to the belly there,, it should help in some minor cases,,,,,

[jayman448]

Haha. Im loving these varying opinions xD

[PatM]

Is the bow still intact? Jawge

     Of course not.  But you can better test rawhide as a compressive material by adding a full belly to a completed bow and checking the poundage increase.
 

[George Tsoukalas]

Now, Pat, let me see if we can work through this to determine how and why your bow broke.

Could you please describe to me exactly how the bow broke, the way it broke, where it broke and exactly how it appeared after it broke.

Thanks.

Jawge

[PatM]

It folded at the rawhide/chrysal section of course.  Would you rawhide the belly of a uniformly chrysaled Black Locust bow and call it fixed?
  PS this bow was deliberately designed to test the theory. I don't do patch jobs on permanent bows.

[George Tsoukalas]

Pat,
These days I chrysalled bows prop up tomatoes in the Jawge Broken Bow Garden. Haven't had one in quite a few years.
In my early days , though, I tried to extend their life as long as possible.
Sorry, your bow folded on you.
I've only had one do that and that was back in the early 90's.
There is no fix for a bow that frets so badly (worse, deeper than chrysals) so that it folds.
Perhaps, the rawhide patch will aid a bow not so far gone.
As I mentioned previously design problems (too short, too narrow) cause chrysals that extend over the whole limb. I believe there is no fix for that.
As I mentioned to you the fix has worked for me but it was a long time ago and I don't remember how long I shot the bow afterwards.
I've been doing this a long, long time. I do not recommend things that haven't worked for me.
Thanks.
Jawge

[duke3192]

I've done the patch job, replacing wood, on a couple of honey locust bows, it worked for a while, but they eventually failed and quite dramatically.

[mikekeswick]

I can't see rawhide adding any compression resistance to a belly. It's not dense enough or stiff enough. To find out do what Pat suggested and make a bow, measure the draw weight then add a rawhide belly and weight it again.
Dean Torges's patches do work but they need to be perfectly executed and personally I wouldn't waste my time now. If I were to get a chrysal now I would probably cry for a bit, bang my head on the wall for rushing then toss the piece of wood into the kindling pile.

[jayman448]

Haha. Seems i have started quite the "discussion" lol.

[Parnell]

In my book, frets=junk.  Cut it in half and turn it into an Atlatl or like Jawge says, "garden stakes".  I figure the only reasonable wrap job is if you are reinforcing a parallel check line on the bows back as insurance.  Other than that...do over.

[PatM]

The problem with all these supposed fixes is that they seem to have bred a generation of careless bowyers. We're seeing a lot of bows now with all sorts of careless mistakes because the maker has been led to believe that there are cures for everything.

[Parnell]

The problem with all these supposed fixes is that they seem to have bred a generation of careless bowyers. We're seeing a lot of bows now with all sorts of careless mistakes because the maker has been led to believe that there are cures for everything.

"A generation of careless bowyers"?    Is that really what you think?