Hello all...
Here's a winged elm I sinewed last fall before deer season.The name salt and pepper snake comes from the name locals will give the black speckeled king snake."The old snake eater".Adorned by locals.I acquired these from road kills.
The bow is 62" TTT.47.5#'s @ 28".Finished mass weight is 18.50 ounces for those concerned.
Prior to sinewing I heat treated in around 5" of reflex first.
I then applied 1000 grains of sinew in 3 courses on 3' of inner limbs and handle increasing the reflex a little more each time.A simple composite construction with no horn.Moose and elk leg sinew for the first 2 courses and 225 grains worth of 28" long buffalo backstrap sinew for the increasingly crowned third course.
First 2 courses on crowned already.
28" length back strap and 7" overlapping ends to be put on at base of lever fades ready for final third course crowning it even more.Showing this because this is about the longest length sinew I've ever put on a bow.
Sinew for third course layed out on bow to check for proper length.
Final reflexing of 9" side view profile.
Everything lined up well and bow set off to cure.
Curing time of around 6 months done.Overlays on and ready to tiller.Limb on the right has slightly more reflex of about an inch.
Final thickness of sinew occupying 25% to 30% of the working limbs' thickness.
Most of the reflex is in the inner limbs and rising quickly right out of the fades.Outer limbs stiffish,but still working to a small degree.Around 11" of working limbs and around 15" of stiffish outer limbs.
Details of it's behavior after tillering and a few 3 hour shootings of around 200 arrows has it resting at 7.75".After a 3 hour shoot it unbraces to a scooch over 6".Two hours later back to 7.5".Back to 7.75" over night.
I wanted the grain of the wood and texture of the rawhide to show through so I used a charcoal grey stain on the outer limbs,beef rawhide lace grip,and deer rawhide wraps to match the black and white snake skin color.
Did a little scrimshaw using black india ink on one of the goat horn overlays.My usual slightly raised horn dot arrow pass also.
Finish is an epifanes tung oil based 2 step brushed on spar varnish to give it more detailed see through rubbed in look matte finish.It can take a few days to harden depending on humidity as it's a tung oil base finish.
A few weeks ago I posted a pre-look of the bow in "Test/a little news"
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,71240.0.htmlSome more of the story can be found there.I would suggest reading through the other links attatched there also.
Balance point very close to arrow pass.Feels and looks good while drawing also.
You could add close to 3" more of stiff fade to that length.
As a final test I grabbed a 615 grain ocean spray shoot arrow that I would use while hunting and shot it through the chronograph also @ 28" draw.That's a 13 grain arrow for this bow.I had Robin spot for me as I shot.Used the same 3 ply 9 strand 70 grain string as before.I got 2 duplicate shots at 165 fps from that.This will bode well for me come hunting season as the extra momentum and KE from a heavier arrow with the speed does benefit penetration.
9 strands is way more than strong enough for this bow.I could of got along with a 2 ply 6 strand string and probably pushed to the 190 fps mark or more with a 10 grain arrow if I wanted to.
I must state that this has been done before in a simple composite design.First I saw was by Steve Gardner[Badger] with some bamboo backed bows of similar design close to 15 years ago using a very dense core wood.This is just my top view version of it using sinew and reflex.Without others attempts it probably would'nt happen.
