Well, this is a bow I begun 3 years ago. Its old Osage and the heaviest and darkest I ever had, it was very oily but had a lot of drying cracks (vertical). The bow was several times piked and new tillered, because I was not satisfied with the result. So it became shorter and shorter …
At least I decided to make something like a plains Indian bow. but with unusual cross section (wider)and unusual sinewing (only the bending parts to save mass). I had to correct this piece several times (twist and alignment). Tips are steamed back (20 min). The back was carefully prepared for sinew job (acetone, roughing the surface).
This bow was a NIGHTMARE !
She has thrown off the sinew backing – in one whole piece and that for two times!!!!!
Sinew popping off came at full draw with big bang like a gun shot! The sinew strap flew in a corner of my shop and the bow in the other, but was not broken.
Has anyone used popped off sinew layers a second time?? What a mess.
See the pics, I wondered if I could use this layers on another bow, perhaps glueing on in one whole piece??
After a long long time, I gave her a third try:
I prepared the back again, washed with acetone (3x, got every time a yellersoup); then used oven-cleaner-foam. Now I believe this was the deal!
O.k. here is then the third and hopefully last attempt, I started in January. Three layers of sinew, strengthened with sinew bindings (red) After drying I painted the backing with a kind of lightning (from heaven or hell ??). The upper tip is decorated with a horse hair tassel, glued on a little plug. The handle is brain tanned buckskin (got it from my friend Kare – thanks!)
specs:
48″ ntn
62#/24″
string: 8 strands 425X + 4strands of Dacron at the ear / bowyers knot
bending handle, stiff levers 5″ each
deer sinew
