Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Marin on June 08, 2016, 11:43:45 pm
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Hello all,
I have been looking into western indian bows (especially the ones made by Ishi) and was curious in making plans to make my own. However, I live in an area that does not have yew, incesce cedar, or juniper. I do have a lot of california bay laurel though. However, I was trying to look into whether or not one can make a nice sinew backed bow from bay laurel but it seems everyone tends to make their sinew backed bows from juniper, yew, or cedar. Can I in theory make an ishi style bow with a sinew or rawhide backing on a california bay (or perhaps,a red oak board) or can you only sinew back certain woods? And why is it people tend to stick with those particular type of woods when they sinew back (I hardly ever see a sinew backed red oak board bow but do see plenty of sinew backed juniper)? I know juniper is brittle but why is it some woods are never used for short, sinew backed bow designs?
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hickory maybe if it's kept dry enough and I guess heat treated
dunno
osage?
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wait, what do you mean? Yes hickory can be sinew backed but can you make a sinew backed bow design with any true bow wood?
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Soft woods are compression strong, and very light, so they are a good pairing with sinew if done right.
You can sinew back other woods, but some woods don't need it and sinew is just dead weight.
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It's never dead weight unless you make a bow that doesn't strain it.
Feel free to use any wood you can get your hands on. Reverse bracing is a must with sinew to get the most out of it.
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I know some native tribes used oak/sinew I dont know if it was red or white or other strain of oak but sinew is a lot of work its worth hunting down a good stave to do it in my opionion unless you just dont have any other choice you could probably use just about any wood if the bow was designed around it some of the Natives used some inferior woods
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The issue is compression and weight. A bow like you are talking about it pre-stressed and most wood just won't be able to handle the amount of compression the design places on the belly. Juniper, yew and incense cedar are all soft, light weight woods that are very high in compression. If you stack a bunch of sinew on a hard wood, it will be heavy and slow. I have made a mulberry sinew backed paddle bow with a heat treated belly and it works just fine and doesn't weigh much at all. Mulberry that grows here is actually fairly light wood, but very tuff! Laurel might have some major compression issues. Plum would be a good choice if you can go to an orchard and get some usable cuttings. If you are making an Ishi style bow you don't need much wood, and you can always splice...meaning you need VERY little wood. Should be hard to get a straight piece. If you use oak, white oak is typically better than red, but I think you are better off simply sourcing the right type of wood. Where is it you live? Juniper is all over the place.
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Limbit
I live in the San Fran Bay Area in the east bay (that's why I have so much bay laurel). I am going to Delta Utah this summer and was thinking of getting some mountain jumper there. Where do you get wood? BLM land, national Forrests (with a permit), or somewhere else. I'm just curious as I don't know how many bowyers get their wood?
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Yes to what Limbit said. You can back anything with sinew but not everything benefits. To add reflex to a wood that is not compression strong means you can not bend it very far and the sinew is not doing much. I have a sinew backed hickory wide flat bow that is one of the slowest bows I have ever made. Narrow sinew backed hickory can make a good bow. If you are it bay country then incense cedar and juniper are only a couple hours to your east.
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Your in the east bay. Incense cedar is not too far. Delta has rocky mt juniper and Utah juniper. It's a lot easier to cut wood in Utah than California.
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This is more of a question related to wood cutting but how can I get a permit to cut wood? Do you need a permit? And where can I cut in CA or UT?
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loefflerchuck
What do you mean by hickory backed with narrow sinew? Do you mean it has a narrow line of sinew on its back?
Also just to clarify (this is to anyone who is reading or has replied) so not all woods are good for sinew backing because to be a good wood for sinew backing it needs strong compression strength (like yew and incense cedar have). How can you find if a wood has good compression strength?
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I ment a narrow hickory bow backed with sinew works much better than a wide one. Go to a BLM office. They will have plenty of places open to cut live juniper. The only problem is the minimum permit is 2 cords. But that is only $12. So if you can find 1 or 2 strait trees and a few branches that is well worth it.
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Thanks for the BLM info.
About wood, how can you tell if a wood has good compression strength (is there a list)?
Also, when cutting a juniper branch for an ishi style bow, how big of a branch in diameter should I be looking? I heard the Yahi would sometimes use saplings of at least 2 inches in diameter (before they were able to have iron hatchets). I mean, I know its sinew backed so I do not have to worry so much about violating the sapwood, right?Sorry, I'm still trying to understand sinew right now (im a beginner) so any info is helpful.
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Does anyone have info on this?
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TBB 1 has a list for you also good read on sinew probably would answer most of your Questions .
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...Maple?...
And horn!!
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Compressive values for wood can be found throughout different wood working databases. However, to understand the compressive value is a bit tricky because it isn't as simple as reading a number value for the wood's compressive abilities. To be honest, I understand you are new to making bows, but you might be thinking about this the wrong way. Your best resource on this information is the experience of the various skilled bowers on this site and other sites because they have done a MASSIVE amount of VERY CAREFUL experimentation between them trying to replicate classic bows and push the designs any type of wood can handle as well as expanding the known database of usable bow woods. Bowers are audacious in this sense. LoefflerChuck has a video on youtube where he goes through the whole process of making an Ishi bow and talks about how he collected his wood. Check that out, he is a great bower. There is a known bowwood database on this site I believe as well as on PaleoPlanet. Although this doesn't usually let you know the compressive values of the wood, it does let you know if a wood is usable for a bow. Past that, what most people do to collect wood is just ask people who have land if they wouldn't mind you searching around for a tree. Usually, if you are willing to give them a bow with any tree you fell ,they will be more than happy to help you out. For Juniper, incense cedar and yew, you only really need a limb. So, although this may not be a popular opinion, I'll just cut a good clean limb off a tree as I see them and call it "pruning". I've never had a problem, but asking is far better. There is no need to cut in a national park. I'd just get some Incense Cedar limbs around your area. As far as sourcing wood....juniper is a bit hard to come by. The most common one you can find is Eastern Red Cedar (which is Juniper and not cedar). You can buy staves of it frequently on eBay or through some retailers on the net. Yew is harder to come by and you don't typically find incense cedar staves as many bowers don't seem to know it is a highly valuable compression wood. I helped a man locate some western Juniper a while back and there is a supplier of western juniper posts in Portland. He stopped by the yard and they helped him find a nice post that was mostly knot and twist free. Only cost him 15$ I think. You want the name of that place? Maybe you can road trip up there. Good luck!
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What is the name of the place? And when you mean limbs of juniper and incsece cedar, about how thing in diameter were they? If you do not know, what thickness were they around?
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Okay, now I'm confused... :o
I just found out one can back wide limbed hickory bows with sinew. I thought, as a hardwood, it couldn't be sinew backed well or is it true that not all hardwoods make bad sinew backed bows (only if they handle compression right)? Am I understanding that right? So that's why CA Bay won't make a good bow (because it doesn't have good compression)?
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You can sinew back any bow wood you want, and I'm sure you can find an example of any bow wood being sinew backed that is shooting arrows just fine. There are definitely wood/sinew combinations that are more efficient than others (which have already been mentioned) but it's generally not going to kill any real bow wood if you sinew back it.
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There is a difference between being able to make a bow and making a good bow. I don't doubt you could use Laurel for a sinew backed bow, the question is if it will perform well and last a long time. Sinew backing takes a lot of man hours to do and is nothing short of tedious. That being the case, you want the best bow possible when you are done with all that work. People back sinew on just about any wood. If the layer is thin, it just acts a backing to keep fibres down. If it is more than three layers, it will typically begin to recurve the bow as it dries. The achieve a good sinew backed bow, the bow is reverse strung as the sinew is placed on it, causing the sinew to set in the opposite direction of the final bend creating a great deal of force and a GREAT deal of compression on the belly wood. Usually horn is used because of this since it takes 8x the compression of wood. Compression is tricky because sometimes there appears to be nothing wrong with the bow for a good long time and then compression fissures and eventually failures form with continued use. So, it is better to use wood high in compression and light in weight if you want a high performing, long-lasting sinew backed short bow.
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Oh, and the limbs I've taken are around 3-4inch in diameter. I took them off a very old Rocky mountain juniper tree outside Boulder CO. Incense cedar grows quite straight and tall, so it might be a bit hard to get up to a branch!
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"Compression strong" as generally used refers to two different qualities. There are dense, hard woods that simply will not be compressed much by a given force (dogwood, hornbeam and the like), and on the other hand lighter woods that will be easily compressed quite a bit by the same force, but will recover from substancial deformation without taking structural damage (such as yew, black elderberry, or cherry). The ladder are what I'd use with sinew. I have only built a few bows of that type, but trapping the section as much as possible has had the best results for me on wood and sinew bows.
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I was just curious which Ishi design your where referring to all though he made many different designs I think primarily he preferred the narrow handle Pyramid or parallel limb , I'm attempting to make a narrowed handled bendy for my 8 th bow & only 3 rd sinew but a little nervous as that type of bow takes a keen since of tiller from what I have been told , if this is your first sinew bow it might be a little difficult to do , but don't know your skill level ? But there's some exstreamly skilled guys on here that probably would give you a hand , I know from the 2 sinew bows I made I'm glad I did simple designs as sinew has a lot of quirks to learn
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Thanks for all the answers,
The ishi design I was referring to was mostly just the common (I think it's a paddle bow?) design he made which is shown in Yahi Archery (Pope). Yeah, I haven't sinew backed before and have been doing Reasearch into the question of wood sinew combinations and all of these answers have helped. I'm a beginner and am just trying to figure out how sinew affects the wood and why certain ones can't be sinew backed.