Primitive Archer

Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Tom Dulaney on February 09, 2017, 05:51:16 pm

Title: blood as a glue
Post by: Tom Dulaney on February 09, 2017, 05:51:16 pm
I have heard that dried blood can make a glue. Is dried blood suitable for gluing hinge joints in a bow? I really hate fussing with hide and sinew glue. It seems to take forever just waiting for it to simmer. I also want to try something new. Thanks for the info, as always.


P.s. I'm using my own human blood. Cut my finger so badly by accident and ended up draining it in to a glass. I don't want to let this bad experience go to waste.   :-\
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: DC on February 09, 2017, 06:03:21 pm
I remember reading that plywood used to be glued with blood or blood glue.
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: DuBois on February 09, 2017, 06:23:26 pm
Sure has held my stupid mistakes together...after clotting.
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: PatM on February 09, 2017, 06:23:58 pm
Just buy some gelatin and save your blood.
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: bradsmith2010 on February 09, 2017, 08:21:13 pm
no
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: MulchMaker on February 09, 2017, 10:28:01 pm
I think the recipe is
2 parts blood to 1part  sweat to 1 part tears.
Stir together adding heat for hours..
Lol
All kidding aside the slaughterin house up the road would problably give me plenty of blood. I'm interested in if this is possible
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: Badger on February 09, 2017, 11:06:52 pm
Gelatin is much easier, I think blood has some collagen in it but I doubt enough to make it worthwhile and strong.
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: Jim Davis on February 10, 2017, 12:14:39 am
Traditional Bowyer's Bible Vol. I has results of tests of lots of kinds of glue, including cottage cheese. Don't recall if Tim Baker tested blood...
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: Brevi on February 10, 2017, 01:24:18 am
Inuit used it . They would take a glob of coagulated seal blood and warm it up in their mouth , keeping it there and applying it as necessary to whatever they were using it for ,  I think a harpoon shaft was mentioned .  It is a strong glue .

It must have been widely used in colder climates where animal carcasses didn't decompose rapidly .
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: loon on February 10, 2017, 01:28:22 am
dude that's brutal
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: mikekeswick on February 10, 2017, 03:27:25 am
No. Collagen glues are very easy to use. Just practise a bit. Drink the blood ;)
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: Stick Bender on February 10, 2017, 06:03:11 am
Let the blood congel and it makes awsome cat fish bait , I used to get congeled chinken blood out of Waco Tx it work awsome !  I think Dubois had some pig Penis sinew a while back you could wrap it with 😄
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: Pappy on February 10, 2017, 06:08:30 am
Think I will stick to Hide glue/pitch glue and TB3, I believe in using what I have but that is going a bit far for me.  ??? ;) :) :) :)
 Pappy
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: loon on February 10, 2017, 07:03:08 am
Let the blood congel and it makes awsome cat fish bait , I used to get congeled chinken blood out of Waco Tx it work awsome !  I think Dubois had some pig Penis sinew a while back you could wrap it with 😄
oh man.. I want some catfish skin
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: MulchMaker on February 10, 2017, 08:22:20 am
Oh come on no one wants to build the trilam blood bow? Hahaha   :laugh:
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: GlisGlis on February 10, 2017, 09:15:25 am
googling around it looks like it could work
It's the albumin in the blood that makes glue when added with an alkali (ash for example or lime). it's water resistent
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: Swamp Thang on February 20, 2017, 10:03:20 am
Let the blood congel and it makes awsome cat fish bait , I used to get congeled chinken blood out of Waco Tx it work awsome !  I think Dubois had some pig Penis sinew a while back you could wrap it with 😄
oh man.. I want some catfish skin

How much?
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: LittleBen on February 21, 2017, 10:16:43 pm
I suspect it will not be nearly as strong as hide glue. The primary protein in blood is albumin. The primary protein in hide is collagen.

Collagen is fibrillar (fibrous like a rope) and albumin is globular (...like a glob, lol). Collagen is a structural protein in tissues, and albumin is not. Without brushing up on my cell biology, I suspect albumin mainly works to maintain blood viscosity.

Collagen, when put in suspension and then dried (I.e. Made into hide glue and used) will get entangled with itself, and that's what makes it strong. Without the fibrillar structure of the collagen, that would not take place nearly as much,
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: GlisGlis on February 23, 2017, 04:13:22 am
It was widely used to produce plywood
it could not be too bad
and the bonus is it's water resistant
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: Tom Dulaney on March 14, 2017, 02:01:04 pm
I suspect it will not be nearly as strong as hide glue. The primary protein in blood is albumin. The primary protein in hide is collagen.

Collagen is fibrillar (fibrous like a rope) and albumin is globular (...like a glob, lol). Collagen is a structural protein in tissues, and albumin is not. Without brushing up on my cell biology, I suspect albumin mainly works to maintain blood viscosity.

Collagen, when put in suspension and then dried (I.e. Made into hide glue and used) will get entangled with itself, and that's what makes it strong. Without the fibrillar structure of the collagen, that would not take place nearly as much,


Just thought I'd bump this thread to confirm that it didn't work. It actually did set and it bonded two pieces of wood together, but I could pull them apart fairly easily. Admittedly I only let the glue set for about 10 hours. I was surprised that it did make a bond though.

The reason i wanted to do this was because the Eskimo are said to have done it to make tent poles:

https://books.google.com/books?id=sZ4QAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA19

Perhaps seal blood and cow blood (which was used for plywood, as many people pointed out) is simply stronger than human blood, with more/better albumin. There is a guy named Elfshot who tried making some to glue drill bits with, he apparently did not have a lot of success (the bonds broke ultimately) although he did say seal blood was very sticky.

I should point out that I did not dry my blood outdoors but let it congeal over several days, because I can't leave a glass full of blood outdoors without having the cops called on me. It is possible that the proteins degraded because of this. The Eskimo may have been able to freeze-dry their seal blood more rapidly, which may make it more effective, but I don't know about that.

All in all I would be willing to try it again using my own blood if I could just dry the blood more quickly, perhaps use more, and let it dry longer. It also seems there is a trick to getting it in the right state to be glued. When you mix the dried blood with saliva it eventually becomes a very shiny material like hide glue, and when you press it with force and take force off you can see it binding. It definitely has some strength to it but I think it's one of those things, like making pine pitch, where you have to get everything to a right consistency that is difficult to understand without having seen it before. Unfortunately I must not have seen it, cuz I don't know it, so if it is possible to use human blood for bowyering it would take a lot of experimentation, for me. Raw animal blood I won't put in my mouth.
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: GlisGlis on March 14, 2017, 02:47:05 pm
following the books blood wood was made using dried blood added with water and an alkali
Did you used pure blood?
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: PatM on March 14, 2017, 04:36:06 pm
Fibrin is the portion of blood that functions as a glue. It is non-globular and fibrous as the name suggests. The problem is that there isn't as much in the volume relative to  hide glue which can have the amount adjusted.
Title: Re: blood as a glue
Post by: mwosborn on March 14, 2017, 07:18:07 pm
Blood contains a very low amount of proteins compared to "hide glue" and as what has already been mentioned, most of that protein is not fibrous.  Might be able to make some glue out of it, but would have to concentrate the proteins somehow I would suspect.  Collagen makes more sense to me!  ;)  But then again, I've never tried blood glue!