build along

[jamie]

kegan id say its about the same. i wasnt worried about bein too light cause im gonna load up the sinew.

all right heres some pics i think you'll like. makin glue with rocks

setup


gettin it warm


boilin with rocks


preparing some sinew while it boils


gettin it thick



we have glue and the bow is sized

[1/2primitive]

Oooo, exiting!    This will be fun.  How long are you going to wait before you start tillering it?
     Sean

[Jbell]

This is awesome Jamie! Who needs to read the history books about early man when we have you.

THE STONE AGE RULES!

[jamie]

i plan on laying on 4 layers of sinew and burned up most of my extra time making the glue. i'll get a layer on tomorrow. then when i get back to the fire pit ill reheat the glue and put the other coats on.so probably wont be tillering till the end of sept. but i should have it done so i can hunt with it.  peace

[Kegan]

This is awsome . How did you make your glue (and what kind of rock did you use)? This is deifnately gonna be one awsome bow !

[bootboy]

it just ended dude you need to finish the build along!!!!!!

[jamie]

made the glue from fish bladders and hide scraps.

didnt forget to finish i have just not had the time to go any further. i will post pics of the bow later. it has taken about 3" of reflex from the sinew. working on this project i met up with a good friend of mine i hadnt seen in a while and he put me in contact with a fella out west who has been studiing native bows made from splits of live trees . where they removed the stave from the living cedar tree without taking the whole tree down. that is definetly my next project. i may give him this bow for his research. he sent me some very interesting articles he has done. i want to scan them and post them eventually. peace

[bootboy]

ya dude! That is definitely some slick Jedi bow moves, to remove a section of living tree, not kill the tree and make a bow from it. Dude is a Bow SURGEON!

PS. Finish the build along.. hahahaha

[bootboy]

Also where can you buy fish bladders? Yesterday I had to go to chinatown to get sinew, its about the only place in toronto to get it, apart from the animal pound.

[Gordon]

This is an excellent build-a-long Jamie. I had little idea how our ancestors constructed bows given their limited tool sets. Very impressive.

[Bishop]

my very first post on this forum was about buying a u-finish hickory bow for my first project, i received lots of great advice along with this response from Jamie

when your done listening to these guys send me an email and i'll walk ya through doing it with pieces of broken rock.    welcome to the addiction. peace

Jamie, sir , i thought you were kidding..lol....holy cow....looks like its going well so far, you now have my attention. i hope to be able to do something like this eventually.

Bishop

[CHUCKER]

Glad you mentioned the living tree stave, I believe there is mention of it in one of the TBB books. A sketch I think stave taken from a limb. Sure sounds better then what I went through last weekend. Elm & Hop horn beam madness. Can't wait to see the results of the build along. And how are your children doing with there bow?

[jamie]

had it out to 24" drawing 46#.  decided to touch my face . thats when i felt the top limb skim by my head. oh well i'll just start another. peace

[bootboy]

AWWWWW! man thats rough, i had a oak board bow , i think it was my first bow. I was trying to replicate a bow from a novel i was reading, it was rediculously overbuilt but I thought that would mean a better bow at the time. Live and learn eh? Well anyways it was 6foot ntn 3" wide at the fade, to 5/8" at the nocks it went from 3/4 inch thich at the Fades to 1/2 thick at the tips i thick, i had about 4 layers of sinew on it. I got it to about 80lbs at 21" and BOOM! i took off and found a home in my buddies braces. He was standing over top for some reason. That ould have been a cool bow.
A true testement to unneccesary overbuilding

[Brokestick]

I had a similar experience with my second attempt. It was white oak with no sinew, and probably would have been fine as a 50# bow.  Instead, I was trying to tiller it out to 80#.  I stepped into my garage on the way out to work and decided to just yank it to the spot I had earlier gingerly tillered it to.  6 inches snapped off one limb and smacked me in the temple.  My vision was blurred, and I thought I was seriously injured, then I realised my glasses had disappeared.   I found them across the room.  So much for my Welsh war bow; should have used elm anyway.  I was wondering how long it takes to boil down hide glue with rocks?  I made some sinew glue on the stovetop out of trimmings from my bowstring and that took about 5 hours of simmering, and I still had leftovers for my dogs.  I dipped my string in the stuff to stabilize it after trimming and I'm currently drying the rest.