its so dry here in Sant fe,, that the sinew drys pretty quick and then doesnt gain much weight after curing for a more conventional time frame,,if I start tillering the bow in one or two weeks with two layers of sinew,, on thicker layer I try to wait a bit longer,, , I tried to string one too soon and cant describe it but it felt mushy, so I just let it cure more,,when I go back and weigh the bow weeks or months later,, its the same, now that being said,, when I made some bows in Texas 20 years ago with high humidity,, the bows would pic up weight as the sinew cured,, here they seem to stabalize and pretty much stay the same,, they stop pulling reflex and gaining weight after tillered and shot in,,
Sometimes I think if I was more patient,, the bow might perform better if I let it cure longer,, and it might,, but shooting through the chrono,, I get a positive result,, and I realize I may have compromised the performance a little, but it does not seem to have much negative effect,,,
if I string the bow, and it seems to tiller well, I feel the sinew is ok,, and even if it did pick up some weight I would be ok with that,, even Laubin in his book says a couple of weeks is ok,, to start one,,,,usually takes me a week or two to tiller, so its drying then too,,
I have just been experienting to see what I can do, I made a kids bow from Juniper and just waited 1 or 2 days and started shooting it,, just to see,, it only had one layer,, I saw no negative effect,, I didnt weigh it, just tillered it and shot it,,
most the time Im working with osage,, so when I put the sinew on the hickory, the short cure time may not work,,but it will be fun to see what it does, and if it picks up weight or if it will shoot hard with a fast cure time,,
I am just working on a bow now, that has two layers, I did wait over two weeks,,not much,, it will shoot a 468 grain arrow 175 fps it is 56##26 inches,, the arrow is lighter that 10 gpp,, but I consisder it a hunting weight arrow,, the bow is 62 inches long,, and the 26 inch draw would he condidered short for that length sinew bow,, at 28 or 29 would probably be more effecient,,that was tested with b55 ,, I think with fast flight it would be to 180 with the 8.36 gpp,,,and at the longer draw maybe a little better,, so if the fast cure is hurting the performance Im not sure,, the sinew can cure in the state it is in now I think, I dont think I damaged it,,
since I always think of the bow as a hunting bow,, once they get to a point of being able to take a deer I am pretty happy,, I have just enjoyed pushing the time frame a bit to see what happens with no expectaion,, I am just not patient,, these are just simple bows, I am sure with more complicated designs cure time would be an important factor,,
I plan on letting the hickory dry for a week and then string it and see how it feels, if it feels mushy or not stable, well I learn something and wait longer on that one or,,, the next one ,,,if I ruin it somehow,, bending a hing or something,,
I wanted to add the stave is at 8% moisture the best I can tell, I am sure it will pick up some moisture when I put the sinew on,, I will paint the belly to hopefully keep it from checking when I put the sinew on,,
I have had good success with that,, some put tape and I think that works well too,,
