Wood of choice, Recurve and sinew

[Chris Grimbowyer]

In your opinions what is the best and easiest wood to make a recurve bow bent by steam and backed with sinew? So far I am thinking of black locust because im still somewhat a beginner and have trouble following osage grain but will the sinew backing do a good enough job to cover my novice skill level?>

[Mark Smeltzer]

In my experience Osage is great to bend into a recurve with steam. I have used fairly green or dry Osage and steam and it bends great. I really like black Locust too but it seems to have great variations from tree to tree and can fret easily if not tillered perfectly (belly compression). Also Osage is all around better in compression than Black Locust.
Yew is a great choice too. Juniper is a good choice.
The issue when you want to use sinew is you really need to stress/stretch the sinew to make it perform, ie a short bow or a short working limb. This transfers compression to the belly so the wood must be able to handle compression well.

Mark

[Chris Grimbowyer]

Thank you. How exactaly do you stretch the sinew? you seperate the tendons and comb them into smaller strips and what is after that? do you need to hold them stretched while gluing them on. I will be using titebond 3.

[Mark Smeltzer]

You prepare the sinew by pounding the sinew betweem two smooth surfaces. Use a big smooth rock and a smaller round fist size rock. I feel like a darn caveman. I rotate or roll the sinew as I pound it that way the whole thing gets worked pretty good. At some point the outer sheath will come off. Then you can just start pulling and separating the pieces. It will work your hands pretty hard. These days I dont go very fine with it, about the diameter of a BB.
You will use 5-6 average tendons on a bow.
Just before use soak the sinew in warm water and it will relax and get very workable. Pull a piece from the water squeeze out the excess water, put it in the glue squeeze out the excess glue then lay flat on back of the bow. I work each piece out from the center with my fingers in both directions at once to make sure it is laying straight and has some tension on it. As it dries it will shrink and become very tough. Put it on in layers, laying the strands end to end. On the next layer make center of the strands cover the place where the previous layer butted together. Like laying brick.
Hope this helps,

Mark

[Chris Grimbowyer]

Thanx. I dont hunt yet so I will be ordering the sinew off 3 rivers archery.