How much sinew?

[TroutGuide]

So I want to start sinewing a few bows and am collecting leg sinew thus fall. I had the chance to get sinew from three deer and hopefully several more but I have no idea how much it will take for one bow much less several. So how much per bow?  These are small southern deer mind you. This will all go on Osage bows under 60". Any advise welcomed.
Thanks
Trout

[LittleBen]

It seems liek I've heard numbers all over the place in terms of "how much" it takes. I think part of it is that non of us are weighing it.

to say 2 courses of sinew is a close to meaningless as you can get because it doesn;t say anythign about how thick the sinew was put on.

Also It's obviously goign to depend on how long and wide the bow is.

I recently did a 58" ERC recurve. It was ~1.75-2" wide at the fades, tapering to very narrow tips. I think I used a total of about 5-6 elk back sinews (not particularly large for elk) and 4-6 good size deer sinews or something along those lines IIRC. That was put down in 2 courses, and when dried it was about 3/32" thick or so .... thats a guess though ... thats only from what I can see where the sight window was cut. I think the limbs may have more like 1/8"-5/32"

[scrub-buster]

My simple answer...more than you would think.  Try to get as much as you can.  You can follow the tendon from the hooves up through the knee and cut it right as it turns into muscle.  I can get pieces 18" long from a mature whitetail hind leg.

[John Scifres]

On a 60" bow, 1-1/2" wide, expect 10-12 small whitetail leg tendons. 6-8 large ones.  But remember more on hand ready for use is always better.  Process twice what you think you will need.  Just get as many as you can and process them throughout the winter.  I have a big gallon ziploc bag of processed sinew ready to go before I start on one.

[LittleBen]

x2 what john said. You'll think you've got a ton of sinew processed but you actually need twice as much.

I process the sinew throughout the year in the evenings when I'm bored/watching tv.

If you processed one per week, you'd have enough for 4-5 bows per year.

[Bowjunkie]

I prepare about 15 leg tendons for a bow of the size John mentioned. If I have any left over, ziplock bags keep it until the next one.

[LittleBen]

I did have sinew mold once, but that was after like 2 years in a bag. If you're goign to keep it for a really long time maybe consider freezing it or something .... no experience with this though.

[scars]

I have only made 3 sinew bows but my recipe for sinew amount is this:
weigh bow core, divide in half.
this will give you the 1/3 of total weight of the finished bow.
sinew is 1.2 SG fyi
sinew and hide glue will weigh 1/3 of bow, since I want more sinew than hide glue I start with a base of 70% sinew to 30% glue. Percentage is in dry weights.
Once I know this I can get the weight of and average back strap or leg tendon this will tell me how many tendons I need. I then add 25% more for waste.