Some selfbows I had laying around-
Top one is ash with elk sinew string, middle is red oak with Osage orange spliced into it's tips, and the bottom is sinew-backed red oak.




I took a better pic of them where they weren't laying all crooked and stuff, but of course my camera didn't have it when I went to download them. Oh well.

WOW!!


How heavy are those bows?

Me, These are superb pieces! where did you learn to make them?


Crater_Caster, your first bow somehow rings a bell of pathetic memory too  If fact, I don't even consider it as my first bow, my bent sapling... After this, I decided to seek advice on a new thred in the "other primitive weapons" . I think I will go for a fiber-glass bow to start with, to get a feel of what a bow shoud be like, and then make my own...

Bowyers Bible Vol. I, II, and III. They are excellent reading. That was pretty much the only reason I figured anything out. They are about $20 apiece, the first bible is likely good enough for starters. Expecially read the works of Paul Comstock. He makes white wood bows, very durable, practical, easy to make. Overbuild whatever you make, a little longer, wider...
Believe me, self arrows get to be a problem..

Moonhunter- the procedure is pretty simple. If using leg tendons, their might be a Y shape near the bottom where it splits into two pieces, cut this off where the Y begins as the fibers will not seperate easily (or at all)  and it is a waste of time to try. (save all the scraps for making hide glue.)  Pound out the tendons you have , but be careful not to cut the fibers. Try not to pound "really" hard or hit the tendon with the edge of the hammer. When you first get the dried tendon it will be sort of clearish to amber colored. After pounding it you will see it start becoming white as the fibers seperate and the glue that holds them loosens. Strip the tendon in half or thirds then pound these pieces alittle more and strip them into finer pieces, until you get to about kite string size (finer threads will produce a smooth string, but are not really nessacary). One large tendon can be stripped into a huge amount of sinew, much more then you think is actually in there. If you were careful when hammering, you will find the tendon strips quite easily, though a few tough pieces might require pliers. I'll call these finished strips threads though they will be thicker then threads obviously. Take 5 or more threads and make a bundle, then take an equal amount and making another bundle, lining them all up straight. Begin reverse-twisting them together. Start splicing in
more sinew threads, as you get near the end of your current bundle. If you know how to reverse-twist cordage,
then the splicing process shouldn't be hard to understand.
Take a couple of these threads from you stock arrange them together into another bundle, fold them in half and place the center of the V into the cordage, then begin reverse-twisting them into the cordage. It takes alittle practice, but once you get the splicing down it's all downhill. Another thing to remember is to keep the string even in thickness, you don't want lumps or thin spots, this
is not only ugly but makes for a very inefficient string.
Once you finish the string , stick it under running water, wet it , and hang it under tension.
Heres a site for learning to reverse-twist cordage.


www.motherearthnews.com/printable/1983_January_February/Making_Natural_Cordage

Funslinger- The sinew bowstring is pretty stiff, like wire.
I'm not sure theres a way to keep it supple or even if you want to. In it's stiff state is very resistant to abrasion, much more so then plant fibers. 

Actually I have to disagree about the artificial sinew. It's made of nylon, which stretchs "alot". Stretch/mass is the arch enemy of bowstring design and an artificial sinew string can easily make your 50lb bow shoot at 40lb bow speeds.
But for learning the string making process it's great.
Even though sinew probably makes a slightly stronger string, I prefer rawhide also, as you can cut out full length strips instead of having to splice the whole string out of smaller pieces.

In answer to your question, no, I don't use sinews from the neck in fact I wasn't even aware you could get usable sinew from the neck. Although I do seem to remember hearing about African bowyers using Giraffe sinew which was supposed to be long enough for a string without splicing...wouldn't that be nice.

Thanks Me! Hey, that’s great, I’ll try it right away… I just hope “my” tendons are not to old…   I’ve done some nettle cordage and grass cordage quite a bit, so the process of making the string from sinew threads(spinning and splicing) shouldn’t be a problem… mainly, I wasn’t sure how to get my tendons into workable “threads”, so you gave me exactly what I needed!


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Hellfire, thanks for the info, but the whole point of it is the fun of doing it myself, not buying it so that it merely “looks like I did it myself”…   But I'll try waxing it with beeswax!

As for the neck tendons, the problem is, it’s a ligament, so the structure is not the same as in a tendon… I never tried to make cordage either from tendons nor from ligament (yet!), but this might be the reason it doesn’t work that well. But if making cordage with ligament works reasonably well, try rather the long one running from the back of the head straight to the withers (not following the spine along the neck) and then lying on top of the spine right to the tail. You’ll have to work a bit to separate it from the spine, but it’s the longest ligament you can find on a carcass. There’s an other one just as long running on the “front” (or rather: “underneath” for an animal walking on 4 legs ) side of the spine, but the work you have to do just to separate it from the bone probably won’t be worth it…