Good evening guys and gals! So this evening I will be sharing my first experience harvesting sinew. In recent weeks I have built myself my first bow. Yes it may just be a PVC bow but it does draw 45lbs and is super fun to shoot. I have been developing quite the love for traditional style archery. In my quest for learning and with my already natural ability to DIY almost anything, I decided to try and start building my own arrows. I wanted to acquire as much of the material myself including the binding material for the fletching and arrow head. I started doing some research and came across the use of sinew for wrapping the arrow head and fletching. Sinew can also be used to make a bow string, back a self bow to make it shoot faster and is also used as sewing thread and natural cordage. So what is sinew? Sinew is the leg and back tendon from venison. The back strap tendon is the preferred sinew for bowstring making. Seeing as I had already processed my deer months ago I was hooped with using real sinew...well until I happened to find an old dried out deer leg on one of my hikes
Now I wasn't sure I'd be able to get the sinew since the leg was pretty dried out but I took out a sharp knife and started hacking away!
It didn't take long for me to get to the tendons and they were harvestable!
Seeing as it was a front leg there are two pin bones you need to cut around.
There we have the 3 tendons from the back of the leg. Next step was to let them dry completely out so they get really stiff. Once they are dried out you take a hammer and hammer them to start releasing the fibers but not too hard as to sever the fibers. The backstrap sinew comes apart way easier( apparently).
Now the tedious job of separating the fibers begins!
As I started releasing the fibers I was separating them into piles based on length. I was aiming for about pencil lead thickness of fiber strands.
As you can see I quite a lot of fibers from one deer leg and I didn't even finish harvesting it all. I also decided to try making my first bit of natural cordage and it wasn't that hard to do!
Well thanks for reading. I hope I was able to teach someone a new skill today and at least give one person another tool to add to their survival kit!
A great description with helpful supporting images!
I've thought about doing this in the past, but I never actually attempted it.
Apparently the sinew from the back leg is supposed to be the stuff to use on a sinew backed bow. From what I've read, natural sinew is weather sensitive when used as a bow backing. Several years ago I bought a book about making the Native American bow, it has a lot of information about the various aspects of making the various types of bows and arrows. If you're into making them, a book like that is a good thing to get.
wicked yeah i'll have to check it out. There is def lots to learn about this material and I am just starting to learn about it.
You answered a question I didn't know I had. Very cool post.
glad I could do that for you!
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