Traditional strings.

[tracker]

I've been doing a bit of research on stringmaking in general and found very few references to traditional strings.

Saxton Popes book on Ishi the last californian indian has this to say ...

"The bowstring he made of the finer tendons from the deer's shank. These
he chewed until soft, then twisted them tightly into a cord having a
permanent loop at one end and a buckskin strand at the other. While wet
the string was tied between two twigs and rubbed smooth with spittle.
Its diameter was one-eighth of an inch, its length about forty-eight
inches. When dry the loop was applied to the upper nock of his bow
while he bent the bow over his knee and wound the opposite end of the
string about the lower nock. The buckskin thong terminating this
portion of the string made it easier to tie in several half hitches."

and the museum where they store the Iceman in Italy has this about his quiver and it's contents...

"The quiver consists of a rectangular, elongated chamois hide bag with a hazel reinforcement.
It contained two arrows ready for shooting and twelve unfinished shafts. The two finished arrows have flint heads embedded in their notch, glued with birch tar and bound on with string.
The remains of a three-part radial fletching made of feathers which had been fixed with birch tar and a fine thread were also preserved. In the quiver were also four tips of stag-antlers tied together, two animal sinews and a string made of vegetable fibres wound into a ball. The string must have been up to 2 m long and could have been the string of the bow. "

Has anyone ever tried making or even shooting a string they've made themselves?

Mick.

[yeoman]

Why yes, I make nearly all my strings. I haven't used sinew, but I've done rawhide, plant fibers and baling twine. Even tried shoemakers thread, which worked pretty well. I'd like to try gut sometime. Odesseus's bow was strung with gut. So were the Avar bows of the asian steppe. They were seriously high performance bows. I've got some links to get silk, which is also a good string material, although I've not tried it yet. Neither have I tried any modern materials(apart from baling twine!) and I'm going to see how long I can go without using them.

Yeoman

[tracker]

You made my evening Yeoman!

I'm going to give it a try. My butcher is a keen hunter and smokes his own natural goodies. I'm going to get some gut from him and give it a try.
I wonder if my experiments will lead to the necessity to chew it ala Ishi. Do you have any references or ideas to share on gut strings?

I reckon the bit in the Odyssey where HE strings HIS bow and then starts working over the suitors is one of the best bits of drama EVER!

I'm interested in chariot/horse archery. The whole concept of speed and high volume of fire is interesting. The Avars and other steppe peoples movements out are a fascinating theme.

My main interest in traditional archery came about from wondering if I could be TOTALLY self sufficient if I HAD to be in the countryside near where I live. Bizarre eh? I mean if I was dropped there nude. Could I shelter, clothe, feed myself from SCRATCH. It's an interesting project. I've found some real research recently supporting trading patterns of Blackboy/Grasstree flower stems for use as fire starters in SE australia and I just collected some from around where I like to camp and hunt. I've been experimenting with it and I'll post some pics and results on here soon.

[yeoman]

I've often wondered about that too. So much so, that I became a wilderness survival unstructor before I moved to Melb. I'm not sure if I could do it 'from scratch', I think I'd need at least some strong chord, or a couple of blades. Preferebly both. I find asian archery fascinating too. I'm not quite sure how to process gut; from what I've read some people just clean it out and wind it, endless loop style around two pegs, then twist. Not satisfied with this, I made further enquiries and found that there is a process by which the gut is turned inside out, scraped, some other stuff(my enquiries weren't all that detailed) and the end result is supposed to be just as strong as linen, or stinging nettle.

PM me if you like, and we can talk more about going it REALLY rough in the bush.

Yeoman

[yeoman]

I've often wondered about that too. So much so, that I became a wilderness survival unstructor before I moved to Melb. I'm not sure if I could do it 'from scratch', I think I'd need at least some strong chord, or a couple of blades. Preferebly both. I find asian archery fascinating too. I'm not quite sure how to process gut; from what I've read some people just clean it out and wind it, endless loop style around two pegs, then twist. Not satisfied with this, I made further enquiries and found that there is a process by which the gut is turned inside out, scraped, some other stuff(my enquiries weren't all that detailed) and the end result is supposed to be just as strong as linen, or stinging nettle.

PM me if you like, and we can talk more about going it REALLY rough in the bush.

Yeoman

[yeoman]

whoops. didn't mean to double post.

[tracker]

Went to the butcher today with some interesting results. He suggested soaking in a weak brine solution will give the casings more "slip" or give but they don't seem to be any less "tough". Another suggestion was liming them which makes them "tougher" if they are going to be dried. This was a traditional thing he'd seen done in Yugoslavia with gut used to make shoes ie as string!!

So I'm off to Bunnings tomorrow for some lime to try and I've got some gut soaking in brine right now.

The gut is interesting to twist... I think Ishi might have something with the chewing! You can soften it and thin it or thicken it as you twist if you feed it thru your teeth.

Also you mentioned nettles. There are stinging nettles in my area. Are the fibres good? More things to be collecting.

[yeoman]

yeah, stinging nettles. The english used them for longbowstrings alongside linen strings, although I'm not quite sure how the fibers were processed.

I read today of leaving gut to soak in alum-salt solution, which was supposed to make it stronger. Alum-salt is what people nowadays use to tan hides, so that left me wondering wether tannin would also work. The author also mentioned slitting the gut with a knife. I think Ishi only chewed sinew, because of the long fibers present in sinew. You can also thin gut by running it through two dowels held tighly together, if you are at all doubtful as to the hygene of the intestine.

Gut is great stuff, as it makes good lashings and bidings too.

Aussie Yeoman

[gilnockie]

I bought some unwaxed linen thread from the local leather shop about three years ago and made a flemish twist string from three skeins of 7 strands. It had a twisted loop at one end and the traditional timber hitch at the other. When I finished it was a piece of tightly twisted cord, and my fingers were nearly dropping off. It was beautiful. UnfortunatelyI did not reinforce the timber hitch and it broke in short order.

I now use Dacron and make continuous loop strings.

[Dennis La Varenne]

Tracker,

I haven't bothered with animal tissue strings, but you can find out a good bit on them from the Traditional Bowyers' Bible, Vol 2, I think.

The Cherokees apparently used to skin a grey squirrel and stretch out the hide and when dried, cut it into a circle, then cut out a 'lace' of continuous length by running the hide between a very sharp blade and a backing board with a gap of around 5 mm or so to make a very long lace which was doubled in half and twisted leaving an 'eye' where it doubled and hanging a good weight on the opposite end after twisting to make it stretch to maximum length. The hair was left on.

My own strings from natural materials have been made from linen, but I have not had Norman's bad luck with them, ever.

After you make the eye at one end of the Flemish string, you must also rope twist the other end for about 30 cm and tie a finishing knot in the extreme end to stop it from unravelling. That will make a perfectly good and durable timber hitch for the lower bow nock.

You don't twist it like the body of the string, you must rope twist the last part starting about 45cm in from the end and then twist up the body of the string till it is of a reasonable length for the timber hitch.

Apparently, the strongest know natural fibre is HEMP of the marijuana variety.

It was used for all manner of cordage over most of the northern hemisphere for centuries or millennia up until the 20th century when the law got jittery about people smoking some varieties.

Linen was not a first choice when hemp fibre was available. Its fibres are the full length of the stem of a long stemmed plant unlike flax which is much shorter. I wish I could get some from somewhere. It is now being grown commercially for the clothing industry, and this fibre variety has almost a zero cannabinol level.

An old bowyer whom I knew years ago who lived in the make-your-own-gear-or-go-without days, told me that plant fibres were stronger when slightly damp, contrary to popular myth today.

He shot target archery quite a lot, and those old blokes used to keep their linen/hemp strings in a tobacco tin with a green leaf in there as well for the humidity.

I accepted this as reasonable because those blokes gave their strings a fair pounding - much more than we hunters do - and longevity was a real plus. They did it because it could be shown to work. Bone dry strings broke much quicker, even if they were waxed. They were brittle and they frayed more quickly.

The one problem you will come upon with animal tissue strings is that if they get damp, they will stretch quite a lot under the tension of a braced bow and your fistmele will decrease markedly. A plant fibre string won't and giving it a pluck every now and then will minimize the buildup of moisture in it which can make a blinding spray upon loose.

I suppose the tissue string always has the advantage that you can eat it if you aren't too successful hunting.

Dennis La Varenne

[yeoman]

Dennis, where in the northern Melb. parts does one procure linen thread? I've been after some for a while, as quite frankly animal tissue is a bit inconvenient where I am(a one room unit with a bazillion other people around) although I do like to experiment with animal tissue when I'm out on the farm.

Hemp the longest plant fiber? Yes. THE longest natural fiber? Not quite. Silkworms produce hundreds of feet of silk when they spin their cocoons.

There's another, better way of getting a good hide string than did the Cherokee that I've developed. It's easier to show than to describe, but here goes.

First you need to skin your animal such that the skin comes off the animal more as a sleeve than a sheet. It's difficult to explain with words alone, so I'll leave that for the moment and if anyone doesn't already know how, I'll have a go at it later.

(whips out a fresh 'sleeve skun' animal skin)
Here's one I prepared earlier. What you need to do know is stretch the skin over either a forked stick or piece of stout wire bent into a U shape. Scrape any fat, membrane and etc off and set it somewhere dry.

When it's dry, take it off the stretching device. You should have a flat tube shape. With a thin tipped texta draw a line in a spiral butcher pole fashion from one end of the tube to the other, trying to keep the lines as close to 3/8 to 1/2 inch apart. Then cut along this line, and it should give you a long flat (not concentric spiral ala Cherokee) strip of rawhide.

To make a bowstring, get however many of these as you need, soak 'em till they're slippery and sloppy, lay them parallel, tie at one end and secure it to something, then twist the bunch, and secure the other end under quite a bit of tension, and leave to dry. You could also reverse twist, if you like.

I omitted the hair removal part, coz some people may lke to have 'full length' string silencers.

This way of preparing rawhide from small game is better than the old method because both edges of the hide strip are the same length, as opposed to the concentric spiral method, which has one side MUCH shorter than the other. This means that all the fibers are being subject to the same amount of stress at the same time. Similar to, but not quite like, a crowned versus flat backed stave.

I told Tim Baker about this, and he reckons it's a pretty good idea.

Clear as mud?

I'll draw some piccies and post them to illustrate what I mean if my words are insufficient.

Hey cool, my post is as long as some of Dennis's! (No offense Dennis )

Catcha all around,

Yeoman

[erron]

God I love these threads!



Erron

[yeoman]

Okay, here's what is hopefully an eay to follow diagramtic representation of the method I explained earlier.

[yeoman]

sorry about the large size!

Yeoman

[Dennis La Varenne]

Yeoman,

You are quite correct - I should have said 'longest natural plant fibre' about hemp.

Where can you find linen thread in the northern suburbs??? I don't really know. I did purchase some when I was in Maryborough, Qld which I still have. The only thing I can suggest is a craft shop of which there is a quite a large variety at the Broadmeadows shopping complex next to (north of) the Warehouse discount shop on the same side as the cinema complex. I haven't tried to buy from them myself, but if anyone could find some, I think that it would be them.

You could always try at a shoe repairer. Sometimes they can get it.

Your pics are very explanatory indeed. How do you manage to keep an even width cut?

Dennis La Varenne

[yeoman]

I tried for a while to write what I meant, but it didn't come out to well: describing in three dimensions. Try writing an explanation of how to tie your shoelaces, you'll see what I mean!

Also, with this method, with a couple of hides prepared in this manner from a small animal like a cat, you can get strips that are *just* right for doing a rawhide backing. Which means you don't have to cut up all those nice deer skins, and you can use rawhide that's fairly tough, but thinner than you could uniformly sand any thicker hide. Did that make sense?

ALSO, (getting close to the end) by cutting it REAL narrow, you'll have a great big long strip of stone arrowhead/feather binding.

Hope y'all can read my scruffy handriting.

Yeoman

[yeoman]

once again, sorry about the big size. I'l try to do better next time!

Yeoman

[erron]

Yeoman,

I downsized the pics for you!



Thanks for posting these, very informative.

Erron

[Dennis La Varenne]

Yeoman,

Those last lot of pics are very explanatory. I wonder if Al Herrin of the Cherokees knows about this technique.

As you correctly pointed out on an earlier thread, both sides of the 'lace' would be of equal length and not have the spiral to one side because of the shorter side when cut from the disk as per the Cherokee technique. However, his technique of stretching with a loaded bucket tied to the end would probably obviate any problems with the spiral curl anyway. But your advice on using it for a rawhide backing requires straight strips and yours is an excellent way to get them from small critters.

I know a bloke up on a property in Queensland who did a bit of professional roo shooting in bad times who showed us a technique where he pulled off kangaroo skins in one piece in about 2 or 3 seconds. If they could be dried on a similar frame, you would have an excellent grade of rawhide because of the superior strength for weight of rooskin over most others.

Also, I remember that your drying frame (an exaggerated safety pin made from wire) was used a lot by the old rabbitters of yore for drying rabbit skins inside out. I was quite young when I first saw them used.

I am going to continue my search for a source of small amounts of hemp thread. If it is available for industrial purposes, it should be available somewhere from a wholesaler. When/if I find any, I will let everyone know. I thought that you could get it from the US. I seem to recall it being advertised in earlier editions of Primitive Archery.

Dennis La Varenne

PS: I hope the Police Blackshirts down here don't tommygun me to death for finding some. At work I made a copy of their logo to go in a death notice once for the bloke who died up on Mt Everest. It showed a telescopic sight crosswire between the eyes of a masked goggled head facing the crosswire.

I thought it was pretty sick and so did a lot of the staff. It really worried some of us and made them look like paid murderers rather than our protectors 'upholding the right' (Tenez le Droit) as their official motto says. What was wrong with the ordinary Victoria Police logo anyway???
Just a small aside, folks.

[tracker]

Dennis my Great-Grandfather used to have a shed full of those fencing wire stretchers, often covered with rabbit skins. He used to net a whole warren and then use a ferret. He would slice them across the belly with their own back spur and then peel them really fast.. not even a pocket knife. I've never seen anyone else do it that way.

Yeoman, I read a few years back in a book on whip making from kangaroo hide all these different ways to cut the strips depending on the angles you needed on the leather edge for when you twisted or plaited it to make the seperate bits "mate" successfully. I'll see if I can dig it out. I DO remember there was mention of using a 'peeled' rather than 'flayed' hide if possible. There were also some nifty little bush inventions with a couple of blades embedded to do long passes and get multiple strips. I'd forgotten about this until you drew your pics of the rabbit "peel".

It's goggling to me how MUCH traditional specialised knowledge accumulated over millenia must have just blown away in the wind with the old cultures.

Dennis, unless they take away the stones and the trees from you they will never stop you shooting. YOUR knowledge and skills will obviously keep you going long after THEY fall by the wayside.
But living in "cotton wool land" does get a bit wearing doesn't it?

BTW, I am taking a homemade arrow with a flaked head hunting with me tomorrow. If I see a fox coming early, then this arrow and it have an appointment!

Also, the pig gut is strong. I need to cut it finer for my next attempt. The first one is way too thick.. you could use it on a ballista.

There is DEFINITELY a lot of knowledge available from this group.

[yeoman]

Did you test the breaking strength of the string? I'm guessing you tried the lime soaking trick.

I've seen tabletop devices put together by almost Amish style people who made whips which could slice rawhide down to a couple of mm wide. They also said that cat was particularly good for the narrow bits of whip near the tip. Cat hunting, anyone?

Yeoman

[adam]

This is traditional to the bone. Iv never wanted to make a self bow so much. Do you leave the fur on the string. Also I love the rabbits eyes in the drawing. Adam

[yeoman]

Yeah, you CAN leave the fur on if you want, with a bit of fluffing up when the string dries it serves as a 'full length' string silencer. Or you can strip it. However, remember that leaving all the fur on adds quite a bit of weight, so you might just want to leave some on in strategic locations on the strips.

It's awesome to hear of others wanting to get into selfbows. Isn't that what it's about? Sharing the passion with others?

Thanks Re: rabbit eyes comment.

Yeoman