How to Make a Longbow

Cool! Part 2 on "gluing laminations" got me to wondering how an ancient/medieval bowyer would have actually glued the layers together, considering they didn't have access to polyvinyl acetate. Wikipedia has some clues at [0]: "Traditionally animal proteins like casein from milk or collagen from animal hides and bones were boiled down to make early glues." and [1]: "A Scythian wood-laminate bow was... constructed by laminating several fine strips of willow and alder wood, bound with fish glue and wrapped in birch bark."

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_glue

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laminated_bow

Similarly, glue and woven fabric layers make excellent composite armor.

This kind of animal glues have some nice properties than “white glue” miss, e.g. you can remove it with heat. Traditional woodworkers still use it. You can buy it today: https://www.fine-tools.com/oberfl.html

Making various kinds of glues from animal or vegetable sources is one of the oldest human technologies, many tens of thousands of years old.

Even the Neanderthals knew how to make certain kinds of glue, which were used for instance for attaching spear-points to spears.

I use it for most glue-ups. I'm a big fan of Old Brown Glue:

https://oldbrownglue.com/

Great stuff, and the videos they put out are outstanding as well. The one about veneering a column is highly worth watching and illustrates the advantages of an animal protein glue in a real application.