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How to Make a Longbow

(www.howtomakealongbow.co.uk)
144 points nbernard | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.205s | source
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allturtles ◴[] No.43653275[source]
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

replies(3): >>43653315 #>>43653339 #>>43662136 #
1. adrian_b ◴[] No.43662136[source]
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.