Water buffalo, sturgeon, Hard maple and moose in Vancouver

Hakan Bakla · Post by **Hakan Bakla** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 11:34 pm

I am in the process of finding all the needed materials for making a Turkish Bow.
I am searching in local lumbers, online archery suppliers and local hunting forums (for sinew), asian horn suppliers.
I thought I should first ask my local bowyers in Canada (especially BC) if they would like to share their experience finding
- hard (sugar) maple wood
- moose sinew
locally and
- water buffalo horn
- sturgeon bladder.
obviously where ever is in the world. lol
I m sure some of you have things to say with should?ve, could?ve, would?ve. So it would be nice to share and learn.
Since bladder and especially horn will be found out of Canada, anyone can share his experience that recent or still can be useful.

I will keep updating my adventure to find these items through the process.

Thanks

radius · Post by **radius** » Sat Apr 16, 2011 4:51 pm

hi

i got croaker bladders at a shop in chinatown. there are millions of croaker bladders there.

the horn i ordered online

eastern hard maple i bought at Windsor Plywood near Holdom station.

tendon i obtain from a butcher and process by hand.

jkekoni · Post by **jkekoni** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 9:00 am

International shippers:
Pre made horn strips. I would buy these:

http://198.170.107.188/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1933
The bad ones have been discarded during cutting and cutting horn is harder and more time consuming than one might think.

Full horns, red deer sinew
www.highlandhorn.com

I have used both.

If you can get quality moose or ostrich sinew use it rather that than deer. However deer works ok too.

Hakan Bakla · Post by **Hakan Bakla** » Tue Apr 26, 2011 4:13 am

I went to a store that sells various Chinese medicine and delicacies. I asked for information about fish belly (fish Maw) that they sell. Yellow fish and air dried. They have different size bladders and I decided to buy the smallest and the cheapest one to try out. I paid $17 including tax for ? lb of bladders. My Chinese neighbour told me that in Chinese air bladder would be translated as fish belly and croaker is known as yellow fish.
So I hope I did the right thing buying these bladders for testing.

Hakan Bakla · Post by **Hakan Bakla** » Sun May 22, 2011 2:51 am

I have received 1.7 kg of sinew . Before I use them for a turkish bow, I plan to back 4 take down bows that I made out of hard maple Maple.
I will also make glue with the short and left over sinews.
I ordered from that site
http://www.hideandfur.com
No international shipping to outside of USA.
pro service. happy with $13 shipping and handling charge.

I wanted to experiment size and cost relationship of sinews and I purchased various size and types. This is the result that I want to share.

Description- Length "- cost per KG - Average weight per sinew gr.
White Tail Backstrap- 15-20"- $ 440.00 - 12.5gr
White Tail front-rear- Mixed"- $ 52.63 - 3.8gr
Elk front- 10-15"- $ 52.29- 15.5gr
Elk rear- 10-15"- $ 80.91- 30.9gr
Moose front- 18-20"- $ 60.98- 41gr
Moose front- 16-18"- $ 106.38- 23.5gr
Moose rear- 16-18"- $ 90.91- 60.5gr
Moose rear- 12-14"- $ 108.97- 36.25gr