Re: Fustian and Linen for bowstrings

["David Cooke"]

> From: Jörg Bellinghausen 
> Reply-To: cosg-living-history-at-egroups.com
> To: cosg-living-history-at-egroups.com
> Subject: Re: Fustian and Linen for bowstrings
> Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 13:49:32 -0700 (PDT)
Silk offers
> no real advantage over hemp or linen and is much more expensive, so why
> spend a lot of money on an item that is supposed to last only about
> 1.000 shots?
>
> The trouble with finding good linen cord is that nowadays only a few
> manufacturers are able to produce a cord that has a high breaking
> strength per individual strand while retaining a relatively thin
> diameter. I
> *can* make a string of ordinary linen cord, sure, but the breaking
> strength of ordinary cord is not high enough, so I would end up using
> lots of strands, which makes the string too thick, too heavy,and it's
etc.
> My reply: I doubt that silk is so expensive that you would be unable to 
> afford it for a bowstring. We have definite references to its use as a 
> superior material in the 15th century, although it would take me some time 
> to get hold of the reference for you (French). So it presumably has the 
> advantage of extra tensile strength and is probabaly easier to spin to size 
> than linen. If you have difficulties getting linen of shoemakers quality, 
> waxed or unwaxed,(What's wrong with it being waxed?) I should be able to 
> help.  BUT, why not use hemp? this is to be found everywhere in all sorts 
> of qualities and sizes and is cheap, and DEFINITELY stronger than linen.


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