In the Way Back Times, when my shoulders were held on by tendons and ligaments instead of duct tape and nails, I used to build traditional bows. There is a lot of literature on building composite bows from natural materials. The most sophisticated of these were the sinew/wood/horn recurves built by the Mongols. They certainly used isinglass in their bows.
“Fish glue” can be extracted from other fish parts, including the skin. So, I suppose it was just a matter of trying different fish parts and finding the best raw material for the glue. The Mongol bowyers certainly had sufficient motivation. Building a bow could take nearly a year, and if it failed during a battle, they killed the bowyer. At least that’s the story you read these days.
I also think that I have read something somewhere sometime about using isinglass for gluing horn nose caps onto jaegers. The Europeans certainly used it, and I would think that it would have been available here.
In case you’ve never used it, hide glue is great stuff. It is as strong as any wood glue made today. There are two kinds readily available, a liquid and a solid. The liquid is junk.
Rolfkt – I am open minded about drinking, however, I draw the line at putting fish whiz in my beer.
