Is there anyone on this forum who is familiar with the use of baleen as a bow backing? The reason I ask is because I recently saw a bow that was made in the 1940s with an unusual backing. I thought it might be and then was told it was baleen. The material was a light cream color and ran from bow tip to bow tip without splicing. It also had a smooth and consistent texture without any sort of grain and almost looked like some sort of plastic,... but I feel certain it wasn't? Any ideas, could this be baleen?

Could be, I had a set of arrows with Baleen nock inserts

I think baleen is whale bone, but not 100% certain.

Baleen is not bone.

Baleen is a material that is much like our fingernails that is the filter system inside the mouth of the Baleen whale.

What Frank said is correct .... I believe it's now a restricted material

The ones I've had were black and looked like carbon but abraisive

I'm guessing baleen is pretty tough to come by these days.

Yes,!..Frank is right ..Baleen comes from the head of the whale.. .I beleive in the olden times it was used in women's corsets!! Codjigger

I've HEARS, and maybe since he is from Canada Codjigger may have some insight, that Baleen could still be purchased from the indigenous people of Northern Canada and Alaska.

I would think that baleen would be very strictly regulated under the international whaling treaty. And yes, it’s what many whales have in lieu of teeth— Rights, Humpbacks, Blues, Grays, Fins and all of the species which filter their food out of an enormous mouthful of water. It’s like fingernails or horn, so I’d think it would be useful for anything where you could use horn, but where you could just as well use a long strip of fiberglass or plastic. Corset stays or sail battens come to mind, but a bow sounds right.

I believe that pieces of baleen were also sharpened on each end and rolled into a coil, which was held together with rawhide or sinew, then sewn into a flat piece of meat and left where a wolf would find it and gulp it down. Ugly, but apparently pretty effective once the binding got dissolved in the digestive tract….

In Alaska if any marine mammal parts such as baleen or walrus ivory must be made into some sort of art to be legally sold or purchased if not indigenous.

There is some aboriginal whale hunting in Canada's artic waters, But these are small whales such as narwhal and Beluga..I don't think these ones have balleen..but I don't know.

Here in my home province..Newfoundland ..the most common whales are Humpbacks ..we sometimes see them from our kitchen window. They are chasing the smelt like capelin..which roll in on our rocky beaches to spawn by the millions in June. The hunting of the big whales is a thing of the past.

I have Dean Torges' balleen bow that I got From 4nolz. It's bamboo backed, osage in the middle, and balleen on the belly. The balleen is black. It's a thing of beauty.

Love to see pictures of it.

If I remember correctly, Dean Torges said that balleen is excellent on the belly of a bow to fight compression, but not good under the tension experienced on the back of the bow.

Jeff, had I known Mike was going to offer that bow up for sale, you would have had some competition. I remember when Dean built it and the stories he told about the components and how he was going to utilize them. Great memories!

Didn’t Howard Hill make shooting gloves with baleen in the fingers ?

MP

Back in the day all sorts of plastic type materials were used for backing and belly material.

The backing mentioned was much more likely to be that sort of material.

Casekiska you might be describing fortisan can you get pictures?

Frank Eicholtz experimented with many different materials before his fiberglass. It could be many different materials, including vulcanized fiber.

Bob

Yeah, let's see some pix please...

Codjigger, that is some serious penetration... Am assuming it was shot from one of those harpoon cannons?

I do not own the bow so I will not be able to provide photos. Looking back, I should have taken some right then and there. And yes, perhaps I am describing fortisan. At this point I do not know. Thanks to all for the comments and insight, it's been an interesting discussion.

Jay St. Charles spoke of the use of baleen in bow making. I believe his father Glen may have used it some. This would be in the thirties if I remember his statement on this. That interview with Jay was on the stickboys podcast a while ago. Interesting part of his story was that was there were " warehouses" full of baleen, as it had been used in the making of women's corsets, but when the corsets went out of style, the market for baleen virtually stopped.

No..Zone.. I took that little whale with my !50 lb longbow..when I went on a whaling trip with Ahab on the old Pequod...I think that picture shows that you can get pretty good penetration from the right broadhead with a light bow.! Jigger

Tom Baldwin had a big chunk of baleen displayed with some of the oldest bows in his collection... I might have gotten a photo of it when I visited him; I'll see if I can dig it up.

Wow Jigger, thanks for sharing... 50 pound bow? Looks like a Howard Hill broadhead? What kinda whale bone is that?

As above by Mark.

Glenn did make bows back with baleen.

My old friend here in Canada talked about building an ELB backed with it.

Chester Stevenson also used baleen.

Fortisan I believe would have visible fibers. There was also Lamicoid and Toxhorn.

“ small whales such as narwhal and Beluga..I don't think these ones have balleen..but I don't know.”

Narwhal, Pilot, Belugas, Dolphins and porpoises are all toothed whales; I think Orcas are technically part of the Dolphin family. Sperm whales are the largest of the toothed whales.

I have a feeling that the Supply of baleen probably dried up long before the demand ever did…. Synthetic alternatives were probably made necessary/feasible by shortages of the real thing….

When I visited Glen St. Charles shop out in Washington He had in his museum collection Baleen backed bows. He told me they used to experiment with all kinds of materials back in the day before fiberglass. I have some photos in the closet I’ll have to try and dig up.

That was a misprint..Gary..should have read my 150 light long bow .!.. sometimes dead whales drift ashore here..that is where I found that single vertebrae.. I don't know for sure which species, but probably a humpback as they are by far the most common here. The broadhead ..a 3 to 1 hill type but I don't think it is a hill head. Codjigger

Wow that is pretty cool to be able to do penetration test on a Humpback vertebrae... Thanks for sharing...

Oops, forgot to ask, you actually have a 150# pull bow?

No..zbone.. just tugging your ankle!( ,,) !! Jigger

Okay, ya got me...8^)))

So, I'm assuming that drill was used to help plant that point?...8^)

Bet it make a heck of a conversation piece...

A close friend of mine has a whole collection of Baleen backed bows made by Glen St Charles. The late Bob Brum also had a Kodiak or grizzly a few years ago that was backed with it at one of the shows. I almost bought it, and I passed. I doubt it’s used today , the hippies would have a hissy fit.

When I lived in Alaska you could buy baieen from Natives on the street corner in Anchorage. It was not carved or turned into any sort of art. I left in 2012 and it was still going on. I ask one of the guys selling it about the white colored baleen and he told me it came from female whales...No infestation on my part, just passing on what he told me. The piece in the pic is right at 8 foot long and filter feeding whales have rows of to in the mouth. The hairs hanging off trap the small organisms they eat.

Bit of proof reading would have been good before I hit send...not after.

That is cool AK Pathfinder, thanks for sharing...

https://news.fullerton.edu/2022/07/marine-research-dives-into-how- giant-baleen-whales-filter-tiny-organisms/

From The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972:

Can I legally buy baleen from a street vendor? Are there any restrictions on what I can do with it?

Yes, baleen (normally this is from the endangered bowhead whale) may be legally sold by Alaska Natives as Traditional Native Handicraft under both the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and Endangered Species Act (ESA). The baleen must be cleaned and polished to qualify as handicraft. Once purchased, bowhead baleen may be transported out of State, but may not be subsequently sold or taken outside of the United States.

BEARMAN - You happen to have a photo o9f that baleen backed Bear bow... Thanks...

AK Pathfinder I was hoping you would join in. I didn't know if it was O.K. to mention that picture. I can't initiate P.M.'s >>>>-------> Ken

Jack Harrison made some Balllen backed bows..

This is cool, nobody knows this kind of stuff anywhere else. The Leatherwall at its best.

The Japanese used to make a little personal defense bow out of baleen. It was about two feet long.

I was in Jack Harrison's shop and he had a garbage can full of bows that had failed...mostly experimental stuff and there was a baleen backed bow in the mix.

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