# of laminations?

[redclay]

Im going to build a 64" glass laminated straight longbow. Im going to make some lams soon. I was wondering how many lams I should use. They will all be paralell lams. Would 3 be enough or would 4 or 5 be better? Does it really matter? I would like to keep it sort of basic, but still get a sweet shooting bow when im done. thanks

[elk ninja]

Good question Red,

There is a lot that goes into it, and in the end, I don't think there is really one right answer for every application....

I assume you are going with one limb wood and not a core and vineers... because that would be at least three lams.

"sweetness" comes from a few things, among them the number of lams, but more importantly, the wood choosen, tapers, length, width of the limbs and length of the riser... but I digress...

I'd go with four if you can.  I'd lay it up like this...

Glass
lam
riser
lam
lam
lam
glass
form

Why three over four?  I think there is somehow a smoothness that comes with four, but any more and you begin to loose the KISS principaland have too much possibilities for failure.  Any less is fine, I'd take away one of the bottom three lams if you went with three.

Why aren't you going with a taper in there?

Good luck, it won't be the last!

Mike

[redclay]

thanks alot. 4 is kinda what I was thinking. Im going to use all hard maple. Im 17 and dont have a steady job right now (hunting season!), so I don't have too much money to spare. I dont have a jig either to make tapers, just parallels. My next one will probably use a taper though.

[elk ninja]

http://www.geocities.com/salampsio/glass3.htm
 for a great taper jig.... I would assume you have everything except the taper.  Are you doing something like this for your parallels?
Sounds like a great project!
Mike

[redclay]

That does look good. I hope I get a belt sander like that for christmas and i could make a setup like that. Im making my parallels with a drum sander on a drill press and a board clamped on the drill press table. I adjust the thickness with that. I tried with some scrap wood and it worked pretty well.

[Fletcher]

Red, I used a very similar set up for grinding lams and it worked very well until my little finger got sucked between the drum and fence.  Don't think it can't/won't happen to you.  Make some kind of shield to keep your finger out of there.

Read my tag line a few times.    

[redclay]

ouch! thanks for mentioning that. I will rig up some sort of a guard.