I beam riser reshaping?

[Stinger]

Don S suggested I move this question over from the Bowyer forum to here and hope BowDoc makes a comment

I have several bows that my dad made some 35+ years ago and want to reshape the riser to fit my hand better. The question I have has to do with the way the boards were glued to form the riser. In most custom bows seen today the boards were glued together such that when the bow is laying flat you see the different variations of the wood. He didn't do that and instead glued them up so that you see the pieces when looking at the bow from a front or rear profile. I have included a picture to give you a better idea of what I am talking about. I think this is what you commonly refer to as an I beam riser.  In this case 3 pieces of maple were glued together to form this riser. Dad said that he felt this gave the riser more strength. He also made some risers from a single block of wood and I have included a picture of one he made from walnut.

Now, in both of these pictures I have already reshaped the riser to fit me better, but I have another glued up riser that is shaped just like these that I want to remove much more wood from. Specifically I want to reduce the overall thickness of the grip itself so that my hand wraps around it easier. My question for you restorers is, do you think I can get away with this on the riser that is glued up in this fashion?


 

 

[wadde]

First of all, you have already done it with good results, secondly I would work on the thicker portions and stay away from the actual lamination connections. Those are some nice looking bows you have there and you are well on your way to making them fit your grip.

[d. ward]

those look like they could be thinned down a bit.Pending on draw weight ? if there 100#'ers I say nay.If I can get my photobucket fixed today I'll try and post some pics of a couple I've thinned down.They may help give you some ideas bd

[2treks]

The throat area is What you need to pay attention to. The palm area and heel can loose a fair bit of material before they are as small as the throat area. Rounding some corners/edges will make a big change in how that grip feels. Rounding the finger side of the grip and lowering the heel/palm area will be fine as long as you do not touch or go crazy in the throat area.

[Stinger]

Doc, Chuck,

Thanks.  That is exactly the kind of advice I was looking for.  The draw weigh varies on which limbs I put on it as I have multiple sets, but I won't be shooting anything over 48# or so at my 27" draw.  I wasn't planning on reducing the throat area.  It is the area my hand wraps around that needs reduction (the finger side of the grip as Chuck says).  I thought about lowering the heel area some, doing it slowly so I don't end up with a low grip.

I believe the riser on my old 45# Shakespeare Yukon is solid maple and the throat on that is much smaller than this. So the question is,is an I beam inherently stronger than a solid piece riser?  This assumes it was glued up properly.

[2treks]

In my opinion, A properly laminated riser is stronger.