Chrysals

[tommy6]

Ive just discovered chrysals developing on a bow Im making. They developed quite suddenly and are pretty severe, going through the belly lam of a 3 lam bow. Interestingly, they developed simultaneously on the upper and lower limbs as I was floor exercizing the bow. The middle lam, is 0.25" action boo and it looks intact.
 My question is of course is there any way of saving this bow? Last night I covered the belly with thin epoxy to seal it, hoping that it would help fill the chrysals. I have not stressed it again. My ideas would be to:
1. cut the belly lam off and lam a fibreglass strip or another wood lam to belly.
2. Cover the chrysalled belly lam with a fibreglass strip or laminate some epoxy and fibreglass cloth to the belly.
3. Use the now defunct piece of wood to flog myself.
Im really trying to avoid #3.
Any help would be appreciated.

[Dano]

Your flog yourself anyway, might as well get it done early on      

Tell us more about the lams and the glue you used.

[tommy6]

The bow was to be a reflex deflex 72" to start by 1.5" wide. 3 parallel lams Back 1/8" hickory, middle 1/4" action boo and a belly of rock elm starting at 1/2" that I planned to tiller. Glued together with resorcinol on a form made of 2x4s and 1/8" metal strip. The riser is 12" long made of canary wood and figured maple by stacking 1/4" pieces on top of each other, glued to the belly.
To start off with I was unsure about the rock elm, because Ive never worked with it before. I was wondering if the middle and back would over power it and it seems it did.

[Pat B]

Grind or cut the belly lam off and add another. A more compression strong wood like osage or ipe will do the trick. I've done this on 2 bows(osage on both) and was very pleased with the results.
   Another option with the elm is to cut your new lams and temper them with heat before glue-up then retiller the bow.

[tommy6]

Thanks PatB. Last night I cut the limbs off to make it into a 3 piece take down, figuring it would be easier to grind down the limbs.
I will grind the elm off. I am wondering if I should glue a new lam to it. I have some ipe that I can resaw. The problem is that I would have to make the ipe so thin to be able to atain a draw weight of 55-60#. Im wondering if it would fail too.
guess the two options would be to taper down the action boo some and than add the ipe or to reinforce the new ipe lam with epoxy/fibreglass.
The thickness of the limbs will be .375" when I take the elm off, with limb lengths of 27". If I overlap 4" from each limb that would give limb lengths of 23" each for a bow length of 64".
Any other ideas?