minimum width for oak board bow

[walkabout]

Does anyone have any idea what the miinimum width would be for a red oak board bow? i know that it stands up better in longer bows, but how much of the width could you lose and still be safe?

[Silent Bear]

It depends on how straight of grain the piece you are working with and how correctly you tiller, I recently made a 67 inch red oak bow from boardwood at 55 lbs with 1 1/2 width and it shoots fine with no backing  

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[walkabout]

yea i recently got a 72 inch longbow done thats 1 1\\2 inches wide. was just wondering about ripping a leftover piece in half and making a bow for my son, or maybe just a short draw. i do a bit of shooting from a floating anchor so itd be double purpose.

[Pac'em out]

Silent Bear, what is the limb thickness of your bow mentioned above?  Do you have any close up pictures of the handle?  I'm going to build a red oak bow soon and looking for design ideas.  Thanks, Sir!

[George Tsoukalas]

There's info on my site. Basically, 3/4" thick by 1.5" will get you a good 50-55#. 1.25" wide will get you 45-50# provided the bowyer does a good job. Love the bend in the handle design for boards. Jawge
 http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/

[sw]

I use 1.5" to 1-3/4" wide on redoak with fine results. The 1 3/4" wide is prolly overbuilt, but they last a long long long time and can take abuse, they cast decent with under 1.25" set after 150 shots. Really comes down to building the bow right - never go over your target weight in tillering and tiller it well.

Kids redoak bows i use 1" wide upto about 25# with little issue.

[walkabout]

thanks for the replies, i think i might just try and see if it works, worst that could happen is it comes out too light, but then again even a light bow my son could use.(and myself on random days when i have nothing to do inside.lol)

[walkabout]

heres a handle pic of my most recent build.its 70" nock to nock, pulls 49#@27"  
 

[walkabout]

handle's wrapped with hemp cord and rubbed with TB3 to seal and keep the fuzzy stuff down

[walkabout]

the board i shaped this bow from was actually warped in all 4 directions!(thanks to my 6 year old keeping me plenty distracted)but it just felt like good wood to me. grain ran almost parallel to the back and belly. anyway turned out to be something im pretty happy with.