Making Laminations?

[Joshua Lee]

Newbie alert... I have a question.  It seems that one of the main expenses of making a second bow is the laminations and glue.  Can I make my own laminations from regular lumber (ie maple etc) using a band saw and a belt sander.  I realize the thickness of the lams can't have much variation but... any thoughts?  And while I'm talking crazy... to taper a lam could I carefully sand in the taper or build a jig that prevents me from sanding to far?

[sw]

There are folks here that use a bandsaw to cut the lams and a few good pic's of a sanding setup here. Its all possible with good results if you take the time to set up right    Jigs are a must!

[Jason Scott]

http://poorfolkbows.com/glass3.htm

Here is a link that I followed to get started making lams. I don't do the fancy splicing he does but you can get the idea how to get it done. He also explains how to get good tapers. You will need a good caliper to be cosistent with thickness.

[Jeremy]

Cutting your own is relatively easy.  Cutting a taper is easy with a simple taper sled as well.  All you need to do is sand to thickness.  I did a bunch on my tablesaw (didn't have a bandsaw until recently)

A simple thickness sander can be made with a sanding drum and a drill press.  It works surprisingly well.  Some arbors have a bit of slop and you can go out of square fairly easy if you try to take a heavy pass... a lower guide with a live center takes care of that problem.

Having done them myself and with the shop time I get... I'll just order from Kenny! LOL!

[Joshua Lee]

Thanks, that's a bunch of great information.  
Josh

[mikeineugene]

I just finished a set of limbs with laminations that i ground myself out of Zebra and they worked very well.I cut these first on my table saw and then ground them on my drill press with a drum sander and jig.As long as you mic them out you should be fine making your own.These laminations are non tapered and the bow shoots very well with little to no stack so i will continue to use these non tapered laminations on my next bow.

[Jason Scott]

I have learned that to taper or not to taper depends on the profile and demesions of the bow. The more narrow the bow is the more thickness taper you may need because you are not able to accomplish the taper by width toward the tips as much. The limb should gradually get more flexible toward the tips. Hill style bows @ around 1" wide, because they are so narrow require as much as .006 to .008 per inch thickness taper but a binghams type bow @ 1 1/2" wide require only .002 per inch. You have to get some taper, either width, thickness or both for the limb to bend properly.

[Jeremy]

Originally posted by Jason Scott:
The limb should gradually get more flexible toward the tips.

I disagree with you on that point.  When you take a look at the highest performing longbows they all have two things in common - light and stiff tips.  The last 6-8" of most of them are static and don't bend at all.  It forces the mid and inner limbs to bend more and keeps the string angle at the tips (stacking) at a minimum.

Not enough taper in the limb and most of the bending gets done just past the fades = hand shock
Too much taper in the limbs and the tips are very soft, performance suffers and the bow stacks earlier (string angle at the tips increases very fast).  That's my main beef with Hill style bows = a 68" bow should not start to stack until well after my draw length!

[Jason Scott]

Whether you choose to stiffen your tips to increase performance or not the limb has to get more flexible toward the tips in general or it would break off at the fades. All usable bows get more flexible the farther out the limb you get. Now, as for performance enhancement, you're right Jeremy, most of the best performers do stiffen the last inches of the limb. I stand corrected, technically