number of bow laminations

[red hill]

Hi, All.
It has taken me quite a while to come up with a question of my own.
 
So far I have managed to produce 6 board bows of which only one has broken so far.  Now I want to attempt a laminated bow.
 
How many laminations does an average bow require?  :rolleyes:  

I want a flat bow pulling between 45-55 lbs. I have an idea of the type of wood, backing, riser and what have you.  I'm just not sure about the number of laminations it will need.

Thanks to everyone on this site.  It is a tremendous influence have with the threads and posts on Tradgang.  I've introduced several freinds, family, and students to this website.    

Thanks,
Stan

[Jeremy]

There's really a required #.  You can make a good bow with just a single wood lam between the glass and some longbows go with an insane 8-9 lams total.  Anything in between is fair game.
Most of the lonbows I've owned have had 3 lams and most of the recurves have had 2.

[bjansen]

I agree with Jeremy...my R/D longbows usually have 3-5 lams, recurves 2-3 lams.

[tawmio]

Dont know if im right but i feel like my 4 lam r/d turned out the best.
Tommy

[Swissbow]

On my r/d-longbows I used 3 or 4 lams and they all worked out well. I prefer a 4 lam stack, because I think it looks nicer if the limbs are symmetrical and you can put like frame around the riser piece. For the recurves I used 2 lams so far, since I prefer short recurves.

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Andy

[Dick in Seattle]

I have been playing with this issue for the past few months and several bows.   The question for me was where is the line between extra lams giving you more smoothness but additional glue lines detracting from performance.   I build primarily light bows.   I've now done 4 lams up to 55# and 2 lams down to 22#, plus a one lam 30#.   All of these are 66" and 68" longbows.  (The only bow worth building, of course  8^)    

My conclusion, for whatever it might be worth, is that for my bows of roughly 30# and under, I'll stick with two lams, 35 to 45# three lams, and above 45 I'll go to four lams.    If I were to build higher weights, like 55 to 60 and up, I'd definitely be tempted to go to five, but would not go over that.  Fortunately, I have no interest in bows that heavy.

[kennym]

Keep tapers around .100 to 120 and parallels around .060 as a general rule and it will work out about right . JMHO

For heavy woods like bocote I go with thinner exterior parallels(or veneers) and more core.

Probably about just what has already been said!