How much bend can you put into a belly wood splice?

[Zradix]

Hey guys..

Might be going with a spliced belly of osage on a r/d tri lam.

I've never spliced a piece of wood in my life.
The splice would be going right in the middle of the deflexed riser area with nothing under it until I glue on a handle.

I'm thinking this one will have quite a bit of an angle to it.

Worried if a splice joint is flexible enough to do it at all.

Thanks

[Roy from Pa]

Well they will take some bending, but not an extreme amount. However your belly lam should only be about 1/4" on a tri lam. So being that thin, the splice will have a little flexibility to it. Also when you glue the bow up, the very first clamp will go right in the middle of the handle/splice area, " The long orange clamp". That clamp will pull the handle area down tight onto your center post. Then the next two clamps will be on your mid limb posts, one at a time of course, " The long Orange clamps". The closer your mid limb posts are to your handle area, the more deflex you are going to induce in the bow. Thus the more pressure you will exert on that splice. I have in the past just gluing up BBO bows with 1/2 thick handle areas, caused the z splice to crack lose. It always happens on the outside glue joint, which will be cut out when you cut out the bow, so I didn't worry about it. But the ones that did crack were when I was trying to induce a lot of deflex. The bow below I placed the mid limb posts 11.5 inches from the flares. It has some decent deflex but not extreme. I wouldn't be afraid to place the mid limb posts at 9 or 10 inches from the flares with a tri lam build.

   

   

   

The bow below had the mid limb posts set out 12" from the flares.

 

[Bowjunkie]

I have done it sucessfully with moderate amounts of deflex. How far it will bend before breaking depends on how thick the wood is, grain orientation, clamping procedure, how well your splice was done, glue used, etc.

If you are only splicing one of the lams and are able, use it for the middle one, with the full length lam on the belly. Then regardless of whether you have one or two splices in there... do this when you glue all three pieces together....

Pull the handle area down onto the center post and clamp it. Now before you pull the limbs down onto the midlimb posts, put 1 or 2 c-clamps, 2" apart, on each side of the big center post clamp... clamping the three pieces of your trilam together. These will help to support the splice and keep it from breaking while the midlimbs are pulled down onto the midlimb posts. It helps.... but doesn't make it invincible  

[Zradix]

Hey man thanks for the tip.

I think I better go with a solid piece.
The bow will have a solid core...Just hoped the belly could be sliced AND take a pretty high amount of deflex

[Roy from Pa]

I add c clamps on each side of the center post like Jeff said, just forgot to add that in there. John these tri lams will bend really nice, don't over think it, just get er done:)