Reworking an old bow

[LittleBen]

I have a tri-lam I built a year or so ago, it's 58"ttt white oak backed ipe and draws about 39#@25" with 1" of string follow.

The backing had a small splinter develop which I fixed but still concerns me. I'm debating how to refinish this bow/ add some draw weight.

I could remove the backing lam with heat, and then add a new backing of bamboo or something and glue in some reflex

I could add flax fiber

I could sinew the bow meanwhile pulling it into reflex.

it's nearly 1.5" wide, so I imagine the ipe belly can handle a substantial increase in weight. I'd like over 50# @ 25"

I'm leaning towards sanding down the finish and adding some sinew .... any thoughts? anyone done this? any idea how much sinew I need to bring the weight up that much? Alsoi how much reflex? I'm thinking maybe 3" of reflex.

[LESKEN2011]

I have swapped the back on an ipe bow for a slightly thicker piece before that was successful in raising the weight. I even got some of the slight set out of it. I added belly lams to a molle bow which turned out to be easier for me, though. It might be tricky, depending on how thick your belly lam is and whether you have rounded off the edges much. Here is a pic of the molle with osage lams added to bring up the weight.    

[red hill]

Lesken, I would think the belly of the molle had to be flat with square edges, right? Never done underlays...

[LESKEN2011]

Yes. I had to flatten the belly by grinding it down past the rounded edges. Then gluing on the belly lams. I wish I had used epoxy instead of TB3, though. I did have some glue line creep on that one.