64 RD finished

[breazyears]

just finished my first glass longbow. The riser is ipe with maple accents...18inch. the core lams are boo with a maple tapered lam on the belly, and the glass is brown on the belly and the back. The bow came out really nice, the glue lines look great and the tiller is great. The lower limb is about one eighth stronger at the end of the fades. The only thing that im not happy with is the weight. It came in at 60-63# to heavy for my comfort level. I have read on this forum that trapping the back is a good way to loose some poundage. Also narrowing the limbs can help. As of now the limbs are about one and three eights at the widest, and taper to a little over half an inch at the tips.
 Any ideas on how much I would need to narrow the limbs to hit 45-50#s?
 I will post some pics when I get home from work tomorrow.

[rmorris]

10# is a lot of weigh to take off with how narrow your limbs are I would creep up slowly on that bow.

[LittleBen]

10# is nearly 1/6th of the total draw weight, so theoretically narrowing by 1/6th of total limb width could get you there.

That would be about 1/4" at the fades and 3/32" at the tips. That would make your bow barely over 1" at the fades .... thats pretty extreme ...

I say find a buddy who wants one and can draw that. Tell him it's his for the cost of materials. Then build another for yourself with a thinner stack.

[Trux Turning]

Not sure 45#s is in the picture but if you have rounded over the edges already you can square up the edges again (back to the glass) and then either trap or round them over- you will drop some weight doing that. Bet you can knock it down 10#s.

[Todd Cook]

I've taken that much weight off before, but wasn't happy with the finished product. I don't like to get much under 1.25 wide at the widest point of the limbs. Course your design might be different and it work out fine.

[bamboo]

what glass thickness did you use?
this bow has a lot of room for reduction-IMO
 

by trapping and a thorough rounding as well as sanding the glass--
if you used .050 glass- sanding to remove .o10-.015 of glass and trapping the limbs would  I believe have very close to the desired results---my advise would be to save any narrowing for last--[especially in the limb butts]-as once its gone its gone!and thickness has  more effect on draw weight than width
good luck!!

[breazyears]

Ya bamboo. I have got it down to about 50-52#. It really didn't take a whole lot to get their. I sander the back and belly a little with 220 grit, then did 7 passes on the sides of each limb with 80 grit, in my spindle sander. The limbs are now 1.340" at the fades, and .5" at the tips. I also rounded them over on both the back and belly... more so on the back.
 Oh ya. The glass is.040.
 Thanks everyone.