Narrowing a factory recurve bow

[T.L]

Hi all. Odd question perhaps but here goes.

I was able to pick up a Big Rock recurve bow for a good price, with the goal of reshaping the riser and just playing around in general to work on my bow shaping skills.

The limbs are pretty wide, around 1.75" almost all the way to the tips. I wanted to narrow them down a bit, to make them closer to 1.5".

The limbs are bamboo. And i figured worse case scenario I could get a pair of longbow limbs if i screw these up.

Is this a bad idea?

[JamesV]

I build all my re-curve limbs 1.5". I only narrow the last 6-8" to the tip.

[yard dog]

I narrowed a generic recure to reduce weight for bowfishing.... It was easy....

[mikkekeswick]

Yes it is 'easy' if you don't remove unequal amounts of material....

[T.L]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I am going to use a pair of Sebastian Flute limbs as the general template and will go slow to make sure I keep things even.

[kennym]

If you mark with 1.5" limbs, stop before you get to the line and check tiller and for twist. All limbs are not equal side to side or thickness....

[Holm-Made]

Leave the tips wide until the end.  Then you can tweet them to make sure the string falls into the groove.

[T.L]

Thanks for the additional input.

Turns out my limb width guesses are pretty bad - the limbs are 1.5 but because the taper is pretty close to the tip they look much wider.

Less work now to slim them down which is good since I'm doing this in my basement. Good practice for when my longbow blank from Kenny arrives!

Thanks!