bear T/D limbs, what thickness of glass??

[shaft slinger]

I have 2 sets of limbs 60/65 and have not had any luck selling or trading them for lighter poundage, i 'am not a collector and i don't think the limbs has much collector value, i 'am going to reduce the weight to about 50/55# and it would be nice to know if Fred used .050 or .040 thick glass, it could determine how much weight i can remove, going to get started tomorrow, wish me luck and will keep you posted
     Harold  

[Jeremy]

If you're trying to drop 10#, you won't be able to do it sanding the glass.  You're better off evenly reducing the width of the limb.

I'm surprised you haven't been able to sell 'em.  Seems someone is always looking for 60+# limbs.

[cacciatore]

Put them on sale on*****the last ones went for more than$300,Take a look.But what kind of limbs they are Grayling or Florida.If you want to drop some pounds from a bow a professional bowyer can take out more than 4 or 5 pounds,I think,so take care.

[shaft slinger]

If they have .050 glass, by working the side AND glass i can get as much as 15#, but i wont work the glass with the decal so it should be able to get a good 10#, the 65# are a lot wider than the 60# should help a lot.
  On a recurve i made last year with .040 glass i was able to drop 14# with no problem .
    Thanks for the advise and have a good day.harold

[Mike/Columbia Basin]

A lot of limbs used .040 glass.
Mike

[d. ward]

Bear only used maybe two thicknesses of glass one thick one thin 99% of thier bows were tilled and made draw weight by sanding the back glass down so its hard to say on the actual glass thickness.This pic ai'nt the greatest but .065 under the tip overlay and .050 on the rest of the back of the limb bd  

[shaft slinger]

Hey bd thinks for the info, both sets of limbs look to have the same on back and belly, i would say just at a guess the 60# is in the .050 range the 65# looks thicker but both sides look to be about the same.
 guess i will hold off sanding these for now as it is too cold to work in the shop any how, got plenty of bows to shoot if it warms up a bit any way.
   Thanks a bunch for all the information here,       Take Care  

harold  

[d. ward]

Hey Harold as mentioned you may look at trades if possible that saves a lot of work.The weird deal with the set I have (in pic) they are only 50# and I could not figure out for the life of me why they used .065 on 50# bows until I figured out they were sanding the back glass down to make weight bd

[shaft slinger]

bd , that is kind of odd, could have done the same with .040 glass and saved a lot of sanding.
     I'am going to set on them for a while and see what happends.
 Too cold to do any thing today except stay warm
     Thanks for every thing     Harold

[d. ward]

I thought it was a money saveing thing with bear.Maybe cheaper to sand the glass to desired thickness then to make all the different thicknesses of glass.Plus Bear finished the tillering from sanding the back of limbs.Not recomended by todays bowyers.Here is another pic of a 1959 Kodiak with the same back glass sanding bd  

[Grant Young]

You answered a question I was about to ask, BD. Do you think that the practice of sanding for weight and tiller has more than a little bit of effect on the individual bow's performance? As you well know, I love my old Bears but I'd be one of the first to say that they weren't all created equal, if you know what I mean. GY

[shaft slinger]

bd was the glass sanded Before the nock over lays was installed????
 Both sets of limbs i have look to have about the same glass under the over lays as the rest of the limbs and they are Real thin i would think about .040/.030.
   One set has the gray action wood so it is hard to tell.
   GY i have built a lot of bows with thin glass and a lot of wood and also with thick slass and and less wood, I can't tell a lot of differents in the way they shoot EXCEPT imo the one with thin glass seems to draw a little smother, but again i'am not one of those people that can shoot a bow and see a differents in 1/2 FPS.
     Some bowyers say the wood lams are only
fILLERS and don't do any good as far as performance, if that is true then they would be using all glass, as it is a lot cheeper  

[Grant Young]

I agree with you Harold- the question I was trying to ask, though poorly, was if sanding was the culprit so far as performance was concerned. I can't tell the difference in performance in limbs either,unless it is pretty significant. I too have heard a couple of bowyers say that the core wood was only filler and didn't make much difference but I never quite bought it as being 100% true. I do know that most bowyers don't like to reduce too much weight by sanding and figured there was at least one reason in specific and probably more. I also know I have had virtually identical takedown limbs so far as length and draw weights were concerned with significant and noticeable variations in performance and I'm curious as to why.     :confused:    GY

[lesaint45]

Grant and Harold
This maybe more than you thought I have been a personal friend of BD for years. So I'll ask him if he remembers when I reduced a 63# 64" 67.5 SK for Joe St. Charles years ago.  I reduced this to 60# and we gained 3 feet per second on the chrono. Same shooter and arrow Joe. This was done be hand sanding the edges and rounding the glass. So does a lighter limb lead to quicker recovery and greater performance? Don't know just a thought from a strange experience.
Larry

[Grant Young]

Larry- Bowdoc mentions you often and I know you have a wealth of experience. That's a real interesting example. Could the gain be due to the elimination of some mass? I really am curious and the 3# reduction seems to be consistent with what BD and Owen Jeffery and others have suggested to me, that being that there was only so much sanding down they were comfortable with. Back in the eighties Owen worked on a set of Gainesville limbs for me when I lived in S. Carolina and hung out there all the time. The limbs had been dogs from day one and I'd had them in storage and replaced them with a set of 70#ers I got from Bill Krenz. Turned out the bow had been drilled for locator pins wrong side up and the tiller was awful. Owen redrilled the locator holes and improved things a lot; looked a little weird with the screens upside down but they shoy okay. I owned three of the takedowns and several set of limbs 65-70# and decided I'd knock some weight off so friends who hadn't shot much could shoot with us if they wanted so Owen took ten pounds off and they really kind of lost all their zip, weight notwithstanding. In fact I gave them to Bowdoc- he may or may not still have them. Whats your opinion or experience with reductions of that amount? I don't know that those limbs are a great example cause they had issues from the get-go but I really am curious and I'll never be a bowyer,lol.   GY

[lesaint45]

Grant: Yes BD still has those limbs. You, BD and all other bowyers I have ever talked to, have a limit on what they will reduce on a bow usally around 5lbs. The issue is the core and glass combo. That is why most bowyers take it from the edge BD included. I do believe that BD is 100% correct that Bear did it the other way for cost and mass production. I to have had a lot of Bears same wieght different performance. We all know that limb design is the heart of the bow's performance. I believe that there is a limit on what one can do with each design without effecting that performance. Like I stated most Master Bowyers say 5lbs. I had a set of Limbs reduced by Jay St.Charles from 65 to 55 and they were like rubber bands no performance. Not his fault he warned me, I didn't listen gave them away listen learned. So when BD says there is a limit there is.
Larry

[Grant Young]

:thumbsup:Thanks Larry- clears things up a little. GY

[shaft slinger]

A lot of good info.    Thanks Guys

[d. ward]

yes about 99% of the Bear bows I've checked with a mic or calipers always have thicker fiberglass under the tip overlays which would be protected from the sanding belt by the tip overlay itself (good place to mic the fiberglass thickness on all bows)kind of indacating the back glass was sanded down.I know Bear made fiberglass for 1,000's of customers in many different thicknesses but on Bears bows I believe it went something like .040-.050-.055-.060-.065 used on nearly all bear bows and then sanded to make weight tiller and using verring thickness of corewood could change things again weird huh ? bd

[shaft slinger]

bd you would think that bear making all thickness of glass that they would have a formuler of glass and wood where they wouldn't have to sand the glass that much.
    I only use .040-.050 glass and hardly ever sand the back or belly, on really low pound i some time use .030 but not much.
   I'am going to mike the glass on the limbs i have and see what i come up with    SS