Lam Longbow Question

[Brad_Gentry]

Okay, I've never tried to build a laminated bow, but plan on giving it a whirl after season's over. I figured a Hill-style longbow would probably be the least complicated for my first go-round, and I've always wanted a string-follow bow, so that's what I'm going to attempt.

My question is... what are the pros/cons of just mounting the riser on the belly-side of ALL the limb laminations (except the glass, of course), as opposed to running one pair over the ends of the riser? Are there any differences, performance-wise, or is it just cosmetic. I was always going to order a Sunset Hill, and noticed that he does a lot of his bows like that.

[Brad_Gentry]

Like these...
 

[Pat B]

I've only built one glass lam bow and I found out the hard way that the fade areas, where the riser fades into the limb, is the most stressed area of the bow. By sandwiching the riser between the lams you add lots of strength to this highly stressed area. Be sure your fades taper out to a fine, feathered edge.

[Apex Predator]

Any cosmetic flaws in the end of your fades will be visible.  That's the only drawback I can think of.

[Brad_Gentry]

Thanks for the responses, guys. I'll have to give it some thought. Maybe the easy answer would be to make one of each, and compare (can't have too many bows around!).

[jsweka]

I just a novice bowyer, but I don't know that it really matters.  I was talking with Steve Turay of Northern Mist Longbows this past summer at Denton Hill and noticed some of his bows had the wood lams coming up on top of the riser fadeouts and some just had the glass on top of the fadeouts.  I asked him about this and all he said was that he builds them both ways - didn't indicate if one was better/worse than the other, just that with clear glass he has the lams on top of the fadeouts so you don't see them.  Also, I remember reading in Jack Harison's book that he moved to just having the belly glass on top of the fadeouts rather than a lam and glass.

Me personally, for bows with colored glass I like the looks of only the glass over the fadeouts, but for clear glass I like having one of the lams over the fadeouts so you don't see them.