lam riser/handle for board bow

[walkabout]

starting to work on a board bow my cousin sarah wants built, and thought about doing something new. does anyone know if a handle/riser made of diferent pieces/ kinds of wood will work or will it seperate? im using TBIII not epoxy, wanted to give the handle a little stripe and see how it turned out.

[Pat B]

Richard, I use multi lam risers when I suspect the bow will bend in the handle. This type of riser will "give" a bit and can prevent the handle riser from popping off. TBIII will work fine for this job.

[gudspelr]

I'm way too new to probably have much good to say, but I was thinking about this on the board bow I've got started.  I have a nice piece that was used for shipping some lams from my other bow and thought it would look really nice sandwiched between the main board and the other block glued on.  I'm using 4est's plans and everything's glued on with TBIII, including those 'recurve' tip overlays.  I don't see why you wouldn't be able to stick a nice accent piece of wood in there, but again-I'm pretty new   .

Good luck and please post the outcome if you give it a try.

Jeremy

[walkabout]

thanks for the replies, im going to try it and see how it works. should be sturdy enough, same basic dimensions as any other handle and none of those really give/ bend at all so i think itll be ok. got the pieces gluing up now to set on the roughed out bow tomorow then im gonna work on it in the free time between work and sleep this week.

[gudspelr]

Good luck-can't wait to see it.  What kind of woods are you using?


Jeremy

[walkabout]

im using a 3/4 inch red oak for the front most strip then a 1/4 inch bright poplar strip then a 1/4 inch red oak strip. bow limbs are red oak. the poplar wasnt my first choice but its what my local lowes has and i dont have anywhere close that sells better woods. i built my son a bow the other day and its got a poplar handle and i was impressed how it turned out so i fiogured id use some to put a little brightness into this one. if i had the means id use some sumac, i love how white that stuff is. ill post some pics of the finished piece as soon as i can.

[Bob Barnes]

just be careful when you feather the ends into the other wood that you don't cause a dip...and some woods will splinter rather than bend when thinned to a sharp edge and allowed to bend... both are mistakes I have made.    


Bob

   

[walkabout]

yea im super careful with fades, had some trouble with them for awhile, but after buying a new blade for the bandsaw and lots of practice with the belt sander i can get em pretty good. ill watch for this though.ive got a piece of exotic wood(azobe) supposed to be one of the densest woods you can possibly get, wanna use it for tip overlays or something eventually but that stuff destrays saw blades quick.lol

[fish n chicks]

Do you mean like the yellowheart seen here in this riser?

 


I used TBIII for that and it worked awesome. I bought some purpleheart to try with some cherry I found at our local Woodraft. Walkabout, if you're having trouble finding different species of thin wood like this, i'd say try hobby shops. The strips usually come in 1/8" to 1/2" by 3" wide to 36" or even 48" long. just stick the strip in there during glue-up. Alignment can be a pain in the butt, but eventually i'm going to incorporate an aligning pin that'll help keep things straight.

The only suggestion I can make is stay away from very dense woods like wenge in areas where the limbs bend. A softer wood like the hearts take to gluing a lot better than the dense woods. But in the riser you shouldn't have any issues. Heck just look at all the layers Gerace put in my tradbow.

Good luck and have fun with it!

[walkabout]

yep its like that strip of yellowheart. for glue up i actually did it in two stages, i glued the back two pieces first then glued them onto the very front piece, saved some trouble with aligning them while i was clamping. i want to build a jig of sorts for glue ups like this one but im going to have to get some bigger clamps first to accomadate the extra thickness of wood. our local hobby shop doesnt have any wood aside from balsa and basswood,eventually im just going to find one wood i like alot and buy a lam strip from one of our sponsors to use for thesse pieces.

[Loren Holland]

I just finished a Bamboo backed Ipe, with osage/purple heart riser and tips.  I really like the look of the osage with a purple accent stripe.
I always match tips and riser.  I've also done a stack of maple and ipe strips, that looked pretty good.
I followed a Sam Harper build along once and put a Padauk accent stripe in a Zebra riser. That looked pretty sharp.
My next bow is for a Texas A&M buddy, so his will be maple and Padauk riser forthe white and maroon.
I have never had a riser delam with TBIII, but you need to either put a power lam up front that extends past the fades, or fade your thickness from riser into the board, or use a belly lam that extends up the riser some.

[walkabout]

the bow im using this handle/riser on is a board bow, its design is based on sam's board bow plans but i changed the taper and length to my liking. ive gotten really good with them since right now the red oak is all i have to work with but the addition of diferent woods to the handles is something i havent done yet. im contemplating on doing some glue on recurve tips too or maybe a glued reflex or heat bent but just need to get up the stones to try it.lol. basically im trying one new thing at a time till im sure i got it right then evolving my designs.

[4est trekker]

Here's a link to a bow I built for my wife.  It's a maple board bow with a wenge accent in the riser.  Also, I used wenge in the splined reflex in the tips.

 http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=125;t=002740

[walkabout]

thanks, i saw another of your bows with the spliced reflex tips and thought about trying it on something in the future, ive read that red oak can be a pain to heat bend so either glue on reflex like your pyramid buildalong or the spliced reflex tips may be better. ive gotten the riser glued on the bow and got the fades cut and rough asnded for now, im in floor tillering stage till probably tomorow sometime but ill post some pics.

[walkabout]

sadly the bow i built this riser for blew while tillering today, at 3 inches from final draw length and roughly 5# over  :(  it was bending great and would have drawn to 28 fine at the weight it was, but wouldve been around 55# finished weight so i had to reduce and after i did i was excercising the limbs and bang! half the limb flew across the shop.lol. but you cant win them all. ill be starting fresh as soon as i get some more wood.