got wood.

[TroutGuide]

I have access to both black cherry and eastern red cedar boards and was wondering what lamination combinations would work.  I could find something else to add if mandatory or I might go with glass if that would work better.  This would be my first lam bow.  I hope to use what I have to try this and then invest in better wood/glass later.Any sugestions appreciated.

[KellyG]

That would be a good looking bow. I know cherry and ceder have made bows. Dont know how they complament each other as far as back and belly.
Hope some one hops in and helpd you out.
Kelly

[don s]

black cherry is a good compression wood. don't know about cedar.
                 don

[TroutGuide]

So cherry would make a good belly or core? Someone let me know if cedar will make a backing?  Or maby cherry belly, cedar core, cherry backing and then glass?

[Pat B]

Cedar is better in compression also. I would suggest either a wood backing like hickory, hard maple or elm or rawhide, silk or linen. Both woods will make a good backed bow with either wood or cloth or rawhide backing.

[TroutGuide]

So to make a simple tri lam longbow I could use any combination of the cherry and cdedar and then back with a silk or linen cloth.  I am realy just practicing with this but would like a bow that is shootable at least and something to tinker with untill I get ready to do some serious building.  If I decided to try glass would it realy matter which wood I used, or better yet would one of them make a better glass bow. Thanks for all the replys so far.

[camoman]

I think I would make a recurve out of it using the Black Cherry and maybe Curly Maple.

[Pat B]

Camoman, curley maple isn't a good option for a wood bow because the "curley" in the maple usually has drastic runoffs. Under glass is a different story.
  Troutguide, I would suggest that you back either the ERC or cherry with silk or linen and make a selfbow to learn tillering before you try a multi-lam longbow. When you have learned tillering find the appropriate wood for the belly and back. Either the ERC or Cherry will make a good core lam. Hickory, elm or hard maple will make good backings. Osage, yew, mulberry or ipe will make good belly woods.

[TroutGuide]

Pat B I started a hickory self bow and it was a pain to work with.  If I wanted to build an airplane it might have worked but i put it in the corner about half way through and didnt figure  on finishing it.  Seems that a lam bow would be more stable and easier to tiller.  My plan was to build some lam bows with the wood I can easily get and then try some self bows and nicer lam bows out of osage or hickory later when i have more confidence in what is hapening with the wood. May be that I am wrong but it seems that making self bows first is learning the hard way and then doing it the easy way later. Or may be my first blank was just pore choice of tree.

[TroutGuide]

I did make a nice self bow for my son out of a scrap of the hickory trunk.  It was only about 35 inches long and 8-10 lb draw.  Tiller wasnt bad but I doubt it would be hard to tiller such a bow.

[Aram]

Originally posted by TroutGuide:
...seems that making self bows first is learning the hard way ...

It does seem so, doesn't it?      
Does the wood come laminated and tapered already? If not, I'd follow Pat's advice. Make either the cherry or the cedar into backed board bows first. Practice tiller on these.
People do laminated bows because some woods are really strong in compression (belly woods) while others are strong in tension (for backing.) Light weight brittle woods (like cedar) are also good as middle lamination as they keep the moving mass low (more energy is imparted to the arrow instead of moving heavy limbs.) Cherry and cedar are both belly wood = no advantage in laminating them as they will need backing anyway. You could use glass for backing but I don't know if either of these woods are strong enough to take that, I never tried it, and silk backing is so much easier to apply.
If you are building a glass bow, it doesn't matter which wood you use. The glass backing and belly do all the work, the wood is mainly for show. But with a glass bow, all the laminations (glass and wood) need to be pre-tapered very precisely before you glue up as there is almost nothing you can do about tiller after the glue is dry.