Bloodwood Limbs

[Erwincm]

Sorry for the dumb question guys but can fiberglass bow limb cores be made of dense hardwoods like bloodwood or would that significantly adversely affect the limbs performance?

Thanks,
Charles
Madison, AL

[Crooked Stic]

Way better to use the dense pretty woods as veneers and use elm or actionboo-actionwood as cores.

[JamesV]

One of my best shooting longbows has a single core of IPE. Use the bloodwood you won't be dissapointed.

James

[Erwincm]

I wonder if the denser woods may not fling an arrow as quickly as boo but may generate less hand vibration since it has a slower acceleration and deceleration due to greater mass. BTW, how is action boo better than regular bamboo? Sorry for the dumb question.

[7 Lakes]

I recently built a SF Carolina Night (String follow Hill Style) bow for a customer using all Osage laminations for the limbs.  The bow was 70" 55#@31".  I tried to talk him out of the heavy, long Osage limbs or at least let me put in a core of Bamboo Actionwood.  

It goes against everything I've learned from reading but this was a sweet shooting bow.

[LittleBen]

Shooting well or "sweet" and shooting fast for draw weight are totally different.

I say do whatever you like. So what if you lose a few FPS.

Plenty of deer have been killed with simnple bamboo backed or hickory backed ipe and osage ... any wood core glass bow will be capable of more performance if designed well.

[Erwincm]

Thanks guys, I'll give the bloodwood a try. It should make a beautiful bow to look at if nothing else :-)

[arrowlauncherdj]

That mess is heavy as heck, If it were me, I'd not do it, but that is just me.  I prefer hard maple to all other cores that I've tried including aboo and red elm.  I bought a block of bloodwood and one piece of it feels as heavy as two of the same size of curly maple.

Save it for the riser.

[Dale in Pa]

Another concern would be that bloodwood is so oily and dense that it doesn't glue real well.Big difference being in a bending limb as opposed to a nonbending riser.

[Trumpkin the Dwarf]

Blood wood has a tendency to split easily. I wouldn't be surprised to see it completely fail as a lamination. From my woodworking experience (not with bows) blood wood has very little structural integrity on its own.

[Erwincm]

Ok, I'm sufficiently concerned now not to take the risk. I'll just save it for the riser only. I'm glad I asked! Also, interesting comment about hard maple as a preferred core material. Again, what is the perceived advantage from others in reference to action boo as a superior material?

[Swissbow]

Some time ago Kenny built a couple of identical bows with different core wood and compared them.

 http://tradgang.com/noncgi/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=125;t=001491;p=1

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Andy