Question About building a hill style bow

[Ifrit617]

If you were going to make a straight limb hill style bow 68" n2n that pulled 40#@29" and could only use one lam for the core, what would your wood choice be? I have maple, black walnut, hickory, cherry, and ash to choose from. I am not building this bow, but am having it made for me.

Any input would be awesome.

Thanks.

Jon

[Todd Cook]

If only one lam I would probably use hickory, just because of the toughness of it.All of your choices make a good bow.

[red hill]

Jon, I'd go with hickory.  My first truly successful bow was a HBH and is still a shooter. Took a little set but that was my fault.

[Ifrit617]

OK sounds good. Just to clarify, this will be a glass bow, not a selfbow.

Jon

[MoeM]

I`d choose the lam with best edge grain....

[rmorris]

Any reason we are limited to just one core lamination?

[bowhntineverythingnh03743]

I just did a r/d with maple core and black glass. Great little shooter

[Ifrit617]

Originally posted by rmorris:
Any reason we are limited to just one core lamination?

I might possibly be able to have them build it with two, but it will be a low cost longbow, so a ton of laminations isn't an option. I am thinking maybe two lams of maple with a maple riser and brown glass. What do you think?

Jon

[rmorris]

I can't remember the stack of the 40# 68"hill bow I made last but I will head over to my shop sometime Thursday after work and take a look. For some reason I am thinking the total stack was around .385 with a .004/in total taper. With 2 - .05 glass your core wood needs to be over 1/4" thick! I try not to make any of my laminations thicker than .100 and so I would go no less than 3 lamination of wood. Ask your bow maker what the price difference in 1 and 3 lams is, you end product will be a better bow. Heck , possibly you could barter with him and cut his grass while he is cutting the extra lams... Also all the woods are good  wood but maple will never disappoint

[Ifrit617]

I'm kinda curious what the advantage of having more thin lamination's is? I build self bows, and they all shoot sweet and smooth, so why does having a single lamb of wood between glass act any different? Probably a stupid question, just curious. Thanks.

Jon

[rmorris]

Jon, Here is some great reading on the subject.

 http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=125;t=005333