Building my 3rd bow...lots of questions

[Monkey Wrench]

Hey guys, I'm soon going to start building my 3rd bow, the other two were both red oak board bows with a silk backing that went fairly well.  They shoot pretty good, but I'm looking to progress my skills a bit.

Eventually I want a r/d ipe bow with a hickory backing, but for now, I'm going to go with a longbow style of these materials.  I need to get used to working with them before I jump in too far.  Right now I have purchased the ipe and hickory and plan on sawing it down this weekend.

My plan is to saw it down according to this page of the build-a-long.  Even though I'm not making an R/D, would the rough-out dimensions stay the same?  Here's the website...

 http://www.geocities.com/salampsio/ipe3.htm

The only difference I'm planning on is to make the bow 72" long, since I have a 31" draw length.

A few more random questions...

1) Looking for comments on rough-out size

2) Do I need to buy Smooth-on EA40 to adhere the backing for a longbow, or is tightbond II sufficient?

3) I'll be tillering with a scraper, which I have never done before.  Which scraper should I buy?  3rivers has a three pack for a decent price, but I don't know of the quality.

4) I'm looking at getting a bench belt/disc sander to help the process along, how big of a unit do I need to get?  It seems like the price ranges are either the $150 dollar ones, then jumper to $350 to step up in size/hp.

Thanks guys, I'm sure I'll have lots more.

[Pat B]

Ipe seems to work best with a narrow, thicker limb. You can easily make a 100# hickory or boo backed ipe with a 1" wide stave.  66" to 68"  should be fine for your 31" draw and a straight limb bow, Perry reflexed or R/D designs all work with this narrow limb design.  
   As for glue, TBII or TBIII will work fine. Urac is probably the best wood/wood glue but TB glues work fine.
   Any good thin steel will make a scraper. You don't have to spend anything but you can also get a 4 piece scraper set from mail order tool companies and local hardware/lumber co. Old saw blades or banding straps will work.
   Even though I don't use my belt sander for many bow building projects I now have a 6"x48" tabletop model from Grizzly that has a 10" disc sander I use to taper shafts. Check out grizzly.com for prices.     Pat

[Monkey Wrench]

I appreciate the help Pat, thanks for the advice.