anyone ever leave out the glass? (a bit of colsure for now!)

[Russell S.]

so i am thinking about building with locally available stuff (no fiberglass lams), i was curious if anyone ever build laminated bows with out a fiberglass outer "shell"  perhaps add a cloth glass backing once it was all done or add a boo backing.  wondering if anyone had tried.  I am going to give it a go once my next form is done, more as a test run the a fished quality bow.  I just got done re sawing some maple lams from a decently strait maple board.  I am going to grind them today, maybe try to taper them w/o a guide lam by shimming and grinding a sled, then remove the shims and there you have it tapered sled.,  what do you guys with expriance think.
If i can find strait grained maple, its only 6$ a board.  if i dont screw any up i can get all the lams from one board.  glass tape is cheep as well.  50 cents a foot by the foot.  alot less by the roll. i think i can get walnut at a decent price as well.  I have to go out to the local saw mill and talk to them.  anyways if i can get a hookup at the will i should be able to get  maple, walnut, fir, alder, and possibly apple and cherry.
has anyone bought a box of vertical lam boo flooring i see it on the big action sight for about 50$ a box.  wondering if i could get some one to part with a single board that i can play with.

[AkDan]

Look up Java Man bows...I'm not sure what Greg still has for a web page but I do know at one time was building some all wood non glas bows, and some sweet looking ones mind you!

[Apex Predator]

Man, you got it bad Russ!  Fun ain't it?

Bamboo is common for backing.  You are opening a tillering "can-o-worms" though.  All wood bows must be tillered just so, or they will break.  If they are tillered close to good, they will have good amounts of string follow.  

Fiberglass tape will work, but is more trouble than it's worth.  If you put glass on the back, you really need glass on the belly.  If not, you need to make sure you have a wood on the belly that can withstand lots of compression.

Good luck and keep us posted buddy!

[Jeremy]

A few years ago (maybe now too, don't know for sure) someone was selling "Super Staves".  Just a bamboo backed bow with 4-5 lams of wood.  The belly lam was a bit beefier than the typical glass bow, probably around 1/8" of osage, bloodwood or ipe I think.  They just needed minor tiller adjustments, sanding and finishing.

[Russell S.]

Jeremy, thats no fun!!

akdan i looked him up he is now using fiberglass


Marty, ipe is locally available, i don't know it i can resaw it, it is not easiest thing i have found to work!!! I am going to give it a test run with my 5$ maple stack.  I am pretty good with glass after making all the fish molds and lures..  the other option i thought of is to make a glass press 36" X 3" and setting up the lams on that with something like west marine epoxy lam resin, i can make carbon glass composites that way.  i had/(have some where) one on a vacumm box that makes 6*12 pieces of glass that i made for making reinforcing strips for model airplanes, you could lay your bulk heads in there put the resin and cloth on squeeze it with the vacuum pump it worked really well made uniform lamentations w/o bubbles or thick spots .  If i had it my way i would go in the woods and find the tree!!!  I like home built from the tools to the finished product.

perhaps i could make a wood/fiberglass lam the same way i need to find the vacuum pump and build a bigger vacuum box but that is no biggy.  i could use those lams as the outer  lams for the bow.  it also opens up a big area for coloring, i have all the resin die still from making fishing lures.

shooting my first bow makes me what to finish my second bow more! next season i am going traditional only.  fits with the area where there are not long shoots,  maybe i can work something up for the Elk hunt me and the boys at work are setting up!

maybe i will just keep using bowglass!!!  and try some layups for riser strips.

[Dano]

Jeremy, I think it was called Dabob bows, something like that, I have one hanging on my wall that a fiend gave me to finish, cool looking bow any how, kind of a dawg tho.

[AkDan]

Russell..he is...but I'd give him a call/email!   Those bows are the same just with glass now.  I dont think you'd regret the conversation!

[mater]

I made one once with glass cloth just under the outside lams of wood. It looks like all wood laminated bow. It came out way under the weight I was shooting for, so it dont get used. But some day Ill try it again. with that as a pattern I should get closer to my draw weight next time.
   Mark

[Ken Allen]

I make all wood longbows. I use 4 lams of osage and raw bamboo back. I haven't tried any other wood  then osage.

[Jeremy]

Dabob!  That's it Dano!

[Dano]

The Dabob had 6 lams, the last two being about a 1/16" didn't allow much wood for tiller. Looked nice tho   :D

[Russell S.]

I wonder if that is right here..  dabob bay, and the town of dabob is about 1/2 hr from me by road.  10 mins if your a crow! i couldnt get the website to load.

[Dano]

I don't remember where they were located Russell, I don't think they are still doing business. I had a link to their site, it doesn't work now.

[AkDan]

Try calling Suzanne St Charles....she will likely know them and a good contact for him.  I remember that site also.

[Jason Scott]

Not sure if anyone has had luck with West Marine Epoxy for lam bows. I think it has a high failure rate. Don't know.

[gables]

I have been working on building all wood laminated bows. I recently built an ipe and osage, using osage in the center and ipe for the back and belly. It broke pretty quick. I think bamboo or hickory backing are the keys. The Dryad guys build all wood bows. Check them out. Mike Westvang wrote an article in Bowyer Bible 4 about building an all wood and bamboo laminated bow.

[Russell S.]

i was just going to use the west epoxy for for making the cloth/resin lam.  i think smooth on is too thick for saturating.  and Hawaii glass is not available here.  i was considering 206 (slow set) resin,  it takes 9-12 hrs to solidify and 1-4 days to completely set up at room temp. that would give alot of time for degasing and saturating.  i am going to work with what i have and get a few bows done before i play with it.  i think i am going to just TB-iii some maple parallels i ground to a garbage riser to see how the new form looks.

[Russell S.]

so i just glued up a all wood on my new form.  i had some extra lams i had been playing with grinding and a riser then ended up only being 1 3/8" wide, i wanted to see the shape of the form and make sure i would like it.  mind you this bow only has to make it to brace.  i do not intend on shooting it,  then again i may play with  it.  

so here is the stack.  it is close to what i plan to use with glass w/o the thickness of the glass.

0.150 .002 tapper maple

0.080  .002 tapper maple

17" riser

0.020 maple parellel

0.030 oak parellel

i used TBIII  because again i don't plan on this making to to a finished product.  

i do have some questions.

it ended up wrapped pretty tight in plastic i covered the form with (rubber band form) i have no idea how long it will take the TB to dry wraped up like that...  any thoughts?

for good measure i am currently baking it for a few hours,  just to try to help drive out moisture i will open  the oven a lot to try to help dehydrate the glue and wood.  any thoughts on baking TB III??

and if i do like this bow...  mind you, it will be just pushing 25# i think....  with that stack should i put a silk/linen backing (maybe belly) on it, round the corners and try to shoot it??  or do you guys think it will just blow up the first time i draw it?

[Apex Predator]

Try cutting away as much of the plastic wrap as you can.  I know that TB will release at around 150-160 degrees after already cured.  Don't know what it will do during drying, fusion maybe?     Wear a helmet and safety glasses first time you draw it!  Take photos!

[Russell S.]

time for some pictures on the all wood experiment..

frist here is the auto cad of the shape, i thought i would end up with a high R/D long bow....
 

so here i have printed the pattern and layed out on my routing pattern.
 

cutting the pattern
 

didn't take any pics of the form set up, same as always.

here is the profile as it came off the form.  
 

because it was all wood and my daughter was in the garage while i worked, i trapped by hand here are my wepons....
 

here it is strung with a tillering string.
 

i cut the nocks at 70" for safety, again there is no backing....

I could tell it was going to be light.  so the trap is 1.40 at the fades to 0.75 at the tips.

i understand more trap will make it less like a recurve, however i like the profile it will be loud, but i was looking for a good recurve form!

i exercised it a lot, drawing it a bit more every time.  i have drawn it to about 31"  it is SMOOOTH!!!  but 70" and such a light draw help i am sure,  i bet it comes in at about 20#  still fun to play around with the idea.  especially since it has 7.50 in materials and a some scraps of oak...

TBIII  did just fine in the oven.  at about 2 hrs i cut as much plastic as i could, at 4 hrs i took the bands off about 10" at a time and pulled out the plastic.  at 6hrs i took it out let cool.  then it set for almost a day before trapping.