Glueing up Limbs

[Interseptor]

How hard is it to keep the lambs linded up after you put them in the form with an air hose?  Do you ever find yourselves having to do a little pushing to get them realigned?  And does any one use suran wrap on the form to keep the limbs from sticking?  They use the wrap in the Bingham's videos.  Any tips to make the process smoother would be of great help.

Thanks,
Doug

[Pat B]

If you tape your stack together with masking tape first it should help prevent slippage. Put a wrap every 6" or so along the bow. Saran wrapped works well to preveny glue mess. Cut a roll in half and get twice as much seran wrap for your money. Half width was plenty enough when I built(tried) a Bingham longbow.

[Mike Most]

do a search and look at some of the forms the guys have made, they put washers along the sides of the bottom of the form,

When mine started sliding around I started taping about every 2 inches, It worked for me on the 68" longbow form...  

[jess stuart]

For sure you want to tape the lams to the form.  Plastic wrap the form as well, don't want to glue it to the form.  I would also suggest you slowly inflate your hose in increments and check for any slippage often until you get it fully inflated. Seems everthing wants to slip and slide once you aplly the expoxy.

[Dick in Seattle]

Just one person's experience.  I've done two bows via air hose and went back to clamps.   Just plain don't like the hose.   However, that said, yes, do tape, but don't rely on the tape alone!  Install alignment pins or washers along both sides of the form.  These can be either aluminum fingers that fold up and down or washers with a hole bored close to one edge so they can swing up and down.   I use a pair just past the fades and another pair up toward the tips, plus a pair of longer or higher ones in the riser area, ten in all.   I also make it a practice to take my entire stack, wood and glass, and run it through the drum sander to make exactly the same width as the top of the form.  Little differences in the width of the pieces invites slippage.  These are "insurance steps", but they do pay off.

[Robertfishes]

this is a pic of my longbow form showing the washers Dick was speaking of, there is no saran wrap because this was a dry run , no glue, just dry lams to see how fades looked..  

[Robertfishes]

OK, same form with a glued up bow ready to go into the oven..I use car wax on the metal pressure strip and all form surfaces where smooth on may contact if the saran wrap get a tear in it..**looks like I was experimenting and used a very thin plastic drop cloth on this build*** I have been using strap tape to tape the lams down and to help hold the riser in place, When I air up I use a bike pump and go one or to pumps and check for lam shift, 2 pumps and check, 2 pumps and check,etc....until I hit aprox 50- 55psi then I use my compressor to inflate to 65psi.    

[Roy Steele]

Back before I started building selfbows. I built a couple lam bows. Never did this but once a guy told me he used PAM to stop sticking.

[T Folts]

Look at the pics above, there are washers on both side along the form to help keep the lams from sliding side to side, that's what I do. I also make sure the stack is pushed back against the ped at the but end of the limb, I add a little bit of pressure then check and add more then check and finally fill to desired pressure 60psi for me.

Terry