There goes my handle!

[stefalo]

So I am building my second bow.  The first was an red oak riser take down made with cross country skis as the limbs.  Works well but only pulls about 25lbs.

My second bow is a red oak board bow.  I have it at 2.3" at the fades and .45" at the tips.  Length is 66".  Was meant to be 68" but a centering error changed that.

I had the bow on a long string and tillered fairly evenly to 10".  Used the gizmo tool, pretty sweet.  I got to 14" and 46lbs and felt like I was heading in the right direction.  Did a bit more tillering and excersizing the limbs.  Finally pulled to 19" and pop, there goes my handle.  It popped of the bow.  It left the bow clean just seperated at the glue line.  No wood damage.  I was using a slow cure epoxy and it had been sitting for 6 days.  I have since added the handle back using Gorilla Wood glue.  Pretty close to TBIII I think.  I did not see 4est's build along about gluing handle and then cutting to thickness.  And after reading it sounds like handle release is common if you don't use his method.  Now to my question, if I weaken the outer 70% of the limbs and leave the fades and the other 30% limbs stiffer can I save this bow.  

Sorry for the long post.  I can see how this will quickly become an addiction.  I am not a hunter but shooting seems to be an awful lot of fun and creating something you can use as a tool to hunt or have fun is tough to beat.  thank you in advance and congrats on some of the amazing bows I have seen on here.  You all are craftsman.

Stefan

[fujimo]

if it were me( just cos i am biased towards them!!) i would keep the handle off, as it sounds there is no going back now- and make it a bow that bends thru the handle- it would help the oak a lot too, as the stress would be spread over a greater area.
remember now- that the handle is a lot narrower, so it doesn't need to be thinned much to get it bending a little bit, look at other pics and posts of bend thru the handle bows.
you dont want your handle area bending much at all- more of an elliptical tiller, not a pure circular type shape.
pm roy and ask the ol'fella nicely to show you how to do the computerised circle overlay thingie, it will help you heaps.
if you take too much off the handle- the bow will take a lot of set in the handle area- the area is narrower, reduced surface area, and excessive compression and tension stresses, in this area will induce lots of set! dunno how i know that!!???  

[Eric Krewson]

Your biggest mistake is using Gorrilla glue, it has no place in bow builing and will fail.

To keep your handle on you have to feather your handle into your limbs gradually. A couple of 1/8" strips glued on first before the bulk of your handle will make a big differenc on how well your handle holds.

Here is an example;

 

[LESKEN2011]

I had that happen on a hickory backed ipe bow I made. After listening to all the recommendations from the nice folks on this and other sites, I decided to go with the flow and make it a bend through the handle bow. I had never made or shot a bend through the handle bow before, but since then I have made several and really like them. Once I decided to make that style, I never touched the 10 or so inches in the handle area until final tillering was almost complete. If it is already bending some at the short draw you mentioned, you shouldn't have to mess with it much except maybe at the fades during final tiller. Here is a pick of that bow at full draw.      I built the handle up with superglue soaked leather and used a golf tee for a shelf.

[stefalo]

Ok so maybe bend through handle is the way to go. Eric as for the glue it is the Gorilla Wood glue not the Poly.  I assumed that since the poly is a gap filling glue it would be to brittle and porous.  The wood glue is a water resistant type that I hand on hand and was thinking was similar to TBIII, maybe not though.  

So I have the .25" or so piece from when I did my thickness cutdown.  I could make a slim handle piece from that and then build up the handle area with leather scrap.  Does this sound reasonable?

Thank you again for the advice.

Stefan

[sulphur]

your bow is bending into you handle.  it should stop bending right before and transition into the glued on handle area.  like this
 

[stefalo]

So if I decide to go bend through handle how might I go about it?  My current handle is 3/4" thick 9" long with 2" long fades.  If I take the center 4" of handle down to say 1/4" thick would that be appropriate for bend through?  
Thank you in advance.

Stefan

[LESKEN2011]

I wouldn't take any more off the handle section till the very end. Just pretend you are making a stiff-handled bow. You know it is already bending some in the handle area, so if you take off too much wood, you will get too much bend and stand a chance of it breaking in the handle. I would tiller the rest of the bow first and then work in toward the handle starting at the fades gradually till I got the over all bend I wanted. I usually take blue painter's tape and put around the fade areas to be sure I don't accidentally take any wood off in the handle area too early.