Maple backed cherry.

[Chris Grimbowyer]

Hey guys, I recently made a simple perry reflexed maple backed cherry to basically for practicing the whole operation of cutting and gluing the lams and everything, this was my first laminate and more so a "test run" with no high expectations.My Unibond has not arrived yet so I tested this one with Titebond 3. I glued a 3/32" piece of maple to a 1/4 piece of cherry overnight. I cleaned the glue up sides of the lams with acetone after roughing them up a bit with 60 grit, then covered everything in titebond, followed by clamping it into a 2' reflex on a basic selfbow straightening form. ( will be making a more open form for spring clamps for future lams ) This morning I took it out of the form and it appeared to have no major gaps. After doing a few hours worth of rasping/drawknifing/handplaning/ and sanding on the bow stave, I went to bend it, and it practically exploded just below the fade. upon inspection it seemed as though this spot received less glue than may have been needed, however I am not positive on what the exact cause of breakage may have been. Has anyone has good results with maple backed cherry before?

[LittleBen]

Picture?

[Bowjunkie]

That's why I prefer prepping with the toothing plane, or 50 grit on the thickness sander... and then an epoxy with gap filling properties... clamp it all ya want and never worry about it again.

Some of my backed cherry bows were successes, my early attempts were not. I have one here now that I pulled into a gentle reflex as you describe. I backed it with very thin hickory.It's feather light, maintains a little reflex, and shoots so nice.

[alteredbeast]

usually tb3 is the best for lams of wood but they should have been sanded smooth as tb has no gap filling properties