Laminated bamboo board?

[Lil' Bow Pete]

I have a bamboo board. It is 1 3/4 by 3/4 by 72. the lams run perpendicular to the wide face. I would like to know if I could make a bamboo backed bamboo bow out of this, using raw bamboo as backing and this board as the belly. Would the laminated board be strong enough in compression? What kind of preformance could I expect? Is it worth the effort? Thank for any tips and advice you may have.

[Echatham]

seems like it would work to me, but the optimum use for it might be as a core lam.  if used as the belly i think it might be best to toast it, but thats just based on what i've read and not from any experience.

[Sam Harper]

Yes, you could.  I have made lots of bows like this.  I think they're great.  They are the quietest bows I've made.

The only problem with them is that they take a lot of set, so you have to glue in extra reflex. When I'm doing a reflex deflex of this style, I don't put in any deflex at all.  I put a clamp near the middle of the limb so it's parallel from the fade to about the middle. Then I put blocks of wood under the tips to create a recurve.   After tillering, some of that reflex will have come out, and there will be a little deflex.

One thing you can do to reduce the amount of set the bow takes while tillering is, after tapering the bamboo flooring board, band saw off a 1/8" strip from the back.  Then glue it all together with the 1/8" strip between the tapered section and the bamboo backing.  having that extra glue joint in there helps it to retain whatever curves you glue in there, and you'll have less set.

I've never shot one through a chronometer, but I haven't noticed any difference between the way they perform and the way my bamboo backed Osage and Ipe bows have performed.  Well, I take that back.  I think my BBI bows might be a little faster.

Good luck!

[Lil' Bow Pete]

Thanks. Some good info. Maybe I will be making a tri-lam.