Wood flooring for risers?

[Kopper1013]

Hey guys just started to build my first bow. My parents just put Brazilian teak floors throughout their house and had a box of pieces left over. Brazilian teak is super hard (3500 on janka scale) so I thought it would make a beautiful riser. Just wondering if anyone has used wood flooring of any kind for risers and if so how did they turn out? Any problems with doing this?

[macbow]

Should work well. Being that dense it is also heavy.
I would still consider glueing it up in a I Beam construction.

[LittleBen]

I believe Brazilian teak is also called cumaru. I have built a hickory backed bow out of it and it finished to a nice slightly orange brown tan color.

It's hard as a rock and just as heavy. Nearly invisible grain.

Somewhat brittle but more than strong enough for a riser.

If you've got a long enough board I'd recommend trying a backed bow.

The one I built was 65" long 50#@26" and just over an inch wide. It's pretty tough stuff.

[Kopper1013]

Great, this is probably a dumb question but since it's my first build I'll ask it. What is "I-beam construction" in reference to bow building?

[bornofmud]

I think he's referring to the direction that you glue the boards together.  It would be best to do it so that the flat grain, longer sides of the flooring are on the sides of the bow, with your glue lines running from back to belly.

[LittleBen]

here's an example. This is a kodiak with a purpleheart I-beam

 http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=14;t=005917

[JamesV]

Be sure that the flooring you have is NOT laminated