This is going to sound very negative. I know people who have never had a problem with ipe. Not me, I haven't touched the stuff in a couple of years now because I've had what it looks like in your picture. I hoped it was a pin knot that would disappear as I scraped a little more and finished tillering and yours may be. But mine was a chrysal/fret. Tried to just make a new bow and had the same problem in the same spot. Found that if you looked super careful you could see a slight fracture or damage to the grain in the board I was cutting my slats out of. Tried a different board from the same batch and the location of the fret changed, but again I could find wood grain damage in the board when I looked with a magnifying glass and scraper that lined up with the chrysal in the bow.
Doing some research, I found that sometimes it happens when they fall these big trees. You end up with a weak spot and you're toast. At least for bow building -- they still make good decking. You really can't see 'em until you start flexing the wood. I got a bad batch apparently. If it gets worse instead of better, then it's probably not a pin knot swirl and you're in the same boat I was in.
I successfully saved two of the bows by plugging that area and adding a belly lam. One was osage and another was bamboo. Both bows came out great. As far as I know they are still shooting. The other bow I tried fixing without a belly lam and that blew up.
Best of luck. Hope your case is different than mine.
Topic: BBI Bomb Waiting to Go Off? (Read 705 times)
