Question about my Trilam recurve build

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Hey all I'm going to be building a tri-lam recurve bow and any suggestions will be openly accepted. I openly admit that by no means am I a professional bowyer. I can credit any and all of my skills  for bow making to this site and primitive Archer and youtube. One day I wondered if I could make a bow... started with a red oak selfbow... made a few of those(successful and unsuccessful) then saw a recurve buil-along by dutchwarbow at

   http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=125;t=001830;p=1    

and tried that. So now I'm probably on my 7th bow that hasn't broken. Unfortunately I'm a little more of a amateur craftsman than a hunter in general so I make more than I shoot (tillering excluded) and most my previous bows reside with friends and family who were more interested in a functional wall piece.

I recently got a hold of some Osage Orange and ripped it into some lams.
   

I will probably build it like the one in the image above but that one got a crack  on the back during the tillering process.

(side note: the crack happened right at the handle so I might cut the limbs off to make a takedown recurve. Any advice would be greatly appreciated on that topic as  well)

I currently have - 1/4", 3/16" and two 1/8" lams.

     

Also have a 1/8" cherry lam and a strip of hickory for the backing.

     

I was wondering if I should even bother with the cherry and double up the osage for the belly and the core? I also have some maple and ash laminates that I could use for the core as well. This is gonna be a slow build along cuz my day job keeps me extremely busy during the holiday season. I just wanted to do it this way so I can get input during the bow making process.

[takefive]

That's a great looking bow in your first picture.  The only thing that worries me about cutting a shelf in on all wood bows is making the shelf too deep and the possibility that it could break there.  O/w that's a finely crafted handle.
I've made two wood lam recurves with hickory backing, red elm core, and osage belly.  IMO cherry, maple, or ash would make fine cores and are a better choice than a denser wood like osage or hickory.  I put a 1 1/2" of deflex in the first one I made and half as much in the second and honestly, they both shoot the same to me.  They make for very smooth drawing bows.

 http://tradgang.com/noncgi/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=125;t=011873;p=1#000000

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Thnx Tim. Your bows are beast. I see ur point with the arrow shelf...do you just add a wrapped shelf? My handle height (not including the lams) give the deflex on mine which usually goes away after it sets.

For the taper you mention in that post above...are you referring to lam width or thickness? If thickness what do you use to taper?

[takefive]

I use either a leather tab or a glued on dowel for a shelf, but I've seen a lot of wooden bows that have shelfs cut in like yours.  It's just personal preference, I guess.  Plus, I worry that I'd cut the shelf too deep and the bow would break there.  I make an offset handle that brings the arrow pass a little closer to center, but the narrowest I go is 7/8" at that part of the handle.  If you like to cut in the shelf, by all means, do it.
I do thickness taper the lams, but lacking a lam grinder set up, it's not very precise.  Generally, if my core lam is 3/16" at the center, I'll taper it to roughly 1/16" at the tips.  I just guesstimate how much total thickness (backer+core+belly lam) I want to start with at the handle fades and at the tips.  Usually it's around 9/16" at the fades and 3/8" at the tips for my 40-45# bows.
So I just draw a line for the taper, rasp it down and finish flattening it on my belt sander.  One of these days I'll follow one of those how-to's and try to turn my belt sander into a lam grinder.  

[mikkekeswick]

An easy way to taper to put a spacer behind one end of your lams in such a way that it rides on your saw fence.
You can also get two pieces of box section aluminium have basically a hinge at one end and the other end free to accept a spacer then run this along your fence to cut a taper which you then have to sand flat.

[Roy from Pa]

Use the 1/4" Osage lam for the belly and the 3/16th lam for the core lam. Put cherry, maple, or Osage in the core. Leave the belly lams parallel and taper the core lams to 1/16th at the tips. Make the hickory backing 1/8th parallel, I hope it's 1/4 sawn hickory.. 1 1/4" wide at flares, tapered to 1/2 at tips. Put in about 3" of reflex from mid limb out to tips.

[bow loving man]

I love building glass bows but you guys with these trilams amaze me...I'll be watching this one along with Roy's one he has going...      

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Hey guys thanks again for the input.

Roy...are you suggesting 4 lams in total? From belly to back - Osage, osage, maple/cherry, hickory.... Or 3 lams - osage, osage/maple/cherry, hickory? I'm guessing you meant the latter. And using the 3/16 for A core in general. Just making sure. Correct me if I'm wrong.

But I also see your point w 4 lams, since the cores would be tapered. My previous bows were all parallel lams mainly cuz the tapering seemed beyond me to do without ruining lams

[Roy from Pa]

3 lams.. Osage belly for sure, then the core could be osage, cherry, or maple. Then your backing. I can taper your lams for you. Price will be zero charge. You just pay the shipping both ways.

[canopyboy]

Originally posted by Roy from Pa:
3 lams.. Osage belly for sure, then the core could be osage, cherry, or maple. Then your backing. I can taper your lams for you. Price will be zero charge. You just pay the shipping both ways.

That's a great offer, but they'll smell like coors light.

[Roy from Pa]

Canopygirl, remind me to smack ya twice whenever ya get here...  

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Sorry for not keeping up with the thread...like I said busiest time of year for me.

Wow Roy, thanks for the offer...I think I'm gonna take you up on that if it's still on the table. I don't care what they smell like when they get back. Let me know where they need to go and I will send them on their way. Thanks again

[Roy from Pa]

You have a private message, Ryan.

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hello all,

Well spring has sprung and work has slowed down, giving me some free time to get back in the shop. I was able to get in a few times in the winter, so I decided to start making a form for my bows. Not sure how well this will work and I know it can be done without one but i wanted to give it a try.

Started with some 3/4in plywood and cut them to size to give me 2 identical pieces.
 

Then I glued them together with a piece of lauan sandwiched between the 2 plywood pieces.
 

Once it dried, I drew the profile I wanted... and used a jigsaw to cut it out. Note: use a band saw if possible...jigsaw blade likes to flare inwards ruining the flat surface needed to clamp the lams to. In order to fix this, I drew a new profile line on the lower side...rasped down to the line and routered the slant out of it with a bit that had a ball bearing at the bottom. this gave a me a flat edge to make sure there is a flat surface to clamp to.

 
Next I made some marks and used a paddle bit to make clamp holes.

That's where i am so far. I plan on gluing and clamping belly up. I know i could use the other half of the form as a top... but like i said the jigsaw flares out and since i drew a new profile line on the first half, its not the same as the second...maybe someday, but for now, i have a bow to make. More to come soon.

I have a handle glued up and need to prep that for the glue up. Ive decided to use hickory backed, osage core(tapered thanks to Roy from PA), and osage belly.

The next bow will have an ash belly and that belly lam will be spliced under the handle. The piece of ash i have has about 30in of straight grain then flares out around a knot but i think I'm getting ahead of myself. who knows...I may find a great piece of something else in the meantime.

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Ok. So new development on the bow making front. A few weeks ago I was dry fitting my pieces onto the form and SNAP!!! My belly lam broke at the tip. Humph.

So now I have a nice piece of straight grained ash that worked well on another board. The problem is that its there is only about 3 n a half feet of straight grain. So I was thinking of changing up into an all wood hill style static recurve bow. The only thing is that most of the hill styles I've seen have had glass in it somehow. Am I working towards failure?

I ripped two 42" lams of ash and am planning on making something along these lines for the handle and the same curve from my pic at the top.

   

Let me know what u guys think.

Thanks

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Any thoughts?

[Bowjunkie]

Personally, I wouldn't use ash for the belly lam in that bow. I'd get another piece of osage and try it again. It needs to be perfectly straight grained and clear of imperfections. It also needs to be no thicker than necessary, as any extra thickness just makes it harder to bend into that radius without breaking. The last bow I made in that shape had an osage parallel belly lam .200" thick. It made a 58# @ 28" bow, 58" ntn. The middle lam was also .200" tapered, and the backing was bamboo.

Another option is, prior to your dry run, you could use a heat gun and heat the recurve area of the lam and clamp it to the form until it cools, and allow it a few days to rehydrate before your glue up. I've never found this necessary though, I just bring the osage to a thinner 'working thickness' before glue up.

I would lay up the bow by gluing all three lams together first, then adding the handle piece afterwards, not put the belly lam under the riser like in the pic you posted, as that requires an even thinner piece to accomplish that radius without breaking.

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Thanks bowjunkie. I was thinking the same...I have a large Osage board but I have to slab level jig it so then I can plane it...the last board I had...I got as much of the straight grain as I could out of it..so it's gonna be a bit more work to get the Osage I have. I know I can buy some Osage but there is just something about completing a bow from SCRATCH. If I could cut down an Osage tree and mill it lam it and glue it all up...I would...but I'm not out fitted for all that. I figured that since I had the ash I could use it...unfortunately I have some grain runoff at the ends so the usable part of the lams I have are only about 3 feet long and I have 2 of them...that's why I was thinking a hill style bow but I haven't seen or heard of too many of them that don't have glass in them...I didn't want to assume and have another broken bow and broken heart. Thanks again for the the input.