Wow I was surprised to see this old thread pop up, I haven’t been around for a couple years do to taking care of a family member , but Kenny pretty much mirrored my experience with different backing thickness on this design , I started out with the standard size as it gave me a good base line to experiment from the shorter bows are a little harder to tiller and hit your weight and there is a pretty fair learning curve from self bows to glass so the easier I made it the better good luck and post you results !