Oak Lams

[Shredd]

Have any of you guys used oak lams in a glass bow?? How is the performance??  Will it stand up to the stresses??  I am thinking the grain is too open which could lead to inconsistency or failure...  But if the grain was on edge it might work...  I got a chit-load of rough-sawn oak boards... I put them on craigslist but now I am thinking that there might be a use for them...

[Wolftrail]

Dont build glass bows, but I'm sure others that do so will chime in.  I have used white oak for a center lam in wood bows between maple and it does increase performance in my opinion.

[C. Johnson]

Never tried oak, but I have used ash which has a very similar grain structure.  Worked just fine. I think you'll be ok.  I'd give it a try myself if I had that much oak laying around.

[Bow Bender]

Hey Shredd.  Did you ever get any lams made from the oak and if so have you glued up any of them?

[EwokArcher]

I used a big bunch of oak I had in a handle on a prototype bow actually polished up pretty good looking.

[KenH]

I dunno about lams, but the board bow folks swear by oak...

[Pat B]

The reason folks use red oak for wood bows is because it is cheap and readily available. Generally as soon as they can they switch to a better bow wood. Not saying that good bows can't be made with red oak, I've done it but there are better options.
 Red oak might make OK lams for a glass bow but like with all wood bows, there are better options.
Maybe you could trade the red oak for hard maple on Craigslist. Hard maple is a proven lam bow wood.

[EwokArcher]

Maple boards at a local hardware store are stupid cheap here in okc. Like 1x2x 8 foot long cost only 10$ even with my sloppy table saw work I can get a lot of lams from that.

[KenH]

Yeah... but Shedd and I live in SW Florida where there are no lumberyards, per se, and locals have trouble spelling m.a.p.l.e

[Shredd]

Update on the Oak...  I sold half of it about a week ago and made $250...  I will keep a couple of the nicer pieces for projects...  I doubt I will be using for bows, but you never know...