Quote from: Kirkll on April 08, 2024, 07:56:41 PM
i'm an elliptical kinda guy myself... with a few flat spots thrown in just for sport.
How did you go about improving your bow designs? Did you pick a form shape, then play with lam details (FG thickness, taper, etc.) and back profile or stick to a basic set of lam details and try different forms to see what happened?
You have most likely heard the old expression. "It's all been done before" or "There is no sense reinventing the wheel" As far as bows and limb designs go, both of these statements are probably true.... What i did was study a bunch of different limb designs that have been developed over the years, and picked something i liked the looks of . One of my favorite limb designs was the Sovern Balistic for example.... Then i got a hand full of finish nails, a piece of 1.5" wide fiberglass, or a formica strip, and a piece of 1/4'' plywood on my bench. i call this "Carpenter Cad" .... Once ya get a good looking shape, mark it on the plywood, cut it out, and use it as a pattern...
When building the form i always use a 3' LVL now, or 6' for a one piece. And keep it full thickness even if i plan on using 1.5" glass. Running those LVL through a thickness planer causes them to warp every time for some reason.
The extra length in the form allows you to shift your stops on way or another. i typically use 30" stock in my TD form and 68" - 70" on the one piece..... Then it's always been trial and error shifting the wedges and tinkering with taper rates to get what you are looking for. Not necessarily errors..... Just some come out better than others with different characteristics. different limb designs bend in different locations, and store energy differently. then there is the pre load you put into the limbs which is a combination of limb pad angles, string lengths, and working limb lengths and location which all can be manipulated...
Quite often a computer generated scientific approach to what shape stores the most energy and should generate the highest performance is quite different than reality, and you end up fighting stability issues. Then there are all the different materials that are used to mitigate design parameters....... it's one great big giant rabbit hole is what it is. As long as ya enjoy hunting rabbits, it can be very entertaining.