How much you can safely sand glass depends on the draw weight and limb design. It’s actually a lot more than you would think. A 50# bow will hold up fine with .030 glass belly and back. So if you are using .040 glass you could sand as much as .010 belly and back if you are accurately doing it.
I’ve taken as much as 12 pounds off limbs before and they lasted many years. I’ve got a bow I’ve used personally for almost 15 years that I put .022 clear glass over . 012 veneers , over carbon that is still going strong and I bet I have 30,000 arrows through that 57 bow….
Btw…. Don’t be afraid to narrow up a width profile. Even on a recurve design you would be surprised how narrow you can make these and still maintain stability if your design isn’t too radical. Your limb shape and limb thickness is what determines stability. Not width….On light weight glass limb bows, use a parallel lam, or even a reverse taper to keep the thickness at the base of the curl. Either that or use a bias weave carbon on the back to help hold it straight.
I regularly use 80 grit to tiller my bows and Lower draw weight to within a couple pounds of target wt. Then finish sand them…. I sand both belly and back evenly myself. I try and hit draw weight about 5 pounds over target weight on rough profile draw check.
Now heavy draw weight bows over 60-70 # I use thicker glass, but using .040 glass in the 60-70 # range I limit the sanding to minimal tillering adjustments.
Topic: Sanding glass weight reduction (Read 395 times)
