Hard/soft wood in Footed limbs.

[Watsonjay]

Footed limbs. I did a search first and didn’t find anything. So you guys that make the footed limb veneers. I know the fiberglass does most of the work, but have you noticed much difference when you use harder or softer woods at the riser end or limp tip end. Seems like you would want a softer wood at tip for lightness??

[Crooked Stic]

If you grind veneers to .030 or less not gonna matter

[Watsonjay]

Okay. Thank you. I wasn’t sure. .060. Makes a big difference on short bows like I like to make.

[Jon Lipovac]

I can’t speak for everyone, but my veneers are as thin as possible as they are there just for looks. I typically grind them down below .025 and have gone as far as .018 on some species. Almost insignificant other than they add their size as part of the stack.
That allows me to make the core lambs as thick as possible, whether they be bamboo, hard maple, padauk, zebrawood, etc. With the cores, I am looking for springy, and stiff, straight grain samples that are going to be as consistent as possible.
Hope this helps

[kennym]

I’m with Jon and Mike

[Watsonjay]

Thanks everyone for replying.

[Crooked Stic]

Jon you use paduke for core??

[Jon Lipovac]

Mike. Only once. It seemed to perform OK. A little on the heavy side if I remember. I wanted a darker looking limb on that one.

[Crooked Stic]

If I remember guys used it as core on hotrod bows and it may not be durable over the long haul.

[Kirkll]

The paduke is much like Wenge in properties. Kinda brittle but very stiff. Some of the fastest glass bows I ever built was with Zebra and paduke cores. I always tried to keep the lam thickness less than .080 on that stuff. .060 was best.  Never used it on RC limbs though, just deeper core limbs.  .02 cents