Laminated Longbow Build Along

[Holm-Made]

Oh another thing.  A straight longbow can use all parallels.  The reflex in your design stiffens your tip ends of your limb considerably, therefore needs less material.  .002 taper really isn't a lot of taper probally average for a hybrid longbow like yours.  Good luck with your project.  Chad

[ChuckC]

Cupcake.  .002 is good.  I have used .003 as well and gotten decent results.  I agree, with that form design, go for the tapered laminations.

Keep it up, looking good.

I have a question for you, and others. I normally use "the hose".   When using the "clamp" technique...  how many clamps are required ?  I get really jumpy with spacing like yours appears to have.... and maybe for no good reason other than my inexperience.  How much space between clamps is OK ?
ChuckC

[Cupcake]

I took the advice of all here and made some new core lams with a .002" fade.  I had bought two .001" tapers from Bingham Projects and put them together under the ones I ground and got just what I needed the first time.  My bow is in the oven as I type and will be ready for cool-down in two hours.

I had trouble with the fades and had to make a new riser.  Here is a bad fade.

 

I had made changes to my form: adding feet and small tabs to hold everything aligned on the form.  I also cut about three inches from the bottom so it fit in the oven better.  This also made the form much lighter; and, I got a nice flat sled on which to grind laminations.  I now think the MDF is not a bad way to go for a form.  Cutting the clamp holes was the worst part.

 

Here are the tapers and the angled butt joint, followed by the glue-up.

 
 

Next I worked on a new riser section to correct my fade problem.
 

I did the last bit of sanding on the fades with 60 grit and a wood block.  The belt or spindle sander is too aggressive for some things.
 

I got the fade right this time.
 

 

[Cupcake]

The previous post was all done over the last few days.  Last night I did a dry run on everything and went to bed dreaming of things to come...

 

This morning I got everything laid out and ready for the glue-up.

 

I mixed up four onces of Smooth-On and it was just exactly the right amount for three lams and glass. (thanks KennyM)  It took me about an hour and a quarter to get everything buttered and in the form.  I used some six inch wide stretch wrap to cover the form and then the bow before clamping.  This stuff seems like the perfect width for this operation.

Sorry that there are no pictures of the glue-up.  My wife is out of town and my four teenage boys don't get up early when there is no school.

I clamped everything and checked it over, and over, and over, and over.  Letting the bow sit in the form with clamps while the epoxy squeezes out a bit allowed me to go back and snug them several times before it went in the oven.

 

For ChuckC, the clamps in my form are about 3.75" apart.  With a layer of rubber and an eighth inch aluminum strip on top of everything the clamping pressure seems pretty even.

It took about an hour for the oven to get up to temperature.

 

After a while the temperature climbed to 180F; I am regulating it by cracking the lid a little bit and it has held 164 for the last several hours.  Next time I will try using a 100 watt bulb in place of one of the 150s.  Stay tuned for more, maybe tonight.
Kevin

[elk ninja]

Looking great!  Your riser especially looks good.  It's tough to get that right, but I think you did.
Mike

[kennym]

Good lookin fades! Are ya gonna add a bit of handle to the belly? 2 pieces of glass thru the handle has gotta be good!

[Cupcake]

Well, it is out of the oven, I ground the squeezed out epoxy off and it looks SWEEEET.  It is really satisfying to see the first one off of the form.

Kenny, I will add more to the belly for a handle once I figure out what I want it to look like.  I will try and get some photos up tomorrow after shooting.

Bear State Archers has a new range out at Lake Henshaw and it is sweet.  Turkeys running around, up and down the oak wooded mountainside; what a great way to spend Sunday morning.

[DEATHMASTER]

Very nice looking build along.
Great pictures for us novice to follow the work.
MAYBE someday.....
DEATHMASTER

[kennym]

Kevin,heres one I made that way,you can put whatever handle shape you like on em.

 

[DesertDude]

Kev,  looks great...I can't wait to see it the morning..........Mark

[Dan Bonner]

Man its looking good! I read the posts on here from some of the other bowyers about the use of tapers vs paralells and I have a few thoughts. I too have built a lot of hybrids with tapers but my fastest and best shooting ones have been with all paralell lams. I have found that for a LB to perform well there is an optimal spot in the limb where the bending needs to occur. A bow that bends more at the fades stores more energy and one that bends more towards the tip stores less but is more efficient at unloading more energy into the arrow. So in general paralell bows store more energy but may waste more on noise and vibration. A couple of things I have found that work well from talking  with guys that know a lot more about this stuff than me are using tapers with a tip wedge to maintain stiff tips and ballance the bend between the fades but keep the tips from rolling over into a hill style braced profile. The other option that has worked well is to use all paralell lams and a width profile that tapers from the fades to a very narrow tip. The thought here is that your glass is the heaviest component in the limb. A deeper stack of wood with narrower strips of glass is lighter than the opposite and maybe faster and quieter.  Try your next one with all paralells and use a faster width taper and compare it to the first one and see how they shoot and perform and let us know. You'll be surprised at how different your braced profiles may be from two bows from the same form. To me the fun part is experimenting to optimize performance and shootability of a given design. Bowyers, what are your thoughts?

[Kingwouldbe]

Kevin, Glade to see your on your way to building the ultimate Bow, LOL

[hera]

Wow

Bike catch my eye.  

[Swabby]

You came close to drilling the clamp holes. When you drilled the little holes to saw em, should of tried the hole saw again.  the little holes give the sawdust someplace to go besides in the teeth of the saw.  Try it, has worked on every material I have tried it on.  First time was in a attic trying to go thru a 2X6. Kept catching and got mad and used a paddle bit to hog a little wood out.  Was standing on the rafters and bout hit the floor, the hole saw went thru so easily.  Take care. Swabby

[Cupcake]

Swabby, good advice on the hole saw, I will try it.

Hera, the bike is way too much fun, goes fast.  Your bows catch my eye.  I hope to be as skilled as you one day.  I refer to your build alongs all of the time to get ideas.

[Cupcake]

Sorry for the delay, my bow came off of the form Saturday and I must say I am stoked.  It came out great.  Here are the photos of the blank.

 

 

I am also playing around with handle shapes before I commit myself.  The one in the photo is pretty good but I have a LOT more scrap wood to experiment with, and I plan to do so.

Sunday, after a beautiful morning of shooting with DesertDude, M60gunner and a couple others I tapered the limbs.

 

I used my bandsaw and the bet sander.  I now have a dull fiberglass only blade (the one that came with the Grizzly, and it was not very good).  The glass sure wears out a sanding belt too.  I bought some of the blue belts today to see how they last.

Next came the handle over-lays.  There is a slight compound curve to the back of the riser that made getting the right profile tricky.

 

I used the bandsaw (new blade), belt sander and then a scraper and block sanding to get it right.  I also cut strips to glue to the front of the riser.  The woods are maple and black walnut.

 

 

 

Then, I cut some pieces for the tip over-lays.  Maple, black phenolic and walnut.

 

I plan on gluing these with Smooth-On tomorrow evening and then baking in the hot box the next evening for about four hours.  I sanded the glass for the glue with 100 grit and it does not have as much "tooth" as the the raw glass from Bingham.  Should I use 60 grit? I don't think I have anything more coarse except 36 grit belts for my drum sander.

[TradBowyer]

Cupcake,
I wouldn't recommend putting the bow back in the oven. Smoothon will start to "weaken" when it gets close to the temperature that it was cured at and you run the risk of delaming your bow. I use Kwick-it superglue for my overlays. Got to work quick (about 10 seconds to set)but I prefer it to smooth for the time involved. If you are set on smoothon, just put a lamp or light bulb next to the tips to provide heat to cure the epoxy

[Rigs]

Cupcake,

You can always unscrew a few lightbulbs to keep the heat lower as well.  I do this when attatching the belly side of my riser and overlays...  same as what you're doing.  For my tips I use a CA type glue with an accelerator.

Happy hunting,
Jason

[beachbowhunter]

Kevin,
Where you at on this project?

Norb

[RGK]

Where have I seen this before?? LOL. Great job.