No one has mentioned foam cores yet, but the material is very consistent, especially along its entire length in a given bow, and it is light too. One might argue that it has not been tested long term like wood, but I am pretty sure it will last me well for as long as I will be shooting a bow, and probably my son too. Bob Morrison says he will personally never shoot a bow that is not foam core unless something new comes along that is better. Now that I have half a dozen foam core bows I can say that I am very pleased with the material, but I still have about 30 wood core bows, and most of them are great shooting bows too. I don't know anything about building bows except from what I have read, from what I have heard from the bowyers who do build them, and from shooting many bows with various materials and designs. From what I have read, heard and observed, I agree that design is much more important than materials, but there can be incremental advantages to the judicious use of the correct materials in a particular design. Just because a good material is used, that does not mean the resulting bow will be better than the bow would be without it. For instance, most bowyers have found it difficult to produce a recurve in poundages below about 60 pounds that has carbon backing on the limbs where that bow is as smooth and forgiving as one that does not have the carbon. That is because those limbs are too thin to be able to get the proper proportion of carbon fiber to core and glass material. As the poundage of the bow gets higher, the limbs get thicker, and then the carbon backing does not overpower the other materials. Because longbow limbs are thicker, but not as wide, as recurve limbs, carbon backing seems to work fine in most designs when the limbs are greater than about 40 pounds or so. Bob Morrison tells me he has experimented a lot with the carbon backing, and he does not recommend it on most of the recurve limbs he produces unless the draw weight gets higher than what the majority of his customers shoot. That is with his limb designs. I think that Black Swan has been successful in using carbon backing and ceramic bellies on recurves of even lighter poundages. David Knipes tells me that Black Swan uses more advanced materials (carbon is not carbon is not carbon) and new designs to achieve the desired results. So, design and materials definitely work together, and the bowyer must understand what materials work with his designs. We are fortunate to have so many good bowyers making great bows that we can shoot.
One comment on the observation that bamboo makes good fly rods. I remember many years ago when the premium rod that Orvis sold was made of bamboo, but anyone who is not at least middle aged can remember that time. Orvis and every other major fly rod manufacturer long ago turned to carbon fiber and other high tech composite materials to make fly rods (and other rods) that are the best performers. Bamboo rods are still some of the most beautiful, but they have mostly gone the way of the dinosaurs. We long ago discovered that various composites enhanced the performance and durability of "traditional" bows. Bamboo may outperform maple in the Dryad bows and may even be as fast as foam cores in the same bow, but with other designs I expect the foam cores to be even faster. There is nothing more beautiful than wooden bows, but we can also get that beauty when we combine advanced composite materials with wood in our bows, and many of today's bowyers do just that. Today's trad bows are the best ever made.
Happy New Year to all!
Allan
Topic: Materials verse design (Read 663 times)
