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    • handirifle
        October 8, 2010 at 4:17 am
        Post count: 409
        #5186

        I am not (yet) into making a true “self” bow, ie. follow the grain etc. I have made several hickory backed board bows, with suprising success IMHO anyway.

        What I was considering, was using thin strips, say 1/8″ or less, to build a laminated wood bow in a slight recurve design.

        My thought was to glue it up to about 3/4″ thickness and carve the bow from that.

        Has this been tried already? Would it work? If so, how well?

        Thanks for reading my hairbrained idea.

      • Stephen Graf
        Moderator
          October 8, 2010 at 9:39 am
          Post count: 2429
          #38339

          I made a reflex/deflex hickory bow in this way. I used 4 laminations of hickory, and a belly of bamboo. It required very little tillering and shot well.

          Unfortunately I got impatient with the weight and narrowed the limbs too much. The bow settled out at 39 lbs.

          I have shot it a lot and it has held up well, just not good enough for hunting…

          Hickory takes a while to settle out. So be patient with it and a laminated design should work just fine.

        • handirifle
            October 8, 2010 at 4:17 pm
            Post count: 409
            #38736

            Thanks. I have made a few glass laminated bows and the concept was the same, but wasn’t sure how a non-glass backed bow would do.

            Out of curiosity, how wide did your limbs end up being for the 39lb weight?

          • Stephen Graf
            Moderator
              October 9, 2010 at 9:54 am
              Post count: 2429
              #39670

              about 1/2 inch at the tip. About 1 1/8 at the fadeout.

            • handirifle
                October 10, 2010 at 4:18 am
                Post count: 409
                #40611

                Thanks

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