Would this design work?

[handirifle]

#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]

#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]

#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]

#39670

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

[handirifle]

#40611

Thanks

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