Ozbow

Evening All.

Just a couple of things about Working with Wood that some bowyers may find useful.

Wood Veneers
http://www.woodreview.com.au/news/the-t ... thin-of-it

Unplugged Workshop
http://www.woodreview.com.au/news/the-u ... d-woodshop

Good one Grahame, I never would have thought that veneer has two sides to it.


Cheers... Rod

As Rod says who would have thought! Thanks for posting Grahame.

I have a question regarding using decorative veneers in bows;

Is there a downside to it?

I have been contemplating the cost Vs the convenience. It turns out I can buy enough veneer to make the parallels for a recurve (2"wide form for 1 piece bow and take-down limbs) for about $6-8 for quarter cut Silver Ash or Vic Ash veneer to go under coloured glass or more fancy veneers to go under clear glass for $10-12 (e.g Jarrah, Walnut, Zebrano). Some of the more exotic veneers like Mac Ebony are quite a bit dearer. I bought a small amount from a local stockist and it seems to be very uniform in thickness (~ 0.6 mm or 0.024"). This fellow offers significant discounts for relatively small quantity buys as well http://www.topveneer.com.au .

The only milling I would have to do is make a pair of vertical bamboo tapers (I plan on using 0.002"/") with the right thickness to get close to the desired weight. In my mind the cost is acceptable and the convenience is even more desirable given I have so little spare time these days.

So, to re-iterate the question, is there a downside to using general purpose decorative veneers in composite bows? Thanks.

Cheers... Rod

I know Lazarides at Banyo in Brisvegas has sheets of some veneers, some quiet reasonably priced and which would be cost effective if demand was there for that particular wood lam.
Have seen Zebrano, myrtle, blackwood etc at varying prices and sizes. Given the price of say a 2'' x 2'' piece of exotic board cutting one's own veneers from it are not really economical considering the waste factor in sawing the timber etc.I will definitely be getting say a sheet of zebrano for example as I like its qualities as a veneer.

Thanks for the article Grahame; interesting.

rodlonq wrote:Is there a downside to it?

Only that it usually requires a couple of extra glue joins in the limb core which means loosing performance. The performance loss is small but it is still a loss.

Personally from an aesthetics point of view I have never seen the attraction of using veneers.

Jeff

I hear you Jeff. I suppose the best way to prove the outcome for this particular bow design is as always, try both methods and compare the speed with the same grn/# arrows. I note many high end custom recurves (and other types of bows) have fancy timbers under clear glass so it can't be all bad.

I am more concerned that the veneer slicing process ( http://www.hrzn.net/Grading/veneer_cutting_methods.htm ) might weaken the wood structurally compared to re-sawing and grinding veneers. Perhaps this is not an issue as the veneer is so thin that the epoxy bond on both sides (and impregnating the veneer under pressure) probably offsets any potential problems.

Cheers... Rod

rodlonq wrote:I hear you Jeff. I suppose the best way to prove the outcome for this particular bow design is as always, try both methods and compare the speed with the same grn/# arrows. I note many high end custom recurves (and other types of bows) have fancy timbers under clear glass so it can't be all bad.

Yeah mate try it and see. My findings re the speed and number of glue joins were from testing narrow limbed deep cored longbows. It may have less effect with recurve limbs I don't know. From memory going from three to five lams the loss was approx 3fps which isn't a lot but it is equal to around 3 pounds draw weight.

I think using pretty veneers is popular purely from an aesthetics point of view as most people like the looks of them.

Jeff