All wood laminate

[pdccr]

Has anyone made an all wood laminate? I am looking around but cant find much, its all glass lams. I am talking about more than 3 laminations as i know dave made a very nice bow recently from 3 without glass.

[otis.drum]

http://www.ozbow.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.p ... lam#p73573

[pdccr]

How many laminations is that otis?

[Glenn]

Toby I have made several all wood laminates, I am making a few now, they can shoot real well....Glenn....

[pdccr]

What types of wood are in them?

[otis.drum]

aussie hardwoods are good. anything you make a selfbow out of should work. you can use all one timber or different for the back and belly. in this one i used 3 belly lams of ironwood and 1 backing of stringybark. all lams about 4mm thick and a couple of extra for the handle.

i use a hard dense (high compression) timber for the belly and something lighter with more flex for the back. bamboo is the perfect backing but i havew never tried it as it takes some skill to prep it to size shape and taper before you glue it on. glenn could help you with that. i used stringybark and it worked fairly well.

[pdccr]

How did you glue it up? Clamps or in a form.

[looseplucker]

My takedown project was 4 laminates of 1.25mm spotted gum, backed and bellied with tapered bamboo. I used a combination of a form with inner tubing as a wrap and clamping

TBB 4 has a pretty good chapter on laminated wood bows.

If you use the search function here you'll find some nice laminated bows - one of the members, Archangel, did a nice buildalong on a thing he called the Cane Scorpion

[otis.drum]

if it's flat laid you can glue it however you can. i used clamps on that one. tyre strapping on others, packing wrap on others. if you want to glue it you'll find a way

[pdccr]

What type of clamps? Those little red ones or just normal G clamps. Making a riser template tomorrow.

[otis.drum]

i don't put a riser as such on the wood lams. just build it up with one or two extra lams. it doesn't have to be much thicker than the rest of the bow.

i found having a handle that bent slightly when drawn back was better. it allowed me to make them shorter and gave less failures.

G clamps are fine. not spring clamps

[pdccr]

Ok, say i was going to use spotted gum lams, does it depend on how many lams i have or the taper for the draw weight? I would like to make a #40 reflex deflex style longbow.

[Glenn]

I use spottedgum laminations and I do as Otis does for the handle, I glue extra laminations to the handle area to build it up for a handle, I find that the laminated handles will stay on better than a block of timber glued on for a handle.
I use G clamps and use a mild reflex-deflex form to make the all wood laminated bows...Glenn...

[pdccr]

What would you call a mild reflex deflex?

Would this form be about right?

joshbow117.jpg (33.22 KiB) Viewed 4944 times

[otis.drum]

personally i would do a flat laid one first. when you get that do a reflex one. i think the deflex in that form is too much. by the time the limbs take set they would sit a fair way back i think. i would maybe just use a couple of inches of reflex over the full length of the limb. but i'm no expert.

[pdccr]

Ok so just start with a flat form? Thats easy enough I have some titebond so i should be all set. What thickness lams should i cut? I have a few of those decking floorboards left so they are about 19mm thick if i can remember.

[otis.drum]

what kind of wood are they?

i would cut then to 3-4mm. thinner if you want but every cut will waste wood. you should be able to get 3 lams out of each board. remember that your backing piece (lam on back of bow) will need good even grain and good orientation. the others are not so critical.

[pdccr]

The wood is spotted gum, the grain is pretty good. Here are some pictures.

Image010.jpg (98.28 KiB) Viewed 4933 times

Image012.jpg (104.23 KiB) Viewed 4933 times

They are two different boards that i have. Hopefully to lam bows will come out of them

[otis.drum]

what are their dimensions. are they wide enough to get two lams out of the width?

check the grain for the back lam like in the diagram below.

lambow.doc

(31 KiB) Downloaded 105 times

[pdccr]

Not sure, from memory they are about 80mm-90mm. Would that be enough?

[otis.drum]

90 would. 80 is cutting it a bit fine. by the time you trim up the outside edges and put a 3mm saw blade down the middle your probably going to be left with 35mm wide lams, compared to 40mm wide lams from a 90mm board. i like 45-50mm wide lams to start with. this allows for a slightly wider limb which i like with wood bows and a bit of room for error if the lams move 1-2mm when glueing up.

just see how you go and decide when you are cutting them up.

i can't even get spotted gum up here.

[pdccr]

I couldnt, untill i found out that porters had a false order and instead of ordering all aussie hardwood (which is all that my bunnings stock) they ordered spotted gum. Some really nice straight grained pieces there so i grabbed a few. I might just try and get the one set of lams out of it. If that works out well then i might go for 2 in my second on.

[pdccr]

Would 3 x4 mm laminations be enough for a 40# bow? I will back it with silver qandong which will can be any width just to be safe. Some doesnt have amazing grain but its very bendy. I will have a whole heap of left over lengths of lams so i will probably glue on around 3 or 4 depending on what it looks like and how it feels. How long should i make the handle lams?

[Stickbow Hunter]

What would you call a mild reflex deflex?

If that form in the photo is the shape of the back of the bow, which I assume it is, then that is deflex/reflex and not reflex/deflex.

Jeff

[otis.drum]

if you use 3x4mm lams of spotty and a 4mm backing of qandong you should have enough.

handle can be any length yo want i suppose. depends what style of handle you want.

[pdccr]

I just want a traditional rounded handle with a small shelf cut into it. Not one of those fancy pistol grips, not a big fan of those. That should work out well, might even look like ive used yew

[pdccr]

What would you call a mild reflex deflex?

If that form in the photo is the shape of the back of the bow, which I assume it is, then that is deflex/reflex and not reflex/deflex.

Jeff

Whoops, my mistake.

[otis.drum]

i wouldn't be inclined to put a window/shelf on a wood lam. ihave had a couple split along the back from the shelf. just shoot off the hand or add a shelt from wood/bone or super glued leather.

[pdccr]

Ok, i have some leather that i can use.

[greybeard]

Hi Toby and Jeff,

Some American bow manufacturers may have caused confusion as to the correct terminology with regards to bow description.

Martin Archery [in their 2009 catalogue and on their web site] describe the Venom and Savannah longbows as reflexed/deflexed designs.

I checked some European sites and they described similar bows as being deflex/reflex.

Daryl.