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Boo in glass bows?

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Lombard:
Kegan, if you don't already have have it, and plan to continue building glass bows, I can not recommend Mr. Harrison's book, "Traditional Bowyer, more unnecessary fun" enough.
In it he teaches how to make boo lams, and much much more. Tons of good information, truly the textbook on FRP bows, and I think on sale at 3Rivers now.

Kegan:
Hmmm... I'll definately have to look into it. Haven't found that much on building them besides a couple sites and a little practice. Thanks Lombard :)

Kent D.:

--- Quote from: Kegan on November 24, 2010, 10:02:46 am ---Thanks Kent, and everyone. You all saved me a lot of time and head ahces :)

I'll stick with this maple then. So far the performance is exceptional in these hybrids. The local lumber dealer is a great guy to work with anyhow.

One question though Kent, how durable/rugged have you found cherry limbs to be?

--- End quote ---

Under glass, you do not have to worry about it.  Ive used curly and birds eye maple (with many violations)  under glass.  That bow is still as fast as the day I made it.  The guy who bought it has hunted with it for the last 8 years.  As for my experience with cherry.  I have a love hate thing with it.  Underglass, no problem.  Without glass, it drives me crazy.  Makes a fast sweet shooting bow, but for some reason, it is hard to get a bow out of it (mind you Im speaking of an organic bow).  I have had some all wood lam bows, made with cherry with perfect grain, with the tiller going excellent, and have them fail for no apparent reason.

One thing I want to make sure I am clear on, you are backing and bellying these bows with glass (glass sandwich) ?  If you are just backing them in glass, you need to have a good belly wood, but you can get away with a lam of any wood for looks under the glass..  If it is a glass sandwich, you dont have to worry at all.  The curly/birds eye bow I mentioned, stays strung all the time.  The guy does not like to restring the bow.

I actually started with glass bows and worked into organic bows.  Glass lam bows are easy to produce once you get the form build and an oven made.  I have not made one in years, since the market went bad, not many people buying bows.  And for some reason, everyone who was buying bows, wanted fast glass lam bows.  Go figure.

Pat B:
Kegan, another good book is "Traditional Bowyers of America, by Dan Bertalan. It has 31 chapters , each chapter is a different bowyer. Most are glass lam bows but a few are selfbow builders. Lots of info about how each builds his bows with results of each bow's tests.
  If you don't want to spend the $ I will lend you my copy!

Kegan:
Kent, don't worry, they're "sandwhiches" :). Pretty good as of yet, in terms of performance, just need a little more practice, and make them look pretty. If cherry is a good wood for light limbs, I might have to give it a try at some point instead of bamboo. Cherry is one wood growing around here that we can actually mill into boards ourselves. Here are a few pictures of the design I'm using right now. Only difference is this one has a solid oak riser and a tiny shelf because it's so heavy.

Pat, I might have to take you up on that one later. I have plans for the materials coming soon, and a couple other projects to tend to, but after that I might want to get more involved with it. Glassies are a nice break from selfbows, seems everytime I take a drawknife to an all wood bow it's like getting back to something comfortable and familiar and makes it alot more fun :).

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