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Core Lamination???

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adb:
You're right... go with titebond 3. No hot box required. Wrap your glue up layers with bicycle inner tubes, leave it overnight to cure (at room temp), and you're good to go. DO NOT score the lams with TB3. The surfaces need to be smooth, clean of dust and oil, and perfectly matching. With TB3, the bonding occurs at the molecular level. I use a thickness sander with 80 or 100 grit to finish my lams for glue-up.
Use a former to wrap your lam layers, otherwise your thin backing layer may end up with waves. I sandwich the thin backing and core layers between a former and the belly wood for a nice even pressure. Apply a thin layer of glue to BOTH surfaces of all layers for a strong glue joint. The excess will be squeezed out with wrapping. Better a wee bit too much, than to starve the joint of glue. You can add a bit of reflex if you want after wrapping your glue-up, by blocking up the tips and clamping to a bench at the middle.

mikekeswick:
Aim for a thickness of 1 1/8th and width of 1 1/4 at the handle.
A core can be used to slightly increase performance. Maybe to start with you would be best using a straight hickory backed ipe blank.
Forget the curves as it will make it harder to keep the stave exactly equal either side of your centerline. A little more material on one side WILL cause the bow to start drifting off square and trust me you don't want a heavy bow that twists in your hand!!
With bows like this it's pretty much vital to get the tiller perfect very early on in tillering or else you will find chasing good tiller and maintaining weight is tricky...
Good luck.

Wooden Spring:
Well, the hard part about being an ex-architect like me is that I can't build anything unless I've got dimensions. And since I've been running autocad for over 18 years, everything gets drawn up first, then I print off those plans for the bow full size, I transfer that over to plywood and cut out a pattern, then transfer the pattern over to my laminated stave. When I'm done cutting everything out, the shaped stave is accurate to within the thickness of a printed line from an inkjet printer. 

But here's the problem, and it's a big one... The one thing that I've looked for desperately, but could never find, is some material that gives me a step-by-step build along for a backed bow like this. And one that assumes nothing - I've got no experience with making bows, so I need to know not only what is being done, but why it is being done. The "why's" help me generate the math that makes this make sense.

There's a LOT of people who can make one of these beautiful pieces of art by feel, and they know what looks good and what will work - yeah, I'm not one of those guys. My world is ruled by math, geometry, physics, and drafting... It may be my handicap, but that's my world.

Anyway, thanks for all the help! I hope to have my ipe in from the lumberyard either today or tomorrow, so hopefully I can start gluing up this weekend!

adb:
I understand your analytic mind. However, you're working with natural materials, which don't accept exacting dimensions without exception. Sure, if you're making FG bows, it's a recipe, plain and simple. But, this is not.
You've been given some excellent advice regarding dimensions for a heavy bow... 1.25 - 1.5" wide at the handle, 74 - 78" long, and 1 - 1.25" deep. Taper both profiles continuously to 0.5" tips, and away you go. Even the same species of wood will vary in density, so this is a basic starting point. Let the wood guide you. Use the mass theory, it works well.
Making bows from wood is part science, but also a part feel and art... especially the tillering.

fishfinder401:
hlstanley i completely understand where you are coming from, i am similar in many ways to that, just had not gotten set in those ways before starting to make bows luckily, with bows you can have a general idea, but never exact, that takes some experimentation..... maybe that's not the best word for that, you need to get to know the wood and see how it reacts by working with bows and tillering them, eventually you will be one of tise people doing it by feel, it just takes time for most people.
-now a question for you abd, i keep hearing about the mass theory, what is that?i feel like its something i should know

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