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Heavyweight Hickory, purpleheart, hickory tri-lam??

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icu812:
Good afternoon gents,

I have 2.5" by 72"  quartersawn hickory and purpleheart boards with excellent grain orientation that have been whispering sweet nothings into my ear. The only problem is that I dont have ready access to premium belly woods at the moment. I really want to make a heavyweight (80-120#) tri lam of 1/8th hickory, 1/4th purpleheart,  1/2 hickory.. but figured I'd ask the panel of experts first.

Would this combination have any chance of success provided the belly lam was heat tempered?  Iv seen a Hickory, PH, white oak ELB 100#@32 on here and it lit the fire for a domestic-bellied heavyweight. All advice is greatly appreciated. The grain is really straight and iv been saving them, so id hate to see them go to waste due to compression failure of the white wood belly.

WillS:
I know nothing about lams, but I can't see why it wouldn't work.  You can get heavy self-warbows of hickory, so it can clearly do the job.  I guess if you keep the belly nice and flat you should be fine.

Hopefully TooManyKnots will spot this and help out - he's a genius when it comes to heavy lams.

Good luck, either way!

adb:
With 72" lams, you're going to end up with 70" NTN. A bit short to make >100# @30-32" IMHO. Also, hickory is a good backing material, but it really sucks as belly wood, especially in a highly crowned and stacked design like an ELB or warbow. If you are going to heat treat, be careful you don't get it too hot. Most wood glues will readily separate with heat. I think TB3 lets go at 150 degrees.

medicinewheel:

--- Quote from: icu812 on August 12, 2014, 04:21:03 pm ---

... it lit the fire for a domestic-bellied heavyweight....

--- End quote ---

Seems there are much better domestic woods in your country for belly lams; i.e. hornbeam. I personally would not put hickory on a belly if the bow was two inches wide if I had a choice!

toomanyknots:

--- Quote from: adb on August 17, 2014, 11:35:47 pm ---hickory is a good backing material, but it really sucks as belly wood

--- End quote ---

I use it all the time as a belly wood, it doesn't really suck, it works just fine. I don't get excessive set. Only one bow, 125# at 32" and only like 73" NTN, has ever chrysaled on me, ever. This just isn't true, and at the least is a generalization.

EDIT: I will say my hickory bellied lam bows do better for me as 2 lam bows typically. Like hick/boo/maple backed hick, etc. (maple backings are awesome  ;) ) But we are talking 1/4" to 1/2" set difference. If you throw a tough backing like boo and a tough core like ipe it can over power the belly IF you don't taper the tips properly. Like if you have more ipe than hickory towards the tips, or really anywhere on the bow. But you should taper them anyway, so this shouldn't be an issue. It's not the best but my favorite bows, and fastest shooting bows ALL are hickory bellied. Straight smoking any of my ipe or osage bellied bows (with my osage bows coming in close second though.)

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