advice on bamboo backed ipe?

[adb]

The only advice I can give you is to use a non-water based glue. Every time that I have built a bow  with resinous woods with Titebond, it has broken. I have since then gone with resourcinol at the suggestion of a boat building friend of mine and I haven't had a problem since.

Sorry, I have to disagree. I use TB3 for all my glue-ups, with no problems, with all wood including ipe. I don't clean ipe with acetone first either. I simply use a freshly sanded, dust free surface. Titebond requires careful surface prep, but it's fine glue. Perhaps if your bows are breaking, it's for another reason.

Nope. It's the glue. I've used TB3 for over 25 years and never had a delaminating problem until I used it for resinous woods in bow making.

I still suggest you have another issue besides the glue.

The problem is that Titebond dries flexible and doesn't handle extremes in heat and humidity. When I have had bows blow up, it's always been during summer shooting events when heat and humidity are way up.

On the other hand, when I have forced resorcinol to break, it always ripped the wood apart, revealing its far superior bonding ability.

I have not experienced any issues with TB glues failing in any weather conditions, including heat and humidity. The ONLY TB glue failure was the result of a customer leaving a lam bow in a hot car. It didn't break, bit it did delaminate.
If one of your bows 'blows up', why do you blame the glue?

[Springbuck]

  I've also had TB III rip wood apart insteadof failing at the glue line.

  My only failures directly related to TB III were due to foolishly allowing it to freeze in the shop over the winter, and then trying to use it.

[Wooden Spring]

ADB,
Because the bow broke at the glue line. The wood didn't pull apart. The glue just separated... and violently too. There was nothing wrong with the bow construction aside from glue choice. Could there have been something screwy with that batch of glue? Maybe, I don't know. AllI know is what I saw.

[adb]

ADB,
Because the bow broke at the glue line. The wood didn't pull apart. The glue just separated... and violently too. There was nothing wrong with the bow construction aside from glue choice. Could there have been something screwy with that batch of glue? Maybe, I don't know. AllI know is what I saw.

Maybe old glue. Maybe you made a mistake in prep? All I know, TB has been faithfully and consistently successful for me.

This is not personal. We haven't met. I do, however, have a problem with blanket type statements like "don't use TB glue with resinous wood." Sorry, your statement is simply not true. TB is fine glue, and will work wonderfully with bamboo and ipe. It's cheap, readily available, simple to work with, and (if done correctly), provides a bond stronger than the surrounding wood. TB glues do require special material prep. It is rather unforgiving of sloppy prep (and I'm not saying yours was). All surfaces must be clean, flat, as perfectly matching as possible, and free of dust or other contaminants. Gap filling has no place with TB glues (or any others IMO). As you condemn it, I recommend it.

[PatM]

Do you notice any problems with creep in TB 3? I know a lot of guys who swore by it but noticed that glued on handle sections would show a bit of a ridge where the handle feathered into the fades over time.

[adb]

I only noticed that once, but I believe it was my fault. The handle didn't pop off, but I did get some creep at the fades. I only used a single thin lam between belly and grip and I don't think I had enough thickness to prevent a bit of flex. Now I make sure I have a minimum grip thickness of 1.25" total, and it's never come up again.

[PEARL DRUMS]

One handle creep issue for me, and that was a design flaw. Yes a zero creep glue would have prevented my poor craftsmanship, but I could have designed it better to. Ive used it on 4 ipe bows, (2) with boo and (2) with hickory. (2) hickory backed hickory, (3) hickory backed RO, and one sinew/TB3 bow as well. They're still just fine BEST I KNOW. I don't degrease and I don't wipe acetone on wood. I scuff very lightly and glue. Its seem so weird to hear about some fella's have 90% failures while another fella has 90% success with the same glue and the basic bow design.

Just guessing here, but "ADB" builds about 2 million laminated bows a year, seems his advice on TB3 is as experienced as anybody on this site. He glues more wood together than the Franklin factory lab.