making wood limbs

[sonik885]

hi I'm new to the forum I'm trying to find information on making bow limbs for a to fit to a riser for a takedown bow out of wood, but all the information i can find says about using fiberglass and that is not something i wish to do. i was just wondering if anyone could post links or give me any information. I'm looking for things like wood choice and glue for laminating that will hold up to the stresses from the bow and the elements.

[PatM]

 You can find several bows of this type on here.  It can be done without glass. Do a search.

[mikekeswick]

Hickory or bamboo are the obvious choices for backings. Maple is a great core wood and ipe/osage will make fantastic belly woods. Smooth EA40 is a superb easy to use glue.
The key is making the butt ends of the limbs stiff enough not to flex at all. Ipe is great here as it is so stiff.
Make the core thin so you don't run out of belly wood whist tillering if you use one.
Making a wood 3 piece takedown is pretty much the same as making a glass one just substitute good belly/back woods for the glass.

[osage outlaw]

Pearl Drums made a super nice 3 piece take down with all wood limbs. 

[Jim Davis]

Lots of ways to make a takedown and solid wood will do fine.

Jim

[Marc St Louis]

You can order this issue of Primitive Archer Magazine, http://www.horsefeathersranch.com/cgi-bin/shopper?key=PABI1305&preadd=action.  It has an article on how to make a 3 piece take-down that I wrote.

[scp]

Solid wood limbs will do fine, if you make them long and reflexed enough. For straight limbs, you can easily make a straight riser. I made a couple to make it easy to test the quality of wood for selfbows. But I ended up just using them to salvage some sound limbs from broken bows. Worked find; but I lost interest. Not primitive enough for me, I guess.

[Springbuck]

 Yeah, basically you can do this any way you want that works.  My first 10 or 12 bows were bamboo backed bamboo flooring bows or exotic hardwood bows made like this.  Most of these will be backed or laminated limbs, but you can carve limbs from billets, just like you would a selfbow. Decent epoxy, Resorcinol, Titebond II or III all work.  Bamboo, hickory, elm surface wood, ash, maple, and white oak make the best backings.  Grain alignment is very important on backings.  You still need to work in fadeouts beyond where the limbs attach, and glued on "half" risers or handle block-looking pieces will work ok here.  Don't make them too extreme (wild reflex or recurves) or too short.  If they bolt on, you may need front overlays to protect the limbs from the hardware.  Make sure your hardware is very strong and well seated.