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Short bow build

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Aaron1726:
I might be crazy and in over my head but here goes!

My 3rd successful(ish) bow and first board bow started ticking at full draw.  Turns out my handle glue up did exactly what I was afraid it might do... pop!  About half of it was unglued this morning after shooting it....

So what to do?  I was never happy with the tiller on this one, was a learning experience.  I had backed it with dogbane in an attempt to fix some things and raise poundage, but no dice.  Anyway, I stared at it till lunch time and then started cutting.  Popped of the rest of the handle, cut the limbs off and spliced them together.

It's either gonna be awesome or a total failure.  Gonna be fun either way.

So what do yall think?  Great idea, or total flop waiting to happen?

superdav95:
How much shorter did the splice make the overall length?  Should be interesting to see.  What glue are you using for you handle riser?

Aaron1726:
The splice gives me a 49 in overall length.  My thought was to aim for a 22in or so draw length on this one.  And I was thinking to sand down some of the dogbane and re-back the whole thing afterwards.

The glue used for the handle was tite bond 3.  That is what I'm using in the splice too.  It's also what I used, thinned down, to do the dogbane backing.

Hamish:
TB3 is a great glue for most purposes, but it will lift when the belly lam is too thin.
Only bowmakers high strength epoxy, or urea formaldehyde/resorcinol will hold a glue line like that.

Aaron1726:
Thanks Hamish, yeah I will need to get some better glue if I try a handle like that again.

What do you think about tb3 for the splice?  I'm scared it's gonna fly apart in my hand.  I got the old backing stripped off and strung with a 4in brace.  I'm only pulling to 18in right now and 20lbs.  I did manage to shoot a few shots yesterday though.

I'm thinking I will be better off to back it.  I have plenty more dogbane that I could do that again.  I also have some bamboo, but I'm afraid it might be too much for the red oak.  And then I have rawhide too, so might go that route.  Not sure which would be best.  It's definately not gonna be a speed deamon, but it would be nice to have it be a decent shooter.

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