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Bamboo bellied bows
superdav95:
I’ve made a number of narrow pyramid style longbows and recurves with hickory as the core. I’ve also done boo core also that worked quite well. I have not done this with elb. As far as thicknesses that I’ve played around with I don’t have an issue sharing what I’ve used and experimenting found.
For my 64-66” long bows with flipped tips dimensions are about 1 1/4- 1 1/2” wide tapered out towards tip of 3/8” or less. The core wood was around just a hair under 1/4” thick with slight taper thickness out to tips. It narrows as a typical pyramid. With below thickness tapers it yielded around a 50-55lbs bow at 28”.
The tapers for the top boo strip are as follows.
At the handle. .125” for about 2-4” then tapers down to .110 into the fades then tapers again to .095” out to the tips.
For the bottom strip. (Belly lam is thinner)
Very thin at the ramp where fade is 0.90” thick and also pre bent with heat. Then tapered from .110” out to 0.95” at the tips.
Thes strips on belly are heat treated fairly dark. The backing strips are only mildly heated to rid excess moisture then reground flat to the taper desired. I also stagger the nodes strategically so that the nodes on the back and belly evenly staggered. I do not sand down my nodes on the backing. I have at times sanded down the belly ones with success but prefer to leave them intact. Tillering these bows are tricky though if you want to keep the nodes intact. Side tiller scrape only. Some of my fastest bows were these builds. Some surprising speeds out of these. They take a bit to get tapers right but worth it. If you search my previous posts last year you’ll see a few of these built. My tapers have vary a little bit these worked well for me. Not sure how that would translate into a elb and so maybe hamish suggestion would be the way to go. Anyway figured I’d post my taper stats if interested.
I’ve made short bows with this method too with no core wood at all and just used boo back and belly lam with tapers. These bows turned out very well too. Heat treated belly lams helps in these also.
jameswoodmot:
there is a product that I cant find now but it is a heat treated bamboo flooring, I have seen it used very succesfully for elb bellies. It is heat treated to give colour but also perfectly cooked for bows, this is all I can find now, I'll look a bit more
https://www.ecofriendlyflooring.com/product-page/engineered-carbonized-vertical-bamboo?srsltid=AfmBOoqXbXO-A_SC4lpTpMvKpy_b7qUvNuIqrSO8kxvhPoS_LQULlZWF
edit; Yeah im pretty sure carbonised flooring is the stuff you want
RyanY:
--- Quote from: superdav95 on June 05, 2025, 03:32:25 pm ---I’ve made a number of narrow pyramid style longbows and recurves with hickory as the core. I’ve also done boo core also that worked quite well. I have not done this with elb. As far as thicknesses that I’ve played around with I don’t have an issue sharing what I’ve used and experimenting found.
For my 64-66” long bows with flipped tips dimensions are about 1 1/4- 1 1/2” wide tapered out towards tip of 3/8” or less. The core wood was around just a hair under 1/4” thick with slight taper thickness out to tips. It narrows as a typical pyramid. With below thickness tapers it yielded around a 50-55lbs bow at 28”.
The tapers for the top boo strip are as follows.
At the handle. .125” for about 2-4” then tapers down to .110 into the fades then tapers again to .095” out to the tips.
For the bottom strip. (Belly lam is thinner)
Very thin at the ramp where fade is 0.90” thick and also pre bent with heat. Then tapered from .110” out to 0.95” at the tips.
Thes strips on belly are heat treated fairly dark. The backing strips are only mildly heated to rid excess moisture then reground flat to the taper desired. I also stagger the nodes strategically so that the nodes on the back and belly evenly staggered. I do not sand down my nodes on the backing. I have at times sanded down the belly ones with success but prefer to leave them intact. Tillering these bows are tricky though if you want to keep the nodes intact. Side tiller scrape only. Some of my fastest bows were these builds. Some surprising speeds out of these. They take a bit to get tapers right but worth it. If you search my previous posts last year you’ll see a few of these built. My tapers have vary a little bit these worked well for me. Not sure how that would translate into a elb and so maybe hamish suggestion would be the way to go. Anyway figured I’d post my taper stats if interested.
I’ve made short bows with this method too with no core wood at all and just used boo back and belly lam with tapers. These bows turned out very well too. Heat treated belly lams helps in these also.
--- End quote ---
This is fantastic. Thank you! I think it would make a cool bow to have the outer rind on the belly which would be the whole point. I wonder if it would be easier accomplished as a warbow between the extra length and draw weight.
superdav95:
I bet it would! No experience on that though but would be cool for sure. My objective with the recurve long bows was target weight of 55lbs. The first couple I attempted were way too thick for the slats. A little bamboo goes a long way for draw weight.
Bege1987:
--- Quote from: RyanY on June 04, 2025, 02:48:34 pm ---When one makes a laminated bow with bamboo on the belly, how do you determine your tapers? I’m interested currently because someone on the bowyer subreddit asked about a bamboo backed and bellied ELB style bow. I thought that would be a great idea and am interested myself but I’m not sure how to go about these types of bows.
I also have some bamboo backing strips that I could sacrifice for the belly and am wondering if heat treating the strip is much different than heat treating a normal bow solar smash
--- End quote ---
Great question! For bamboo bellies, a common taper is around .0015–.002" per inch. You’ll want a balance between stiffness and flex, and heat-treating the belly strip is similar to backing—just go lighter on the heat to avoid making it too brittle.
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