I’m joining the party late but my experience with bamboo as a backing is that it will overpower your belly wood if not careful to get it very thin and tapered well. I built a bunch of these boo backed bows and all of the best ones that survived had a very thin boo backings. Your record bow is awesome but I believe it would be even more awesome and would have survived possibly with thinner boo strip on the back. The last few I’ve done like this I built the base bow (non backed) looking good at 20”draw and got it to about 30-35lbs projected draw at projected desired draw length. Estimated of course but pretty close. Then I got to work with my backing and got the handle area thickness around .012-.013” and then tapered down to .090” mid limb and then a bit more to about .085” if not a stiff tipped bow. If doing a stiff tipped bow or flipped tips I’ll increase thickness to about .090-.095” with a gradual taper from the mid limb. The boo strip is also given a heat treatment/temper on the flesh side only. I basically go till I get the rind side shiny and sweating slightly. It will color change the flesh side too to a light brown. It will swell a little if you do it right requiring you to reflatten before glue up. I plan to do an Osage boo backed here soon myself actually. I know Simk offered you a slat but I’ve also got some of the shipping from his location is prohibitive. I’ve got a couple threads on here over the last few years that go through a build along if you need more details. Just call me anytime too which works. I’ve made a number of these and they are great bows. Boo is very very tough! And if heat treated is very hard. I’ve yet to have a boo backed bow fail in tension. It’s always the compression side that fails. It’s a fun project and can’t wait to see what comes of this. Reach out any time. Dave.
