Congratulations to Justin Snyder of St. George Utah
His Remarkable And Short Bamboo backed Ipe is 2008 Laminate Bow of the Year
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,7923.15.html
Boo backed Ipe 50" TTT and 48 1/2 NTN 50# @ 26" The static recurves are 6". Just over 1" wide from the grip out to 16" from center. The last 9" is a constant taper to the 1/4" tips. It has a 4" rigid handle with another 1 1/2" of fades.
It is a little on the petite side isn't it. As skinny as it is and with all those curves I should have called it Super Model Bow. I made sure I got it to full draw and square to the camera so you could see it well.
I had a couple of pieces of Ipe about 27" long. Ipe is a beast to bend and I wanted tight recurves on this one so I had to get creative. I cut a kerf cut 5 3/4" long into each limb tip. I then steamed it and bent it around my form. I have tried the kerf cut before and wound up with a tiny air pocket at the bottom of the cut so this time I cut and bent a thin piece of yellow heart and put it in the cut at glue up. I had to glue some of the recurve in because Ipe doesn't want to bend and wouldn't hold the tight circle I wanted. The recurve pattern is a 6" circle so it is plenty tight. I spliced the pieces with some deflex in them. When I glued it up I wasn't sure if I had enough deflex so I glued in a little more. I couldn't get the bamboo to match the super tight radius of the recurve so I cut it just short and put on a 6" long yellowheart overlay. It has taken about 1/2" of string follow.
the handle wrap is horse leather sewn with yellow string to match the yellow heart accents. I actually had string groves comming around and meeting on the belly of the bow and a groove comming down the belly of the recurve. After tillering it most of the way I started taking off the extra weight at the tips and took them out with the intention of redoing them. The string lines up great and no matter how many times I pulled it they stayed right down the center of the recurve so I shot it. The string still stays centered so I left it that way. Better to be lucky than good. I tried to bend the boo but it always snapped right before I got what I wanted. I thinned it down to 1/16" thick then boiled it, steamed it and used dry heat but it always came out straight. It seams that dry only makes it stiffer while wet meathods had little effect. I know you can bend the heck out of the smaller stuff when it is young and green, but I don't think it even bends real well when it is older.
Just the right size for crawling around in the pig thickets of Florida.
-"wow! now thats a short bow! at first it looked like hickory and i almost winced. tiller looks great!" -The Burnt Hill Archer
-"Wow!! Thats awesome...I draw 26"..... .....Brian
-"thats cool brother, even though i've only made three bows so far(that have made it past tillering). i think ipe is aweome wood.hard as heck to scrape but well worth it.now dont get me wrong, i like osage also. however ipe is unbelivable wood,like osage." sailordad
"Hey Justin, you surely got a nice bend going on that little guy " -NOMADIC PIRATE
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