I was doing some thinking, I am building my bows with one parallel and two .001" tapers for a total of .002" taper on a 3 lamination bow. Now what would it hurt to build a bow with 2 parallels, and then one .002" taper?

Tapers are harder to make, or more expensive to buy than a parallel. Everything would equal the same just a different way to assemble then bow. Has anyone tried this method and what would the pros and cons be?

I assume you're talking about a longbow stack. Shouldn't make much of a difference. I no longer build, but when I did, I used all tapered laminations. Regardless, that's not the place to try to save money, IMO. It's the core of the bow, there forever. Invest what you need to get the results you want.

Either will work just fine.

All of my bows that have a .002 total taper have one taper and the rest parralel. One that I'm finishing now has one parralel and one .003 I will probably do that design in the future with three lams, one .002 and one .001 with one parralel.

As far as cost goes, woodgallery295 and kennysarchery sell parralel and tapered for the same price.

It wouldn't hurt, as long as the taper is thick enough that you don't run out of wood on the thin end.

Thanks guys, Yea I agree orion, its not about saving money, I thought if there is no major difference in the performance, it would be easier for me to "fit" my riser fade out piece between two parallels with my design. Tapers require all the more attention because I'm dealing with a fade out and a taper sandwiched between. Maybe this is me being lazy and trying to cut corners in a custom bow becasue it would require an easier fit. Call me out if i am! lol

This is the last bow I built does this make it easier to understand what Im trying to make easier on myself?

Not lazy, just smart! If it helps fit go for it!

It will work either way with no difference that I can tell.

You are doing a nice job on those bows!!

kenny

This one is one .003 taper and one parralel both on the back of the riser with just stabilcore and glass on the belly.

There will be two more coming off this form in the next few weeks and they will have a three lam core. Probably two tapers and one parralel.

Don't think it matters, I have done .003 taper with both one and two. Just ordered some core wood from KennyM and just told him I wanted a total taper rate of .003, it's on the way and I don't know or care how he did it. Now tell me why I have always used four lams when it appears you guys are doing four??

It truly doesn't matter. You need enough lams so that they are thin enough to withstand whatever curve you're putting into the limb, and a total core taper that will give you the action you want.

It truly doesn't matter. You need enough lams so that they are thin enough to withstand whatever curve you're putting into the limb, and a total core taper that will give you the action you want. How you get there doesn't matter.

You can use 1 tapered lamination, or none, it's up to you. Harold Groves built ALL his bows with 1 lamination. The Bear Grizzly was and still is made with 1 lamination. All the old Fasco bows (and many folks feel they are as good as ever was, including me) were all made with all parallel laminations. Many of the old Shakespeare's had parallel laminations as did some of the Ben Pearson models.

The majority of the tiller in a glass laminated bow is done by width tillering when you cut/grind the bow to the desired front view profile.

So, it's all about how you want to do it, and no one way is neccessarily better than any other. Personally I rarely ever use tapered laminations. When I do I tper them by hand, with a sanding block. Takes about 10 minutes per lamination.

It is just a mater of how much net taper you want, or where you want to waist a taper. The rest is pretty hard to quantify a difference.

Fdp I talked to a guy about doing all parallels because of the taper from riser to tip on the back or belly profile. It almost seems like it would have to have more flex at the tip with just that in mind. I can easily make my own parallels. I just don't know so much about getting tapers built perfectly. Fad had a 36" drum sander. I may just build one with all parasites and see how it performs.

I understand, but like I said, there have been really good recurves made with all parallel laminations for 50 years.

Personally, I haven't found that a lot of bowyers (not all, but a lot) these days really know a much about how bows work, but instead simply follow the status quo. Few understand the way that glass to wood ratios work. The ratios that should be looked for recurves, D/R longbows, and straight longbows. The affect of changig the percentage of working limb etc.. They are more interested in building pieces of furniture than bows that actually perform well.

Kind of like anchoring high up on the face so point on is impractiaclly close, being lost about arrow spine, having little idea about the actual effective hunting range of a recurve or longbow. and lot of the other things that confound "traditional" archers these days.

Try for yourself and see what your results are. Don't rely on others. Especially if you want to do this as a partial vocation.

Hey thanks, I may just have to try that. I said back before i built my first bow that i was going to build one with all parallels and people looked at me cross eyed....

Im going to build a bow with all parallels and see what the heck it does. all Ill loose is the money in the fiber glass, I can make lams for next to nothing.

In Jack Harrison's book, if I understood it correctly, in one place where he talking about certain dimensions and limb taper (both thickness and width); he said for limb thickness at tips were half what they were at the riser.

For me, this worked out to be (4) lams tapered at .002 and this bow is not a radical reflex/deflex design. I made a couple dozen laminated bows and all were pretty good shooters except for two that I cut up for destruction.

I spoke with Craig at HH once at length about tapers and how it depends on if you wanted a slightly harder shooter with made it slightly harder in the hand or give up a little in speed for a gentler bow in hand.

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