Another question for you bow builders, what would be the difference using a tapered core or just all paralel ?

If you are a very, very lucky Larry Hatfield will respond to this one.

I don’t know enough to get into the details, but he has said before that it’s the tapers that determine the flex pattern and the efficiency of a limb. Or DOUBLE tapers, more correctly.

And that much does make sense to me, even as someone without an engineering background. Supers and Statics are both especially fast, because they control the amount of flex in the hooks. Which means the limb has to bend somewhere else… Which is controlled by the taper in the lams…

No engineer here either but can see where they possibly make smoother feeling draw other than that is there real benefits ?

It depends on the design of the bow to some degree.

There have been many, many fine bows built over the yeares that used parallel laminations including Assenheimer, Fasco, Shakespeare and amny more.

Bows with all parallel laminations typically require mor experience/skill to achieve a good tiller.

All tapered would bend more at the tips and feel lighter in the early draw(because it is)

"whip tipped" or "whippy" more tip action casts a lighter arrow better (target) so I've been told I've built them all parallel and all tapered and personally never noticed much difference

Whether or not the limbs are tapered in thickness, and if so, to what degree, and how that tapering is oriented in the limbs, determines, in part, where and how much they flex/work. Degree of thickness tapering should be coordinated with the other aspects of bow design. For instance, wider limbs with more width taper need to taper less in thickness than a narrow limb with less width taper, in order to bend similarly. Pyramid bow vs. English longbow is probably the best example.

In general, moderate tapering allows the limbs to bend more evenly along their length. No tapering causes them to bend more near the handle. And a lot of tapering causes them to bend more near the tips.

Lots of things are tapered for good reasons related to their own applications. Apparently it's worth it because, as with bows, it would be considerably easier to construct them without taper. Bull whips, fishing rods, leaf springs, flag poles, you name it. To better reveal its merit and effect, imagine each of them without taper... or the taper reversed.

Reverse taper is the schizzel

My take on tapered lams;

The idea with tapered lamination, is to minimize the mass of the limb tips. The limb tips is the part of the bow with the most movement, so when it comes to performance they should have as little mass as possible, while still having the structural integrity to withstand the pressure of the string loops.

That is primary the reason I use only tapers in my D/R bows. Another reason is with a tapered lamination you can vary the degree of stacking by varying different taper rates per inch. This helps with consistency (smoothness) throughout the entire draw of the string.

I have not found that much or even a noticeable difference in the bows I have made with the two. Because of that, I only use Parallel laminations on the bows I build.

Now, I will say this, not an expert bow builder. I just build copies of old Ben Pearson Bows.

Thanks for the input men. Think I'm build both ways just to see what the difference is. Maybe I'll learn something and at least it will keep out off getting into serious trouble this winter!

Well, as I said before, Larry is Da Man... unless world records don't mean anything.

Reverse tapers were done by Bob Morrison years ago they kind of came and went.Idea was to stiffen the tips.Havent seen rt lately (I haven't)

Actually I think Howatt was the bowyer who pushed reverse tapers to the fore front. And they in fact used double tapered/reverse tapered laminatins in their bows right up to the end.

I didn't say he invented it.I remember him doing it.

Not insinuating that you did say that he invented them. Just saying where I think the idea originated.

From 1961 on Howatt built tapered lams where on lam was thinnest just before the recurve began then thickened into the recurve.

It controlled how the limb unloaded at the tip. Howatt was the only maker that did this at the time.

Very important feature!

I have a Crusader longbow with laminations that taper then thicken back up towards the tips.

Selfbows have been made with reverse taper in certain parts of the limbs too. Had one in my hand yesterday.

Seems you can make it complicated or simple and since the bow began as a simple tool I’ll probably try that first

I am hoping Larry chimes in. They built a special machine to make those tapers. Once you study the limb it is easy to spot.

It's one of the main factors that made Howatt bows perform so well.

Marc Moriez had to charge more for the Crusader because he lost so much material trying to cut those tapers correctly.

My Beaver Creek made for me by Marc has great tapered yew lams. I have been neglecting it, time to fix that.

DDave

You all do realize reversed tapers make a parallel. All my longbows have taper to the tips depending on the design. My recurves one model is parallel the other .001 taper to the tip with full working limb.

Axtually reverse tapers may or may not make parallel laminations depending on the ratio of taper per lamination.

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