Yesterday, I glued up the first fiberglass bow I've done in about three years. Today, I cut it out and pealed the masking tape off. It came out great--good looking wood combination, no streaks in the fiberglass, good glue lines, etc. This was going to be MY bow! I don't even own any fiberglass bows I've made myself, but this one was going to be for me.

But it came out WAY too strong. I haven't put on the tip overlays, much less strung it yet, but I can tell from floor tillering that this bow is probably about 100 lbs right now. I don't know if I even COULD string it. It's pretty useless to me except to hang on the wall and show to people. It's still going to be a really pretty bow.

What can I do? I mean there's only so much you can sand fiberglass before you sand it all away. Mine is about 0.05" thick, I think. I can also narrow the limbs some, but I don't know how much weight I can take off of it. If I could get it down to a reasonable poundage, maybe I could at least find somebody else who might like to have it.

But I thought I'd see if anybody had any other suggestions. If not, then I just wanted to vent anyway. What a disappointment!

Go ahead and finish it Sam. There's guy's on here that like pain. Sure is a pretty bow, too pretty to just hang on the wall unfinished.

What weight are you looking to get down to.It sounds pretty heavy,I'm not sure how much you can take it down.I ordered a bow a few years back,it was supposed to be 65#@27 and it came in 80#@27,I went down and shot it.I told him I would take it anyway but he wanted to take it down some and it came out to 73#@27.Beautiful looking bow though.

How wide are you at the tips?

You could also trap the belly, or the back of the bow which ever you wish and reduce some poundage.

If you use .050 glass you have a lot of material you can sand on to reduce some weight.

I would sand the glass to 0.04 than trap the belly. If it is still too heavy send it to me.

thats to bad sam. good to see you are building again my friend. iv been learning to make knives.. thats what iv been doing.. but with this heat.. and no a/c i aint doing nothing till fall.. and hope i make it trough triple digit summer with out a heat stroke.

chris.

strshotx: I was really hoping for something closer to 50#. That would've been ideal. I can shoot a 60# bow, but it's uncomfortable.

Dave: The limbs are 1-3/32" at the ends of the fades and 3/8" at the tips right now.

Chris: That's cool. I met a girl who makes knives, and I got interested in it myself. I went out and got a bench grinder, and my brother got me a book on knife-making. I haven't gotten around to trying it, though.

Thanks for the suggestions!

I would be interested in haveing it what would you want for it

I don't know, Wally. It will be quite the crisis of conscience for me if it doesn't work out--leave it on my wall to look pretty and show off, or let somebody else put it to use. I guess I'll finish it and then decide. I may put on it ebay. I probably wouldn't ask more than $200 for it since that's all I need to get a new iphone 3Gs. :-)

Great looking bow. Ditto on finishing it the way it is. Put it in classifieds here on the Wall or e-bay. Lots of Men who will buy it : )

It just occurred to me that I could cut a kerf with the band saw through the center lamination all the way down the bow, and then glue it back together. That ought to reduce the weight considerably. What do y'all think about that?

Opinions on the above idea???

this is extreme, but...

If you really, really feel that what you have is not usable, get access to a drum sander (assuming you don't have one), and start running it through full length, flipping sides to keep it square. Continue narrowing the blank until it floor tillers such that you think it will finish up at about the weight you want. I found out by accident that even an incredibly narrow bow can perform very well. I had a layup that was intended to make about a 40# bow fail to glue on one edge and ended up table sawing it in half to salvage the edge that did glue. I worked on the resulting blank and ended up with a longbow that was .669" wide and .333 deep. It pulled 17# and I figured at best I had a 10 yd kids bow. Surprise! The deep core to width ratio produced a little bow with outstanding cast for the weight. I've since shot several 3D's with it, using 1416 arrows and taking all shots from the stakes. It's going to get passed on to a very slight lady who just loves it. For pix and details, see:

http://dickwightman.com/archery/bowyering/bowsmade/lemonade-iboshoot/lemonade-iboshoot.html

Too late! Boy was I nervous when I did this! I cut straight down the bamboo core and tried really hard not to cross any glue lines. There are a couple of small spots where it crossed the glue line, though. I could only see one in the picture, so I pointed a blue arrow at it so you could see it.

I'm going to glue this back up without sanding. That way, I figure it'll sort of fit together like a puzzle. Another idea is to sand off all the bamboo, kind of like chasing a ring, until I see the red of the bloodwood, and then just make another (thinner!) bamboo core, and blue it back up. What do y'all think?

"blue it back up" = "glue it back up"

Sam, I'm thinking you would get better results sanding all the boo out and gluing in a thinner boo lam.

if it was at 100 pounds, why not just grind off the bamboo core and glue it back up without a core ?

don't know if that would work or not - just a thought

momassa, that would probably make the bow too light. My core was pretty thick to begin with. I think the width of the kerf ought to bring the weight down to something manageable, and then if it's still to heavy, I can reduce it a little more by sanding with a drum sander like Dick suggested.

Apex, as I was doing a dry run, I got to thinking putting another lamination in there might cause me some problems. You see, I've already cut the bow out, and the tips are about as narrow as I want them to be. Any amount of sliding at all coule ruin this bow. It would be hard to put another lam between the two pieces and still have the top and bottom piece line up perfectly. So I decided to go ahead and glue it up as is. It's in the oven now. We'll see how it works tomorrow. Thanks for your input, though.

I would sand off the entire boo lam then reduce the bloodwood lams and glue a thinner boo core in then sand the glass to 0.04 or 0.045 to where you have the same boo to bloodwood to glass ratio as before

i'm on pins and needles. crazy, man, crazy!! i gotta know how it turns out.

Me too! I'm optimistic, though.

The glue-up went pretty smoothly. You can hardly tell there's a glue line there at all unless you look really close. One of the tips slid just a little bit, which means I'll have to make it more narrow, but it isn't too bad. The bow is a lot lighter, but still probably too heavy for me. I'd guess the draw weight is in the 70's now. I wonder if maybe I should've taken momassa's advice and taken the core completely out. Oh well. I'm sure by sanding, I can reduce the weight to something shootable, and if it's still too heavy for me, I'll find another home for it. I went ahead and glued on the overlays this morning. I'll string it up later tonight or maybe in the morning.

I just strung it with a low brace, and it came out to 72# at 28". That's before any sanding. Surely I can at least get it into the 60's by sanding and narrowing the limbs. I put cow horn tip overlays on it since I figured they'd hold up better than wood. I'll post a picture with final stats when I get finished today or tomorrow.

I'm reminded now why I stopped making fiberglass bows. It's the fiberglass! I hate working with it. It's gotten expensive, too!

I would trapp the belly to reduce weight.

Okay, so I am lost on this one. What does it mean to "'trapp' the belly?

By the way, I think that is a nice looking bow. I am glad you could save it.

Michael

This is a cross section of a limb with a trapped belly.

Here's some pictures of the finished bow. It came out to 52# at 28". I can't believe I got it that low! This is my new favourite bow! The limbs at the ends of the fades are 1" wide, and they are 3/8" wide at the beginning of the tip overlays.

Don't you just love happy endings!

Great job Sam, I knew you could do it! You are one of the guys that got me started in all this madness! :)

Nice, good job.

You make beautiful bows, Apex, so that is quite the compliment coming from you!

Yeah that is pretty cool you were able to bring it down to a shooting weight you like starting at 100#. Looks good too.

i know this is an old thread, but ive gone and done the same thing as sam... now im considering if i should try and cut the bow in half too, and is wondering if its posible to glue it back up with regular wood glue, or if epoxy is required? generaly, would anyone think its posible to glue wood laminations together with wood glue in glass bows? not to save money, just speculating here....

oh my god;.....i would have never done it that way?...i would have gone for a skinny bow and just finnished and tillered untill i hit a weight i liked,...i like skinny bows....

...doesnt matter now shes done and your happy thats all that matters,......i think this manuver is exsteam to say the least!.........TJ would have bought it!....snake

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