I'm unclear on all wood bow laminations. I'm familiar with ground laminations that can be bought for building glassed bows,are we talking about the same thing?

Say I have 2" x 3" hickory boards 6' long, can I saw 3/16" slats from different boards (or mix and swap ends if cut from the same board) to make a stave to start with? To do that would seem to have a leveling effect on weaknesses in the board as a whole. Is this done?

Same laminations. Nothing different but the thickness.

You can build a bow that way for sure. Depending on the design I was building I wouldn't likely cut them 3/16" thick though.

Gluing up the laminations that are all cut from the same board is no different than gluing up laminations cut from different boards.

BUT, if the board has a flaw, the flaw will be in every lamination.

There have been laminated bows built all kinds of different ways over the years.

Ck! Now, what thickness would I saw them? Also flat sawn or quarter sawn?

I've only built glass bows but if I was doing an all wood I would go with flat sawn .

You don't want your belly a thin lamination. You run the risk of exposing glue lines as you tiller. Use a .500-.625 belly slat and a .187-.200 backing strip. 1/4 sawn on either piece yields the most strength.

Depends on the design and the construction technique. Are you going to back the bow with bamboo or something like that?

I would want the backing strip to be bamboo, or follow one grain line like a self bow. Of course you can make bows out of boards, and they generally do not follow one grain line as boards are normally very run-out.

So if you are using tapered lams you would want to have the tapers right (glass bows are over tapered in the core, as you can't easily taper the glass in thickness". So if you where building up at least twice the thickness in an all wood bow, and the strips where the same thickness as they would be in a glass bow, it would be over tapered by the time you added up all the strips, or maybe under tapered. Cutting across the glue line in tillering is not a problem, but it would be better if one did not, and it would look better.

So if you are making your own strips, yes they are similar to strips one would make in a glass backed bow, but they would need a specific taper, and the backing strip should have no grain runout.

Yes it's been done countless times. Two 3/16" lams(finished dimensions) backed with a 1/8" hickory backing or bamboo backing can make a 60# bow depending on design.

There are different types of 'laminated wood bows'. Standard backed bows, like a 1/2" thick piece of osage backed with bamboo or hickory is popular. Trilams are popular too, say, bamboo backing and two thinner osage lams. Nice because the thinner lams allow the bowyer to bend them in more pronounced shapes during glue up.

I grind all my own lams, glass bows and all-wood bows. I grind them all on the same adjustable lam sled, in the same thickness sander, to the same tolerances, but there are distinct differences because the number of lams in the bows are different and my construction processes for those bows are different.

Glass longbows have more lams, and less taper in each tapered lam.

In a bamboo/osage/osage trilam, I taper the center lam, but leave the belly lam parallel. This is where wood removal will happen for tillering and bringing it to target weight. It leaves enough wood so that I have never worked through into the glue line, but I have it figured so that I don't glue up an excess of wood in thickness. Doing so can cause issues in some instances.

In general, making laminated wood bows is more involved, and exacting in process, than making selfbows. It's also not as simple as just cutting lams out on a saw and gluing them together. It behooves the bowyer to have pieces that are very accurate, perfectly mated, with gluing surfaces prepped properly for the glue to be used.

I've used flat sawn, rift sawn, and quartersawn. That orientation isn't as critical to me as the quality of the wood otherwise.

If you really are interested in entering the all wood bow world it is a good idea to commit to one piece.

I'll second what Jeff said

To answer your last question Tembo, yes you can create lams from a single board, or from different boards to be put in the same bow. They can be of the same species or different species. They can also be 36" long and spliced in the middle. If possible, half length lams to be spliced in the middle should be made in matched pairs, one piece of each pair intended for each limb, as is done in a glass bow. And if two full length lams were made from the same board, it wouldn't hurt to flip one of them end for end to maintain the same attributes in both limbs.

In some bows, trilams for instance, sometimes all three lams are of a different species, their placement in the bow depending on their own strengths and weaknesses. There are a lot of good possible combinations.

One of the simplest versions of these bows, and a good place to start, is a single slat of a proven bow wood approximately 1/2" thick, with a good tension strong hardwood 1/8" thick for backing. It can be glued up straight, with reflex, or in a gentle d/r shape, and an appropriately sized handle piece glued on afterwards. I have a simple hickory backed osage blank with a little bit of reflex glued up and waiting for me now.

Bow lams are largely decorative the glass ad epoxy takes the load. you could have some real s%$#wood in a riser or limb and it would probably hold up. Real bows made from 1 piece are a whole nuther thing entirely.

Look at epoxy lammed rifle stocks. Wood is merely a filler for with plastic. Lam stocks are incredibly dense, heavy, stable, tougher than hell. You could probably hit a major league fastball with one and not damage it. But the stripey effect is butt ugly. No bow is near as beautiful as aged osage selfie. Blacktail is a distant second.

New self bow builders would have the easiest time working hickory or ash, but Osage is the most flaw tolerant. The white woods are far easier to start with, often straighter and visually a bit easier IMO. But Osage is awesome too.

Purple Heart is an amazing wood, back of the bow or in a bow. It’s like a purple version of super hickory. I wish I had time to mess with it more.

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