There was a question asked on another site regarding the "purpose", or "value" of the very thin wood lamination under the clear glass. The unanimous consensus was that it was just there for aesthetics, and that it, if anything, reduced the bows efficiency.

I would have to believe that to be true. If you look at the history of glass laminate bows, the use of clear glass is fairly recent, maybe someone can chime in who knows when it started.

It adds no performance value, it adds extra glue joints to the bow, hence extra time and cost. How is it that we've become so enamored to appearance that most trad bows have gone this route.

It definitely is more costly. Dan Toelke knocks a $100 off the price of his bows if you opt for black glass instead of clear.

Why have so many of us become obsessed with "pretty" tools?

Well it's really just like anything else, I feel bows are like women, they will all do same thing for you I just prefer pretty ones lol

But do they do the same thing? Wonder if anyone has done a side by side comparison. Same bow design, same poundage.

The veneers serve more than 1 purpose.

They provide what to may are nicer aesthetics since some of the best performing limb cores are pretty plain and some folks don't like that.

Some of the woods that are considered to be "eye candy" would not work well as a major percentage of the core.

Even if the chosen wood did work for a major portion of the limb core, in some cases the cost of using it would be prohibitive, or increase the price of the bow considerably.

They have to counted as part of the total limb stack thickness for a given limb weight.

Do they add any performnace....nope, nobody will ever convince me that they increase performance at all. But by the same token I personally have found there is more performance difference between different sets of laminations of the same wood then there is in the performance of different of laminations made from the more proven core woods in most designs.

As an example I don't find there is a significant difference bewtween a bow with Bamboo cores and bow with Maple cores.

I get what you are saying , but life is too short to not want to enjoy looking at cocobolo, Myrtle, bocote, zebra, and curly maple just to name a few. Just because its a tool, doesn't mean it cant be pretty too.

Painted my black glass bows. Im not for fancy.

I'm not sure who started with clear glass but Fred Anderson had very unique bows with it at etar years ago. Buying a base model car is cheapest but most want more bells and whistles even with the same drivetrain.

I have one “pretty bow” and another on the way. My LB has clear glass but Elm core, not fancy but I would put Red Elm up against Yew or Bamboo as a core wood. My recurves are black glass or carbon. Work bows. Actually according to some old bowyers black glass enhanced a bows preformance. I won’t be able to compare my new LB with Cocobolo veneers and boo core with clear glass to my present LB (same bowyer) because it will be 10#’s lighter. I can get some idea when I find out what arrows it likes.

I guess it's become akin to having a nice model 1911 that's fully engraved vs. plain jane, other than the performance issue.

Pretty good analogy I would say.

Ever kissed an ugly woman? Aint as fun as kissing a pretty woman!

I agree with M60's comment; you can have it all if you go with red elm cores under clear glass. Other than that, I'm a black glass over maple cores kinda guy. No need to add glue and pretty slivers of wood to the weight of the limbs.

I’m one of those guys that will not order colored glass. I don’t care if there is a veneer or not. I will put clear glass over maple or bamboo cores. I want to see the wood my bow is made of. Performance wise I don’t think it makes a difference one way or the other.

Clear glass is somewhat stronger than colored glass due to the lack of coloring agents in the resin. Black glass, for instance, has carbon black added to turn the resin black. Aluminum oxide was used to color resin white and produce white glass. According to Gordons chemist when I was in the industry, clear, unadulterated, resin made stronger glass. As Far as thin laminates under glass goes, they just add to the spread of distance between the two layers of glass and add a little draw weight to the bow. Linear carbon placed under fiberglass or in the wood core does nothing. It just slides back and forth with the epoxy glue creep. Balanced woven material can produce lateral stability when placed properly in the lamination stack.

Larry how about the affect of the additional glue joints? I would think at some point there has to be a law of diminishing return.

Larry, you got it all right!!!

Larry, you got it all right!!!

M60gunner that red elm is a pretty sharp looking lam for limbs.

Well the mountain Juniper linb cores under clear look pretty snazzy on my Hill Cheetah!....and its a shooter at 66# !

I thought I had this all figured out a while back and then there were some statements arguing for clear glass that made me think twice. aesthetic wise colored glass has its own charm for me, I appreciate more of the design and shape of the bow than the way the wood looks. There are some really pretty bows out there for sure undeniablely so.

Pretty/beauty, as the old adage tells us, is in the eye of the beholder. To me, classy is beautiful, like red elm under clear glass.

I love them all. Plain Jane work horses and fancy laminated

I remember reading in The Bowyers of North America an opinion that colored glass was faster.IDK.I came in at a time of colored glass snakeskins and antler knobs the popular pendulum swings back and forth.Building an $$ bow with flawed glass will make you swear off it!

You can have pretty wood with colored glass.

OP: Purpose or value of the very thin wood lamination under the clear glass.

To be brief, fiberglass is used on the outer faces where most of the bending stress happens. The veneers hold the fiberglass apart to stiffen the limb, but take little bending. They see some longitudinal shear stress and can look nice.

So, if you've got the splash, The Javaman can set you up.

FDP: "I personally have found there is more performance difference between different sets of laminations of the same wood then there is in the performance of different laminations made from the more proven core woods in most designs. As an example I don't find there is a significant difference between a bow with Bamboo cores and bow with Maple cores."

Thanks, man. Good stuff. I believe you, but I should admit that I get a little more excited when I see bamboo.

Bear used clear glass in 1960 on the Kodiak Special Deluxe. Beautiful bows but they have their issues.

Ya...THAT clear glass wasn't too great!

"Why have so many of us become obsessed with "pretty" tools?"

That's not new. Look at the classic flintlocks with engraving and carvings. A handsome tool is a joy to own and use.

I have clear glass on my Dream Catcher bow and it is a thing of beauty. Nothing wrong with that. You're only going through this life once and anything that makes it more satisfying without harming others is a good thing.

Look at Victorian era hand tools , many are works of art meant to be used and used hard. Bows can be just a tool for some but for others admiring the wood and craftsmanship is an important part of the whole experience. Amazes me that some would complain that others enjoy something else.

I have made many bows. Some have been black glass with two core laminations. Most have been clear glass with two thin, beautiful, veneers, and then three limb cores. I mostly build r/d longbows 62”. For both kinds of bows I have preferred action bamboo or hard maple for the cores. I haven’t noticed a big difference using different cores, but what I have noticed is:

• the bows with veneers and three limb cores, while more time consuming grinding veneers and core lams and more glue lines, there is less internal stress in the wood when glued up. They bend easier when gluing being as they are thinner.

•over time the bows with more layers (veneers and 3 cores) take on less set than the bows with less, thicker laminations. Granted this set is much less than an all wood selfbow may experience, but a bow is basically a spring and all springs have fatigue over time and don’t spring back quite as far as they used to. In order to objectively measure this on bows you would need to have the form that the bow was made on and compare the shape of the bow over time to see this change. I have the form and have checked bows over the years.

•I have come to the conclusion that initially because of less internal stress and over time because of less set, that the clear glass bows with veneers and multiple (3+) limb cores have a performance edge on colored glass bows with only two limb cores. This has nothing to do with how pretty the veneers are or whether the glass is clear or colored. It has everything to do with with the fact that they maintain more of their original shape, and thus performance.

•So, IMO, if you like black or other colored glass, build the bow with as many core laminations as practical, at least 3 and maybe up to 5 or 7). You may find you will have a superb performing bow that continues that way for a very long time. If I’m not mistaken I believe bowyers Howard Hill, Harry Drake, and others, including many Asian bowyers have employed this method of construction. Our modern profit driven businesses models have gotten away from this. It really isn’t cost effective for companies like Bear to do this, and besides, their bows work good enough as is.

•My $.02

Actually many of the bowyers from history didn't use a large number of lamination in their bows. And that includes bows that had and still have a reputation of being above average performers.

Harold Groves, Jack Howard, Bob Savage, and so on.

Larry Hatfield has stated on here more than one time that according to Gordon, black had the potential to be the most troublesome due to the colorant. Clear the least troublesome because there is nothing added.

Question: does a wood veneer do anything that a layer of foam of equal thickness would not do?

I understand from Frank’s post that the veneer may add some draw weight, but that does not mean that the veneer is actually Working limb material.

Question(s) for Larry: on my Bamboo Viper, is there any glass on the back, or is that the carbon? And how thick is that layer, anyway??

And one more question… Would it make any sense to place the veneer OVER the glass as a sacrificial layer in case of the bumps, knocks, dings, and scratches that tend to accompany actual use in the field?

Last thought… Nice to see you around again, Larry. Hope you are doing well!

Good reminder Frank. I was specifically thinking of Harold Groves Spitfire when I first posted, as it is one of the smoothest and quickest bows I think I've shot. One tapered core.

Corax, Larry ain't much for carbon in a limb core. And he is picky about his carbon.

Bear has still not figured out how to do clear glass to this day. My new LES-3 limbs look like shit with streaks just like the first LES-1 limbs. The dealer sent it back once for a remake before shipping to me, and I can't imagine how bad that was. So after a 20 month wait, I still received a less than desirable bow. I won't send it back cause I'm old and don't know if I would live long enough to see an improvement.

I just got a bow from Black Widow that was flawless with only a 5 month wait.

He must be, or he wouldn’t be so good at building fast bows. ;)

But I’m pretty sure the BV is a carbon layup and I don’t know if that’s the top layer on the back or not. I assume so, but I’m not a bowyer, and I’m sure as hell not Larry. I sure don’t see any other layers in the limb that look like anything but bamboo.

Groves single tapered core in the Spitfire takedown was part of the reason they failed, in my opinion. I saw 3 sets of Spitfire limbs fail, all in the exact same spot, where the short fadeout lam ended, just beyond the wedge... right where the limb turned into a single lam. If that fadeout lam would have been a full length lam instead, making the limb a 2 wood lam limb, I feel there likely would never have been a problem. I know 3 guys who shot those bows, and 2 of them had 3 failures. The glass fatigued and failed on the backs of them because that area where it turned to single lam incurred isolated stress. I can't imagine those were isolated incidents.

3 lams in this 1940 something Grumley..5 in the riser,7 in the static tips.

Pretty sure every Dale Dye Limb I have ever seen was Red Elm or as Dale called it Medicine Wood. Edge grain on the belly for strength and flat grain on the back for eye- catching distinction.Very interesting read on him and lots of other great bowyers in the Traditional Bowyers Encyclopedia.

I built a half dozen 62 inch long bows with lam boo under clear glass. My son's idea. His design. The material came from Bingham supplies. The glue up was with Smooth on AD 40 with 3 core lams. They turned out with no streaks. Maybe good clear glass.I don't know. Some were amber core. Their was no substantial difference with smoothest of draw, or speed compared to a black glass maple core limb bow of the same design as the seller said their would be.The difference to me was that the lam boo under clear glass bows were a more expensive build.

Corax, the backing on the Bamboo Viper and Venom is linear carbon. The limb design doesn't ask the carbon to compress or elongate. To my knowledge, there has never been a failure of either. Most of the carbon is.035. We controlled the draw weight with the 3 bamboo lams. There is no carbon on the belly.

The OP is right, it is a degrade, and that is without considering the splitting and other problems.

I remember seeing clear glass on special bows like a commemorative Fred Bear bow in the early 80s? I thought it was awesome, though it was over real yew with a decent structural grain pattern.

It also shows that while people like what they like, if what they like are veneers they aren't aesthetically sophisticated. Which one has to see as a plus!

If you knew wood or bows, the idea of having a bow made of the most rank crap wood you could ever apply to a structural purpose would be anathema. It is like buying a baseball bat or paddle with a giant knot in the shaft. Of course it works due to the glass and it is just as fake as having good wood, I suppose. Massive amount of endgrain in your veneer also makes the laminate resist compression.

Another benefit is that if you have the kind of lifestyle where you like killing things, you might as well do it with a bow that features endangered species (and can be illegal to transport across international borders). Fits in with the whale skin hubcaps on your Eldorado.

I have added lots of graphite powder to epoxy and largely it doesn't seem to have much effect. I think WEST says you can add up to 20% graphite powder to epoxy without significantly reducing the strength. And it is very black with a lot less than that. With glass backing the effect would be negligible as the material is very thin and all the major loading is longitudinal. Which would be unaffected, unless one was at a place where the epoxy got very soft. The lams are a lot harder than the wood cores, so they are well within reasonable hardness.

So I don't doubt the technicians claims, but they have to be withing bounderies that would have a material effect.

(Gougeon/WEST is an interesting metric because they make epoxies and additives to work in concert with wood, and they also delt with glass, linear glass, and carbon tapes on wood long before the archery guys ever caught up.)

(Does Gordon make their glass largely for archery uses, or is it a small part of their business?)

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