Recurve taper

[Bayou Ben]

I’m about to start a shorter r/d recurve and I’m wondering if I should do a reverse thickness taper let’s say 6” from the tip?  What do you guys normally do? 
I guess I could just do a normal thickness taper but leave everything thick so that I can tiller in the thickness needed for the recurves. 
The recuves will be tight as I’m trying to maximize working length.
Thanks for any advice 

[Stick Bender]

I'm just curious Ben how short of bow & how much of a recurve , where you talking changing the reverse taper in the lams them selfs or adding a wedge ?

[Bayou Ben]

I'm trying a Marc St. Louis style heavy d/r recurve.  Length I'm shooting for is 60".  I know that's not short compared to some guys standards, but for me and my 29.5" draw it will be my shortest attempt. 
Pau Amerello (yellow heart) board with bamboo backing.  So I'm going to taper the yellow heart from about .5" to about .375".  Just didn't know if it was better to add a tip wedge or just build the wedge into my initial taper (if that makes sense).  Or if I'm reading Marc's article right, he doesn't add a wedge or do a reverse taper, I think he just leaves some extra thickness so as he tillers he removes wood from the belly but leaves the recurves alone.   
It will be a short tight recurve close to maybe 70 degrees.  Not sure about exact length. 

[Stick Bender]

Sounds like a interesting build , I also have a long draw so I understand ,post as you go I would like to see this one please , yellow heart is a beautiful wood should look nice at your draw bet that bow will be peppy !

[Springbuck]

Just didn't know if it was better to add a tip wedge or just build the wedge into my initial taper (if that makes sense).

Honestly, to me a tip wedge or reverse taper like that serves basically two purposes.  One, multiple thin laminations are easier to prebend into recurves before glue-up (if I'm doing it that way).  Two, sometimes using a power-lam, a thin core, and/or tip wedges allows me to rip three instead of two (or two instead of one and a half,  or whatever) belly lams from a really nice board.  That way I can use scrap or leftovers and get one more good belly.

 Simply leaving extra thickness is just as good, and it doesn't take much.

[PatM]

How do you intend to recurve the yellowheart?  You may have no choice but to use a different method than Marc described.

[Bayou Ben]

Pat, I planned to use a heat gun.  I've bent yellow heart before with a heat gun in a R/D style and it worked well, but I haven't tried a full recurve with it. 
I did do a test on a 5/8" thick piece the other day; I wanted to see if I could steam bend the handle, so I boiled the piece for over an hour and tried to bend it and it didn't budge.  Seems to respond to the heat gun better.  I guess the higher heat? 
I'm open to suggestions though....

[PatM]

Tropicals aren't known for their sharp bending potential.  You'll probably have to do kerfing to get any sort of sharper bend and even then it may be difficult to bend to the radius you want.

 I'd go with spliced in recurves of a readily bent wood

[Bayou Ben]

It bent pretty easy when I tried it with a heat gun....Seemed very elastic.  Although it wasn't a sharp recurve.   

[Springbuck]

Interesting.  I don't think I ever used yellowheart, but a lot of tropicals that heavy truely don't like to do that.