BooFloo was what I started with 15 years ago. I still think it's great stuff. A few points we have learned over the years. I made a lot of bows AND a lot of failures with it over my first few years.
Use vertically laminated flooring. It is far more consistent and homogenous. Buy the NON-carmelized stuff, if you can. Originally, I got some bad info that it would be harder than the natural, like when you toast a bamboo belly, but it is carmelized with a high heat/high pressure, water/steam pressure cooking method apparently, and the natural raw stuff is far superior. Or, use what you have. It's fine, just not as stiff, takes more set.
Quality varies widely. Some of it was very heavy and dense, and some varied a lot within the box. It can be pretty heavy, but it does make a bow that feels smooth to draw and damp in the hand at the shot.
It DOES take a lot of set, but that IS also a design issue. Not much more than a lot of softer woods like elm, though. Boofloo is not as stiff as most woods used for bellies, like ipe, massaranduba, and osage, so they often end up thicker as well as wider, and I think this contributes to set. It acts different from regular wood, and seems to not actually fret or compression fracture until WAY over-strained in one small area. It's less likely to fail outright or completely. I have made some BADLY hinged bows, or bows with WAY too much bend in the inner limbs that survived (but they kinda sucked, too). But, it will settle, more than most woods. For this reason, bamboo R/D bows were made a lot over on stickbow.com, where the bow was put into a slightly exaggerated bow form, in two gluing sessions: backing to tapered core, and then belly, or Perry reflexed where the backings were purposely left a bit thicker, like 3/16, and the glue up had a LOT of R/D, expecting to lose a lot of it. But, the set thing ws never really nailed down as to cause, and a lot of guys say they didn't have trouble with it.
Hickory is probably a great match, just like bamboo is, and should make layout a snap. I have also backed it with linen once making bows with the scouts. Just glued up pyramid bow blanks with linen backs in slight reflex and thinned them to draw weight. The epoxy finish with aluminum oxide in it eats tools, so if you can find a way to get your blades up under it, that helps. It usually comes in 5/8" thicknesses, but 1/2" belly lam with a 1/8" backing should be plenty for straight bows and a little less for R/D.
