Reflexed bamboo Ipe 65'' longbow nearly finished

[adams89]

Just started a new project today. I sawed out the Ipe belly lam , smoothed and reduced the bamboo (moso) laminate and roughed up the surfaces and glued the bow (wrapped in flexfoil) in a pretty good reflex  of 1 1/2 inches. The core wood has a pretty crazy grain, i hope it'll all hold up well.
After gluing everything up with epoxy and the help of my dad, it went in the hotbox.

Anew thing for me today was using leftover pieces from the bamboo to help even out the pressure on the bamboo laminate while clamping down. it works good.

I am aiming for a static handle, small tipped, short, longbow design  around 50-60 pounds

If anyone is interested in anything just let me know.

[adams89]

Of to the Hotbox!!

[adams89]

the reflex

[arachnid]

How thick is your belly lam (the ipe)? If you didn`t already thinned it down, do remember to cut the fades into the ipe or the handle will pop out.
About the reflex, from my (short) experience with ipe, 1 1/2" of reflex will get flat while tillering. That good if you want a flatbow with minimum to no
string follow. Not as good if you want a reflexed bow. I`d glue ipe with a reflex of 5-6" to get 1 1/2" of reflex after tillering.
Other then that, it looks good.
Good luck man!

[adams89]

It's not thinned down jet, yes I will thin the fades I'm thinking about yew because of the nice contrast. the belly lam is 20 mm thick.
as for the reflex I'm not aiming for a steady reflex, just for a good inner (Perry) reflex and a hard twang.
The only thing about the bow i'm a little worried is the Ipe itself the grain runs out of the bow on parts of the bow ( couldn't get any better wood) I'm not worried about it breaking just about the compression on the grain...

[arachnid]

If you have good backing (and bamboo is good backing.... assuming it won`t explode...) the
grain runoffs on the belly should`nt be a problem. Straight grain IS importent, but the belly is more
forgiving to bad grain.
Hope it holds up. Keep us posted.

[Springbuck]

   I have had grain ruin several bellies, but the angles of the run off were pretty high, like over 20 degrees, and the grain ran sharply front to back on those.  Ipe is tough stuff.  Yours looks fine from what I can see, moves around a lot, but doesn't seem to run off to op sharply, to me.   I guess it is what ya miss seeing that kills ya!  Ha!.

Good luck.

[adams89]

they run of pretty sharp, but as you can see in the picture I have a Osage stave waiting to be backed with bamboo to dry my tears if this won't work

[adams89]

the bow still has nearly all of his reflex, and is about 65-70 pounds if finished tillering pretty quick worked all of it with planes and drawknives, arrowrest and tips are camelbone.

[adams89]

did a little paintjob on the bow the draw pick is sill in the tillering phase.
I hope you guys can follow allong.

I will probably post the hole bow plus the money shoot in a few days 

[adams89]

a little tease, still needs a nice handle etc...

[ajooter]

It seems like the inner thirds of both limbs are a little stiff.  I really like the finish work so far.  The strike plate and back designs are awesome.  Nice follow along!

[adams89]

it looks like that but the inner thirds are not stiff, that is because of the perry relflex .

[PatM]

Perry reflex does not mean it shouldn't still bend.

[Aaron H]

Looks great, but I agree that it needs to bend a little more out of the fades. Sweet finish work though