High Performance R/D Bow

Alot of people are making what many call R/D bows these days. I consider them more as D/R bows because, to me, a bow starts at the handle with the limbs flowing out from there. Most of these bows are a simple composites because they are usually an assembly of two separate parts: the core wood and the wooden backing strip. These two parts are glued up into the required shape. The "D" in such bows stands for deflex. The deflex angles the limbs in towards the archer at the handle. Deflex can be glued in with the backing strip or through the use of billets, and it can be moderate or severe. Quite often, the more severe deflex is glued in with billets. I always glue deflex in regardless of whether it is a mild or highly deflexed bow, mainly because I find it is much easier to do and has a better end result.

The "R" stands for reflex which is what is done to limbs to make them curve away from the archer; generally the bow is reflexed a few inches. Reflex is also often glued in. However, I often reflex a bow's limbs through a combination of heat and glue, especially when I am working with a white wood or Osage (heat reflex first, then glue in more reflex with the backing). The very dense tropical wood species do not react well to high heat so these are strictly glued-in reflex. Reflex allows the bow to store a certain amount of energy at brace and results in the high string tension needed for high performance. The more reflex, the higher the string tension. There is a point of diminishing return when reflexing though, and sometimes too much reflex can introduce instability in the limbs. This instability can give one fits; as a rule, I try to keep the overall glued-in reflex to less than seven inches. These types of bows have the potential for very high performance, but sadly many of them are made in a less than optimum profile.

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