This may not answer your question but to give you a idea of how a little amount of this wood can make a very heavy bow I just glued up a boo backed Ipe bow I havent started takeing wood off yet just band sawed down to a starting point and I can barely get it to budge at all with push pull method. Its 66" long, limbs are 1 1/8 wide tapering to 3/8 at the tips the (thickness) of just the ipe is 1/2" off of the grip at the widest part of the limb to 3/8 at the tips, I dont think I would have a problem easily building a 100# bow at my draw length 24" if I wanted to pull that much weight, but im only going for 60# or so, so I will have to remove a good bit of wood throughout the tillering process. Also you can see my boo backing is tapered from 3/16 at the grip to just a hair more than a 1/16 at the tips so its really not adding much to it being so stiff. Just want to give you an idea of how little is needed for a heavy bow. sorry the pictures arent great
thanks for showing me that, i guess i underestimated how dense ipe really is, as i haven't actually gotten my hands on any yet, i cant wait to try to use some though. how are its characteristics compared to Osage, thats what i have mostly used so far, with a few exceptions. good luck on that bow, it sounds like it will turn out great, know if i could only find a way to launch a fishing lure out with an arrow my life would be complete
thanks everyone for all the advice
noel