question for new glue up

[lesken2011]

I know, I know, you guys are thinkin when is this guy gonna move on to staves? Well I was gifted an osage stave from Halfeye (along with a very nice bendy handle bow, I might add), that I will be starting on soon. My crepe myrtle staves should also be dry enough to start on soon. In the meantime, I have some ipe left and was so happy with the bendy handle hickory backed ipe I made (the one with the splinter that is under repair as we speak) that I thought I would do another. I have some really straight hickory and maple backings cut as well as some rawhide gifted to me by Adam (ADB). My question is this....Is there any advantage to backing the ipe with a wood layer and then the rawhide? I understand that ipe is relatively brittle and needs a backing, but didn't know if rawhide is enough on its own or if a layer of wood in between might add further protection.

[half eye]

Ken,
    Never did an ipe with rawhide, but have used wood and bamboo and they were all really strong shooters. Dont believe that you'd go wrong with the wood backers.........but like I said ,I dont know about the rawhide, might be better, but maybe not
rich

[DarkSoul]

If the hickory or maple backing for the ipé is good and straight grained, there is no reason to apply a rawhide backing on top of that. It's mostly dead weight. Why do you consider using the rawhide?

[lesken2011]

I guess I'm a little gunshy since I had the splinter problem with the other one, although it was not top quality straight grain. I figured the rawhide would be added insurance. I'm not crazy about the looks of rawhide, but thought I might put some snakeskins on top. Maybe silk instead?

[DarkSoul]

Ipé, hickory, rawhide, silk...? Man, you're over-thinking things! Keep it simple. You can laminate as many layers as you wish, but ultimately, it is that single last outer layer that does the work. Hickory backed ipé is perfect. You could glue down some snakeskin it you like the looks of that, but skip the rawhide if you're going to use a functional backing of wood.

[lesken2011]

Thanks for the help, guys. I decided to make the leap with bamboo and save the hickory and maple for another bow. I just glued up a 60" bendy handle bamboo backed ipe with about an inch of reflex from mid-limb out to the tips. Gotta try it sometime.

[lesken2011]

OK Darksoul, I thought about your post for a couple of days. I guess my concern it the lack of a backing with the security of a single ringed back and rawhide or silk or comparable backing just seemed to be added security.

[DarkSoul]

Countless bows have been made with a quartersawn, flattened wooden backing. It has been proven time and again there is no need to use a single ringchased backing. As long as the backing you intend to use is straight grained and has no grain run out, there is no reason to be concerned about your backing. If this backing is not perfectly grained, for instance because that wood was all you could get, a silk, linen or rawhide backing might prevent a splinter from lifting from the backing. But then again, if that silk/linen/rawhide acts like the backing, what does the ill grained backing underneath that actually do? Why not make a rawhide backed ipé bow then (without the maple/hickory backing)? The more layers you glue down, the more chance of screwing up one of them. It's simply not true that more laminations make a bow less likely to fail.

[lesken2011]

I get what you mean. I guess if you were talking about a wood that is good on it's own like hickory, HHB, osage, or hard maple, and some others, potential splinters on the back might be all I would be worried about. I had heard, though, and I could be wrong, that ipe, while strong in compression, was lacking in elasticity or was somewhat brittle. If I thought that a rawhide backed ipe bow would be elastic enough, I might try that as an option. My thoughts were, that by displacing a portion of the mass of the ipe with an elastic wood like hickory or another, that the combination would be a more flexible bow overall. I'm I not thinking right?

[dbb]

A swedish guy made a longbow from a outdoor flooringboard of ipe'.
it worked out good even if he missed the weight ,i guess it depends a lot on the quality of the wood.
Here is a link,its in swedish but a picture say more than a thousend words 
http://hem.bredband.net/yng1394/ipebow.html

/Mikael

[toomanyknots]

A swedish guy made a longbow from a outdoor flooringboard of ipe'.
it worked out good even if he missed the weight ,i guess it depends a lot on the quality of the wood.
Here is a link,its in swedish but a picture say more than a thousend words 
http://hem.bredband.net/yng1394/ipebow.html

/Mikael

That bow turned out a beauty!

[lesken2011]

Hmmm. I guess maybe it's not as brittle as I thought, if you get the right piece!!

[DarkSoul]

Indigenous people living in the Amazon use a single piece of ipé for their bows. It's certainly not a brittle wood, nor is it not elastic. However, with the boards we buy, it's very hard to follow or even see the grain. Many boards have their fibers violated, which becomes most obvious in the loss of tension strength. Furthermore, ipé is a compression strong wood, meaning that the compression strength of the wood is relatively higher than the tensile strength. It will definitely work in an unbacked design (long bow, crowned belly, flat back), but it's rare to find a board that's suitable for a selfbow.
Ipé really shines with a strong backing that can work equally hard as the strong belly. That's why bamboo and hickory are frequently used. But that doesn't mean it won't work as a selfbow, or with a rawhide backing.

[lesken2011]

Thanks for the wisdom of experience you guys shared!