Third Time is the charm

[1Brotherbill]

Third crack at a bow and I have something that can shoot an arrow. 

Now I have some questions about what I have.   

The bow is a laminate of Red Oak and White Ash.  I took a 2" x 1/4" x 62" piece of Red Oak and glued it to a 2" x 1" x 62" piece of White Ash.  I also had a twelve inch piece of White Ash glued to the belly at the mid point for the handle.  As it turned out I could have went with a smaller piece of White Ash because I ended up tillering off most of the White Ash to get a good weight. 

Bow pattern tapers out to the nocks form the handle.  Draw weight is light around 25 lbs.  Measures about 61" ntn.  I didn't put a scale on it because I wanted to make a bow that was light enough for my girlfriend to shoot.  She is scared to death of shooting a bow.  Anyway, this one does shoot and she could probably shoot it without to much trouble. 

Ok first question.  Is White Ash a good wood for belly material?  From what I'm seeing it probably isn't.  I was getting some compression wrinkles on the belly while I was tillering it. 

Next question.  I read all over the place that the rule of thumb for a long bow is that the string should be 3 inches shorter that bow length.  How do you get a good brace height with that?

Final question do you get a lot of string slap with a long bow with such a short brace height?

I'll try and post some pics in the future when I get them. 

[ionicmuffin]

Well, the bow seems to be about what she could draw. so... the string, just wing it, i use my thumbs up method, if its too high i lower it, if its too low i raise it.(thumbs up is doing a thumbs up and placing the base of your fist on the bow handle and the thumb should touch the string.) over all i suggest getting a wrist guard for her since i have a high brace height bow and its got tons of string slap, yet with a bow with low brace height same thing happens to me. i think that i would have just made it all red oak if i were you, its not hard to do when its 3/4" thick. But in any case the bow is done, i think ash is a tension wood, i would have flipped the sides around because so far i have not seen oak have problems with compression at lower weights.