Rip off one piece that measures 1¼" wide (and 1" thick). Turn it 90 degrees and cut it again, making sure to waste as little as possible in the kerf (using a thin blade). You'll get two pieces of each 1¼"x½" which is a good place to start. Leave the rest of the board intact. Use the surface you just cut as the belly, so you'll glue the smooth surface which now forms the outside faces of the board. Lightly sand with 80 grit sandpaper. Select and cut the 70" of length with the best grain or best thickness. Prep bamboo. Glue together using Titebond3 (or TB2) and wrap in bike inner tubes, mummy style. Clamp into a mild reflex/deflex shape using three clamps and a few blocks of wood. This will give you a bendy handle bow, up to maybe 50 pounds or so.
If you succeed this style of bow, you can make more intricate and more complex designs, such as:
- adding a (tapered) core of 1/8"
- adding a power lam of 18" x 1/8" and a stiff glued on handle block.
- Shorter design and more curves.
Regarding the 'quartersawn' issue... If the rings run diagonally, like the black lines you drew in the end grain shot, that will be great. Whatever you cut the board, all laminations will continue to run diagonally, or bias ringed or rift sawn. That would be my preference. However, if you end up with a perfectly quartersawn board in ipé (or any wood for that matter), any small knot or pin will run across the entire width of the belly of the bow, since knots run radially in a tree trunk from the pith outwards. This means that a tiny pin knot, unimportant in a ring chased stave, can be devastating in a quartersawn belly, as it will seriously weaken the belly since it spans the entire belly.
