Bow repair question

[Wylden Freeborne]

Hey All!
I recently had a guy ask me about bows, and wanted to look into purchasing one of my Yew bows. I trecked down the mountain with bow in tow and let the guy loose some arrows from her. After some talk, turns out he does not have money for the bow at this time, but would like me to fix a broken bow of his. The bow in question is a 1947 Fred Bear Lemonwood longbow, sinew backed with some stacked wood handle grip riser. The stacked wood is what has come apart. looks relatively simple, but thought I would ask which sort of glue would be reccomended for lemonwood. I looked around for a similar bow and learned only that it is most likely NOT a Nells Grumley bow, as he didn't make too many lemonwood bows, and there is no identiofying stamps as to the bowyer, making it hard to figure out what was used orginally.

I said I will fix it the best i can, but thought a bit of advice from the PA roundtable would be quite useful.

[Dvshunter]

Unibond 800 or to rescourcnol.

[mikekeswick]

Remember that all wood glues work by 'soaking' into the wood (also known as wetting the surfaces) to a degree.
So when it comes to gluing on a new piece or attempting to 'reglue' the original then the mating surfaces will already have been glued (of course!) and therefore the surfaces and pores of the wood are 'filled'....so you need to rework the surface and expose fresh wood.
With that in mind you've got to think why it delaminated in the first place. Without seeing the bow it's hard to tell  but gluing risers on can turn out to not quite be as simple as it may first appear! Don't ask how I know.....
As for glue then any of the glues regularly used for laminated bows will work fine just follow the spec sheet as to preparation of the surfaces to be glued.
My choice would be resourcinol or titebond 3.

[crooketarrow]

  Here's some advice thats wort it's weight in gold.
  I take my heat gun and slowly warm the glue as well as the wood that needs fixed. NOT HOT, HOT. Then glue,clamp and let it a couple days before you put any kind of pressure on the fixed part.
  I KNOW IT WILL TELL YOU A DRYING TIME. NO RUSH DOBBLE THE DRYING TIME. NO GLUE WORKS IT'S BEST COLD.

[Gordon]

Separate completely the delaminated pieces. Remove all traces of the old glue and reflatten the pieces if necessary. If you have good mating surfaces use titebond with moderate clamping pressure.

[koan]

I wouldnt shoot a 47 lemowood bow with sinew... theres a reason the handle popped off.... Wall hanger or even museum peice IMO... I would hate to destroy a part of history.... Brian

[juniper junkie]

Michael, is there a stamp on the bow that tells you it is a bear bow? or is it written? does it have a logo on the upper limb back? I would lean toward not messing with the bow as it has some value as a collector. bear didnt do too much sinew on production bows he used a material called fortisan for a lot of the backing, then later used fiberglass. sinew was too time consuming. check out ebay to see what those bows are selling for. there is a huge bear collectors market and the wood could be too brittle to hold up to shooting, since it dried out enough to have the handle pop loose. if it breaks then the value is gone. maybe you could trade a bow you made for this one and sell it. if you can get a pic that would help.