How do you fix this?!?!

[Prarie Bowyer]

Man, I took a break from bow making and now coming back I can't do it!  I've goofed up so many bows over the last two weeks.   . The best was the tip flipped the wrong way.

Sorry no pics.   Ipe flat American long bow.  I planned to do an elb bamboo tri lam first.  But later changed my mind and used the off cuts to laminate a riser section.  I tried to grind in my fades into the belly wood so they wouldn't flex as shown on the "poor folks bows" page but I didn't want to go too far because my belly was already cut thin.

I laminated on the riser with gorilla hide glue.  Got it bending and looking nice.  Rawhide backed (thanks Fred Arnold) and that came out awesome.

Getting ready to put the short string on it and I notice that I can feel the fade tips suddenly.

If I gently back bend the riser section I can see they lifted by like an inch or so.  One side opens up if I twist on the riser.

IM thinking to fix this I need to get a putty knife under there and pop the riser off.  Possibly heat it?  Then send scrape the area and reglue with something like urac or even an epoxy?  Possibly even add a softer wood lam between the ipe layers?  Sugar maple would match the core.

Or is there some super thin and super strong superglue that can be squirted in there, reclamp and be good to go?

I love how the bow is coming out so far.... This aside.  I'd like to save it as it is.  No agenda in draw weights.  Goal is beautiful, functional bow.

[mikekeswick]

If it's come off once the design is at fault....without seeing pictures it sounds like the belly lam is too thin. It wants to be an 1/8th thicker than the required final limb thickness out of the fades.
That said i'm not a fan of gorilla glue anyway....I think that stuff is ok but not upto the high loads experienced at the fades. Remember that is the most highly strained part of a bow....alll the forces there are trying to pop those handle pieces off when the belly lam is too thin.
If you must use thin belly lams then a powerlam is the way to go - extending well past the fades....however you can still get problems if it's too thin.....and no glue will hold on a badly designed handle section.

[Eric Krewson]

Bad choice of glues, that is your problem. Pop or cut the handle off and re-glue the pieces with TB3. If your handle pops off with a good glue your handle design is wrong.

[PatM]

I didn't even know they made glue with gorilla hides.

[bubby]

I didn't even know they made glue with gorilla hides.

Lmao good one pat

[Prarie Bowyer]

I'm not a fan of their glues now either.  I think the urethane glue was great for some purposes (nothing bow related).  Actually their 5 min epoxy seems to take forever to cure and dries kinda rubbery I think also.

I thought I ground into the belly lam about an 1/8th inch.  I've got a bit left and I keep going further. 

I've never had to use a power lam before doing the above.  I know the belly is probably a bit thin ... which is relative considering it is Ipe.  The issue is I didn't use a great glue figuirng that it wouldn't bend there at all given the ground in fades. 

Question is am I at the point of pulling the handle off and regluing it?  Should I add another layer of something right there?

[Prarie Bowyer]

I think i'm going wrap the fades  but also i'll pop it off and use Urac to reglu it.

You think thin loc tight would lock them down? 

[Prarie Bowyer]

I starved the glue joint. 

putty knife popped the riser prettymuch right off.  I had to work for it but it came of cleanly.  scratched it up on the seam and reglued it with Urac (weldwood plastic resin).

Picked up some 100% nylon thread to wrap the fades with.  Feeling optimistic again.

[Eric Krewson]

You don't need to wrap the fades, put a couple of 1/8" lams down first and then the rest of your handle section. Feather your fades into the limb gradually so they can bend easily. If you use urac and the above mentioned combination you won't have a problem.

Here is a bow I fixed with the same procedure.

[Prarie Bowyer]

NICE,

i SHOULD HAVE DONE THAT.  i URACED IT AND THEN IT POPPED OFF BUT NOT AT THE GLUE LINE.. JUST ABOVE THE GLUE LINE.  THEN I REGLUED IT LAST NIGHT AND WENT TO BED. 

planned on wrapping the riser with wire or super glue soaked nylon thread.

Guess I could saw it off.   I'll do that.  I'll saw it off and add a soft maple lam in there.

[Prarie Bowyer]

This is what I did. 

I added a lam of soft maple between the seam that kept popping off.  Glued in with 5 min epoxy for the flexability and gap filling properties it will offer.  The parts would seat back togeather but there was a void where a big splinter came out and got lost. 

after I made the glue up pretty I wrappend the whole thing in 100% nylon upholstry thread up 3/8" of the edges where the leather grip would cover.  Then I soaked all that in TB2.  I wrapped the fades in the same thread (neutral earth tones) and soaked that in the same wood glue.

I gave it a leather grip.  TO get it good and tight I soaked it in hot water after cutting it too small.  It shrank as it dried and on there tight.

The bow is working fine and shooting well. 

Unfortuantely I was talked out of it before I got  pic of it.

[George Tsoukalas]

Do you feel you are getting too complicated in your early efforts, Prarie Bowyer?
How about trying a red oak board. Just be sure it's straight grained.
Let the handle bend. No glued on pieces. Handle full width.
There's a buildalong on my site. If you go 1 3/8 you can get 40-45# if you tiller well.
No recurves, reflexing.
Jawge

http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/boardbowbuildalong.html

[Prarie Bowyer]

The issue was that I cut the belly for something else then changed my mind in mid stream. 

Shoots lovely now.