Gluing ipe to ipe

[bonater]

I recently finished a bamboo back ipe long bow and now after shooting it a few times, I am noticing the glued on handle is coming off.  It is an ipe handle glued directly to the ipe bow with Urac 185 making an ipe to ipe bond.  I toothed the surfaces before glue up.  I thought I had eliminated the bending through the handle by extending the fade into the belly.  I have never worked with ipe before, and I have built other bows very similarly but with different wood, but never had the handle pop off.  What glue works best with ipe, and what can I do to fix this one?   Would it help to put a lamination of a different species of wood between the two ipe pieces because I have heard ipe is notoriously hard to glue?  The bow also has a lot more hand shock than I am used to so it may be that I have more bending through the handle than I thought. 
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[bobnewboy]

After finishing the surfaces to be glued (freshly finished is best), degrease the ipe pieces thoroughly with plenty of neat acetone on a clean rag.  Repeat until the rag used no longer pulls off a noticeable amount of yellow stain (oil in the ipe surface).  I always use a resourcinol glue for oily woods like this.  Seems to work for me 

[snedeker]

I have found Ipe to be stubborn and uncooperative at times in glue up.  I'm having pretty good luck with titebond 3.  What are the specifications of your bow?  Length, etc.?

Dave

[bonater]

It is 68" long, 48#@26".  The limbs are just under 1 1/2" at the widest.  The total handle and fade out area is about 12 inches long with the glued on handle piece being about 10 inches long.  The bamboo is about 1/8" thick at the handle and tapers to about 1/6" at the nocks.  It is a r/d design bow.  It seems to be tillered well and has taken very little if any set after shooting about 200 arrows.

[Pat B]

If your handle area is bending in the slightest, the handle will pop off. Urac dries hard and would be less tollerent of any bending. In most cases that I've seen, it a bending handle area that causes the problem.
Ipe is very oily also and unless the wood is degreased well the glue may not hold. I have used Urac, TBII and TBIII on boo and hickory backed ipe bows and not had a problem with the handle popping off. Also, one remedy if the handle area is bending, even if only slightly, is to use multi layers of thin wood instead of a single piece. This seems to give a little if any bending is present.     Pat

[adb]

If you've tillered the bow to bend thru the handle, even a little bit, and then you try to glue on a handle riser, it really doesn't matter what glue you use. It won't stay on.
Leave the handle riser off, and make it a bendy handle bow. This type of bow will have a little more hand shock, all else being equal, than a non-bendy handle bow. Hand shock is also intensified with heavy tips, or a poorly tillered bow. Have you put a grip on yet? When you do, the hand shock will go way down, especially if it's a leather grip with a bit of padding under it.
I have used TB3 and epoxy with ipe for risers. Make sure you degrease first.

[snedeker]

One cool idea would be to shorten it and retiller.  I like my densewood bows on the smaller side anyway - 63: is nice.  then you can put more bend in the mid limb area.  I have found degreasing to be unnecessary with TB3 in an ipe to ipe situation.  Another thing that can help is to put a 1/8 strip of something else, may with a nice lighter color for contrast, between the ipe pieces.

Dave

[bonater]

I originally intended for it to have a non bending handle.  If I degrease and try to use a two or three flexible thin (<1/8")  lams of different wood and feather them into each other and to the glue line on the ends of the riser, will that work?  Otherwise I might just have to accept the fact that it has a slightly bendy handle and just build up the handle with leather. 

[Pat B]

The thinner lams of graduating lengths should work. I have done this on a few bows I knew bend in the handle with success.
  If you remove the riser but still want a built up handle, use shoe leather as lams for the handle riser. Two or 3 pieces should give you a good handle depth and it will bend with the bow.    Pat

[Jesse]

I am no expert but on my osage bow I just made I had a glued on ipe riser and it started to seperate. It was still on pretty good but I didnt have it to full draw yet. The solution I used was to wrap the entire handle from fade to fade. I dont think it would come of now no matter what. Even if it was a 100# bow that only bent in the fades
It is kind of ugly though     Jesse

[hawksnest88]

My neighbor and I built two hickory backed IPE board bows.  He did his lamination with TBII and it delaminated cleanly after about 50 shots.  I used smooth-on epoxy on mine, and glued up an IPE riser block with a 1/4" yellowheart stripe.  Mine is still holding well.  We re-sanded his, scraped it with our home made toothing scraper, cleaned it with alcohol a few times, reattached the 3/16" hickory backing, and the bow has a few hundred shots through it with no problems.  Bill G.