Advice needed on a raw boo belly.

[wytetale]

Weekend project,going to start a new tri-lam with a raw boo belly. Want it to be between 45 and 50lbs 64" long. On a normal tri-lam I would make my core 1/4" tapered to about an 1/8 and add a belly lam about an 1/8". Question will the raw boo about an 1/8" add more or less weight than say an Osage lam. What I'm going to do is glue up the  core wood and boo back, tiller it to about 30# at 28" and then glue the raw boo on the belly. Then I should be be close with the tiller and just have to take a bit off to get it were I want it. I heard that you should temper the raw boo belly, is that necessary, can you do it with a heat gun? Any advise would be helpful thanks

[radius]

god, that sounds like alot of work, man!i

i have been copying your buildalong all week, and i now have 4 r/d blanks with the belly lams glued on...all just waiting to go...I was coming in under the 50# mark with pyramid style bows, so these ones all are wide-ish out to midlimb or so...actually, the taper begins where the recurve begins...

but i didn't pre-tiller any of them.  I glued the backing and core into shape, then shaped and attached a riser, then shaped the fades and lam'd on the bellies...the most i did was to cut the basic shape out of them; you can still see the lines on the back...all the work of tillering is still ahead of me...

I look forward to seeing how the bamboo works out for you as a belly...why not try it a couple ways at once and compare the results?

[wytetale]

I dont pre tiller my d/r either but on this im going to because I cant take any more off the belly after it glued up, so I want to get it as close as i can .

[radius]

so if it's too stiff after pretiller and the added bamboo belly lam...i guess you'll just take wood off the sides?  I had good success using a goosneck scraper and rounding the belly and the back...

[mullet]

  You need some advice from James Parker,(robustus) He has the taper down to a science.

[Ryano]

My brother makes these type of bows all the time. Sounds like your on the right track. I believe he tapers both boo strips and the core before glue up. The hard part is coming up with a specific draw weight since each kind of wood you use for a core seems to change the bend strength. I think it just takes a few bows, trial and error to get it all worked out. He tempers the boo on the belly in front of the glass window of his wood stove in the winter time. I think he uses a heat gun in the warmer months though. He tempers the belly after the bow is all glued up. The urac 185 glue isnt efected by the heat.

Email him if you want. lvlongbows@velocity.net