Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: BrokenArrow on April 28, 2014, 03:46:40 pm
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What combo of wood works the best for a backed board bow?
I had a maple backed black walnut core bow blow up at full draw after about shooting 200-300 shots.
I have had better luck with hickory backed on either ash, hickory or jatoba (brazilian cherry).
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for a hard backer personally, in order, maple, white oak, hickory, boo
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How do you define "works the best"? Does that mean: "does not break", or "shoots the most pleasantly" or "shoots the fastest" or "most bang for bucks"?
If there was just one combination that is the best, everyone would be using that combination and nothing else. It's obviously not as simple as that. There are soooo many factors to take into account. I could advice you to use Mongolian tulipwood, but if you don't live in Mongolia this advice would be totally useless.
In general, the best performing bows require a design that matches the belly wood's mechanical properties to the backing wood's properties. Hence, a maple backed walnut flatbow has a better performance than a hickory backed ash ELB. Maple is also a better backing wood for walnut in general than hickory, since the higher tensile strength of the hickory can overpower the walnut belly. Some typical, well matched combos are bamboo/hickory backed ipé, maple/ash backed walnut, maple/ash backed jatoba.
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The fastest hardest hitting bow that's ever been through my shop and also made from a board was a 63"ntn 1 1/8"wide bamboo backed ipe. With slightly flipped tips.
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Most failed backings is generally the person that obtained the backing. If you make or choose a good backing it really shouldn't break.
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BA, many times I'll just take a hickory board, rip a piece off, run the cut side through the planer, flip the first piece over and glue it back on. Hickory on hickory.
Love it.
Knapper
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if you have any before blowup and after post the pics so we can see what happened
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BA, many times I'll just take a hickory board, rip a piece off, run the cut side through the planer, flip the first piece over and glue it back on. Hickory on hickory.
Love it.
Knapper
Dude. That's cool. I believe you have explained that many times before but I like the concept.
brokenarrow -
What ever you use for a backing....any of the previously mentioned woods make sure the grain is straight, straight, straight.
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One of my favorite combinations is hickory backed jatoba. I use hickory pretty exclusively as a backing material just because of where I am, it's available, cheap, and AWESOME.... But I've also used hickory and purpleheart, hickory and red oak, and even a few hickory backed hickory - the glue up there just so that I could get some reflex into the bow.
Still, my personal favorite has got to be hickory and jatoba!