Gluing together handles advice.

[TreyNC]

So I have come back around to build some more bows, had great success with  a 66" black locust self bow for my wife, has some character to boot. I have played around with some laminations and backings to just see what will work and what won't for me. I have now some white oak boards that I can rip in half to get twice as many out of. So now I am asking for advice on gluing together handles, what do you guys do to make them "flow" naturally. I am not concerned with matching grain at this point only in bringing the handle up and back into to limbs since the limbs will be a uniform thickness already. My bow will be deer skin backed and taper evenly from the fades to tips to remove a lot of the tillering process, I know I am taking the fun out of it. The thickness will be around 5/8" max.

Thanks for you help!

[knightd]

What draw weight and length? What glue will you be useing?

David

[TreyNC]

The glue will be urac 185, as for length I am undecided between 68" or 66" end to end. Weight will be what ever the wood will give me, I am trying to learn species, length, width, thickness to get a feel for draw weight. Ideal would be 50-55 lbs.

[Dano]

I would make the handle area of the board 3/4" from fade to fade then taper to 5/8 so that your handle will be on elevated and in a non- bending section of the limb, this way your handle is let apt to pop off or lift at the fades. You can see what I mean on Mickey's site. http://residents.bowhunting.net/sticknstring/brdbows2.html#layout

[Pat B]

If you start with regular 1x material(3/4" thick), add a handle riser and then reduce the limbs your handle will  not pop off. The handle riser will be sitting above the bending plane of the bow and will stay stable.  By making the handle area rigid the handle won't pop off. If the handle area bends at all no matter what glue you use a solid bolck handle will pop off. If you already have the thickness reduced to almost bow thickness you will have to add a power lam and backing to keep the handle from popping off.     Pat

[TreyNC]

Looks as though I will have to modify my plans. I have not reduced the thickness yet. What I had hoped to do was plane down the board, glue on handle, taper width, glue on backing, tiller (which will be minimal) and done! I did this with some scrap for a kids, 21lb bow and it worked better than I could believe. Tillering seems to be my trouble spot and this eliminated it mostly. I guess I wanted to try something new with an easy success rate before I move on to another style. Currently my boards are 1.5"x5"x8'.

[Dano]

"I guess I wanted to try something new with an easy success rate before I move on to another style." If it was easy there wouldn't be all these sick puppies building bows.

[knightd]

You could still do it as you were wanting to but when you get to where you are going to put your backing on just put a tapered lam in the handle section under your backing..

David