When I picked up some Ipe last week I had a small piece of scrap left over. Figuring that I had made a servicable bow from my last piece of Red Oak scrap, I decided to give this scrap piece a try. It was 3/4" wide and 1/2" thick. I decided to make a short 20lb bow that would draw 24" since my preggo wife is having a hard time drawing the 30 lb bow I made her last week.
I cut the scrap to 48" and kept the 3/4" till mid limb and tapered to 3/8" nocks. I do have to say you have to remove a lot of wood to make ipe bend...all I can say is wow. I got the bow bending nicely and had it drawing to 23" when 2 splinters popped up on the back....guess I should have listened to what everyone said about backing Ipe in a dry climate LOL. I superglued the splinters and wrapped Dacron around the limb over the splinters. I finished taking some wood off to get the bow to 24", it is 21lbs @24" and suprisingly shoots quite fast for such a light weight bow. I'm thinking of doing some dacron wraps saturated with superglue every few inches on the limbs to hold any future splinters down. It's late so I will get some pictures to you guys tomorrow.
I'm glad I played with the scrap! I think I learned some things about the wood so I can better work with it when I start with the boo backed boards.
Thanks for listening to my mindless dribble guys.
Nate Danforth
