titebond for gluing up

[Lee Lobbestael]

I'm making a bamboo backed red oak r/d bow and am about to glue up. My question is can I use titebond to glue the bamboo to the red oak?

[Bow Nut]

I have heard of some success stories with tite bond and bamboo but have heard of more failed stories.  Bamboo with my personal experience does not like titebond at all I tried one with titebond one time and it delaminated about half way through tillering.  I have used urac and bow bond with 100 percent success and never one delamination failure.  but like I said it has worked for some people.  hickory backings on the other hand does much better than bamboo with titebond but either way my personal opinion is go with urac it is the best for wood to wood and with any wood.

[SEMO_HUNTER]

I would suggest using a glue designed to take the stress of a bamboo backing and that glue is Urac. Don't frustrate yourself right from the git go by using the wrong glue for the job. I've never had a backing fail using Urac, just my 2 cents.

I have used Tite Bond II for handles and tips, but if you use TB glues you can't heat the wood to take out any camber or twist because the TB glues will release at around 150 deg.F so keep that in mind.

[PEARL DRUMS]

URAC for sure and be darn sure you thin that bamboo down very thin. The oak will chrysal like a bugger if you dont. Bamboo is very potent stuff.

[MWirwicki]

So, where do you get Urac?

[Pat B]

Nelson Paint Co. or 3Rivers

[mikekeswick]

I've had no problems at all with titebond iii, ever! Excellent glue and more than capable of holding together a bamboo backed bow. I have made knocking on for 100 bamboo backed laminates of many different designs and have used titebond iii for most of them. Another excellent glue would be resourcinol.
Coat both sides of the joint eg. bamboo and wood.
If using clamps DO NOT go mad with the pressure applied to joint.
If using inner tubes no worries wrap away - one clockwise and one anti-clockwise.
You should never need to heat a laminated bow anyway if you've choosen good wood and cut it straight? Any twist would be because it's not cut straight or wood removal hasn't been even.

[Stingray45]

I've never heard of using titebond with bamboo so I can't comment but I just recently did one bamboo backed hackberry with epoxy and another bamboo backed ash bow with gorilla glue. I saw a build-a-long on youtube where the guy used gorilla glue and it seemed to work pretty well. I haven't started tillering out the bows yet so I will report back on how it goes.

[Tower]

I've only built one bow. It's a bamboo backed hickory bow & I used titebond3 . It has not given me any problems. There are 3 types of titebond glue and from what I've read #3 is better than the first two. But a more experienced builder may feel differently about it.

[hillbilly61]

2 BBO, 1 BBH, and 3 BBI No failures and only use TBII. My philosophy is, if it can hold up the the Boo/IPE combonation, it's worth using. I do use the innertubes (thanks Rich) and they do better than clamps. plus they are easier to use

[Stingray45]

Gotta agree with hillbilly on the intertubes. I went to it recently and it does a GREAT job of getting you even pressure to make sure you don't have any voids between backing and bow.