Alignment help on BBI recurve

[Dan K]

Finally got my short string on my BBI recurve and found it is way out of alignment.

  I fear it is caused by the glue up because the Ipe is so flat and relatively easy to tiller.  It seamed to pul straight and smooth on the long string.  Now, I've never worked with Ipe nor have I every backed a bow so I'm in new territory here.  I glued it with Titebond III



  What are the potential causes for this and is there anything I can do to correct it?  If you need more pics let me know what you want to see and thanks for any help you can give me.

[M-P]

Howdy,  It looks to me like the limb pointing to the camera is twisting to the picture's left.  More over it looks like the twist is in the mid-limb.  I'm guessing this is because one edge ( the side the tip twists away from) is weaker than the other.  It wouldn't show up much in a straight limbed bow, or be nearly as likely in a narrow bow.  The correction is to thin the overly strong side of the limb. Then adjust tiller all over again, then sigh because your bow is now under weight, then.......  Well I hope I'm wrong on all that last part.     Ron

[blackhawk]

Can you show a unbraced side view,and a front profile view and how wide it is? You might be losing lateral stability as well to what m-p stated...

[Joec123able]

Is the limb still twisted when you unstring it ??

[PEARL DRUMS]

Check your side to side thickness for consistency.

[bushboy]

In my experience it pretty hard to fix,thinning one side might work? I leave my tips 3/4" on recurves to the very last so I can trim them if alignment is an issue

[bushboy]

It was prob glued in alittle crooked.if trimming it on the belly side dosen't take it all out ,you could pike it a bit to where you have more meat to work with and move our center over opposite on both tiPs.

[artcher1]

Put some heat to it and start twisting. No good the way it is! Tite-bond glue will take more heat than you think. But it's probably not going to take all that much heat to get it to move. Luck............Art B

[aaron]

other than what's already been mentioned, you could cut it and splice it back together at the handle or do a takedown. I think the key to deciding what to do is deciding why it's like that:
is it srtaight when unstrung? if so then like others said, you may have one dege of the belly thicker than the other.
is it crooked when unstrung? if so then you maybe glued it crooked?

[Dan K]

Thanks for all the feed back.  Bin gone all day and just had a chance to post some more pics.

The correction is to thin the overly strong side of the limb. Then adjust tiller all over again, then sigh because your bow is now under weight, then.......  Well I hope I'm wrong on all that last part.     Ron

Thanks Ron, It is braced at about 50# so I have plenty to work with.  I can start here and see what happens.  If it works great, if not, I can try something else.

Can you show a unbraced side view,and a front profile view and how wide it is? You might be losing lateral stability as well to what m-p stated...

Here's some front views (sorry for the mess)


The tip furthest from the camera is the problem.  It bends to the right when unbraced.


It measures 1 1/4" at the handle and gradually tapers to 1/2"at the overlay tips.  It's 13/16" at the base of the recurve.

Can you show a unbraced side view,and a front profile view and how wide it is? You might be losing lateral stability as well to what m-p stated...

Thanks Blackhawk, can you expand a bit on the lateral stability?
Thanks Joec123able, check the pics, it's twisting pretty bad actually.

Check your side to side thickness for consistency.

PD, I think it's in the glue up not the tillering.  I checked the belly and it's really flat and symmetrical from side to side throughout the length of the bow.  How far out does it need to be to cause this much twist?

I think your right Bushboy, it was glued up a bit out of alignment.  It wasn't as bad at first as it is now so maybe there's a compounded problem.  If I pike it, I will lose the recurve so not sure I want to do that...yet!

Put some heat to it and start twisting. No good the way it is! Tite-bond glue will take more heat than you think. But it's probably not going to take all that much heat to get it to move. Luck............Art B

I'm thinking this would address the root cause but not sure if the laminate will make it Art.  Have you done this before?

Yep aaron the take down is not a bad option and will be the final decision for sure.
I'm thinking if it's mainly caused by the glue up, I should heat straight first to address the main cause. 

Does anyone have any guidance how to heat straighten a backed recurve with out breaking the bond on the bamboo?

[Del the cat]

Was it shaped before glue up or was it nice wide lams glued up and then cut to shape?
Del

[Bryce]

From the looks of the unbraced. The glue up is to blame:( sorry buddy.

[blackhawk]

Yup...majority bad glue up...try to make sure everything is aligned and in the same plane when gkuin up....also the narrowness at the base of a sharp reflex bend so far from the tips isn't helping things either and making it pull out of line even more because the string isn't tracking true down the center of the bow...and it is causing undue stress now to only the side of the belly over stressing that area...try to make your reflex more spread out and not so sharp confined to one spot...the string has to track dead center with that kind of a profile otherwise it will want to flip the string off(losing lateral stability)....I have made subtle corrections with dry heat on tbIII glue up..but they were osage bellied,and osage takes and responds to heat and change a whole lot easier than ipe...so I can't comment on whether not that will work or not...I know it doesn't respond well at all to heat pre glue up.....

[artcher1]

I've not used the TB glue with that combo Dan. But that glue may be your saving grace here. Like Chris stated, if that were Osage it wouldn't be a problem. Ipe don't respond well with heat. So you may have to hope that you can make the correction by softening the glue and repositioning the components.

I just had a friend make a 3hr drive to do a 5min correction on a bow very similar to yours. However, it was boo backed Osage. I think he was dumb-founded at how easy it was. Course I'm not the timid type when working on other's bows ! Art B

[Dan K]

Was it shaped before glue up or was it nice wide lams glued up and then cut to shape?
Del

It was glued up full width 1 1/4" Del.