Before glue up, I want to score the back of the bow and the belly of the boo. I do this by clamping a jig saw blade in a vice and running the bow and booover it. When using epoxy, you have to score it. Epoxy is not a penetrating glue. I have had people tell me you can use tite bond on ipe and boo, but I dont trust it. Ipe is a dense oily wood, so I play it safe and use a good, two part epoxy. Im using bow grip 100, which is a great glue. But if you do not bake it, dont use it. It will soften on you if you do not bake it. urac or smooth-on would probably be better if you chose not to bake the bow. And if you look to the right side of this pic, you will see my tip overlays in their natural state.







Something else you have to do with oily woods is to clean them with acetone. I do this by just wipeing the back of the bow and belly of the boo with it.



Just before glue up, I tape the bow with painters tape. I usually dont cut out the limb design till after glue up and trim the goop off when I cut out the shape, but since im pushing for a heavy bow, I needed to cut them out early to floor tiller and get the bow so it will bend into its shape. I tape every part of the bow that will not recieve glue. Ive found an ounce of prevention will prevent hours of cussing during clean up. Also, if you notice the red marks on the blue tape, those are my midlines of the boo and bow. That way I can keep them lined up.





Now, I put bow grip 100 on both the back of the bow and belly of the boo while I have the bow in a vice. I then use a few strips of black electric tape to hold the two in place and wrape the whole thing in saran wrap. This will keep the wood from drying out while in the oven.



Now for my super special clamping system. I hate dealing with lots of spring clamps or c-clamps, so I use bike inner tubes. I start wraping them around the bow from the grip on out. Inner tubes will give a good even pressure, prevent the wood from slipping, and give great glue lines. I even use them on lam bows with a set form. I just wrape the tube around the bow and the form. Works great.




Now that it is all wraped up and snug, its off to my make shift form. I simply take extra care in measureing the amount the clamps travel, the ones12" from thetips, and keep them even. I stoped when I thought it looked good and measured how far the the bow was from the 2X4 just under the clamp and did like wise on the opposite end.




Now to the easy bake oven for about 6-10 hours of cooking at 160-180 degrees,