burniegoeasily

Not quite a pyramid. My limb is the full thickness, or width if you will, up to 4" past the fades. there is where I do the pyramid. Kind of a hybrid. Im going with thin limbs, since this is ipe, to help increase limb speed. This bow will be a mix of all kinds of goodies. The deflexed mid portion will make the bow shoot like a riser forward. More so than a deflexed limb bow.


Kanga, I could use a cheap jointer. 79 bucks is cheap.

Kanga

Sent you the link via PM

burniegoeasily

Oh, I forgot to answer part of your question. Yes, i cut my belly taper with a band saw. I cut up to my ref. line and then use the belt sander to smooth it out and to take it right up to my ref. line.

bigcountry

Ok, I went back and reread it. Must be some careful bandsawing if you are taper the belly from 1/4 on one side to 3/8" near the fades.

How are you floor tillering? Would it be easy to break or raise a splinter on IPE without backing on? I assume this is not perfect grain.

burniegoeasily

Yep, you have to be careful when cutting your belly. I cut all my bellys with a band saw, even selfbows. The key is to mark your taper and dont cut up to your line.

Floor tillering is just that. Its where you put the tip of of the bow on the ground, hold the opposite tip, and press the belly of the bow in the middle. You look at the arch it makes. If you long string tiller, this is the same thing, just on the floor. I floor tiller all my bellys. It is by no means full tillering. It just gets the limbs to bending and that is it.

As for splinters. Ipe has pretty good grain since it is a tropical wood. Its grain is tight, dense and long. I have never heard of a person using ipe for a selfbow. In my experience, it is always backed with something. It is a great wood for bamboo. Boo cannot over power it, and since it is so dense, it works great for narrow limb designs. Making quick, snappy bows. Just to give you an idea of how dense it is. The same profile osage bow I make is 1 1/2 inch off the fades. I taper from 12" pasted the fades for the limb tapers.

bigcountry

Ok, I was thinking, these boards you get, had grain all over the place. And you didn't care because you only want it for compression only. I know for Osage, it would break if you tried to floor tiller or bend without following the grain perfectly or without backing.

If you were to make a BBO, would you also try to floor tiller the core osage? Also, with IPE, is the tiller pretty close if you get the core the same dimensions. In other words, I have seen Osage from limbs that the same dimensions sure won't make the same strength limbs.

burniegoeasily

I floor tiller every core. You dont bend it much, just enough to seewhat the limbs are doing. Just bearly bending them. If I had to guess how much limbtravelit would equal, I guess about 3-4" or less.

As for Ipe, it is pretty uniform since it is tropical. Just like any wood, the denser it is, less bell you will need. And you are right about Osage. Argentine tends to be a little different than American. And two peices never tend to be the same comparing them to the equal. Or from what ive noticed.I never try to get my tappers perfect, I have just a ball park I try to hit. That way ill have plenty of wood to insure I get the weight I want when i tiller.

burniegoeasily

Got home and did a little more work.


Took the core out of the form.



For the riser, im going to use some of the Osage I cleaned up yesterday.


I split the block so I can add a walnut accent strip.


I also riped a piece of black walnut, that ill be using for the accent strip. I took the strip and ran it through my nifty homemade lam grinder. Actually its just my belt sander with an adjustible table I built on the bottom.


Here im grinding the walnut to get it all smooth and even for the glue up.



I forgot to take a pic of the glue up. Its nothing great, I just sandwitched the walnut between the two halves of the osage and clamped it together with c-clams. While the riser block is drying, ill cut and grind my belly lams.

I riped another piece of my Ipe board to 3/16". I cut it in half and run the two lams through my lam grinder and grind them down to 1/8".


Im pretty much done for tonight. Ill wait till tomorrow to shape the riser and glue up the riser and belly lams.

About all there is to do now is wait. In the mean time, ill scrap some of the rind off of the boo with a cabinet scraper.

bigcountry

Now, I thought once you told me you can't stick a grip on a bow that is not stiff enough to begin with or it will pop off? You ain't sharin all your secrets.

In other words, it looks like your handle section is not very stiff now. Won't the handle pop off?

burniegoeasily

Wow, what happen. The pictures didnt go with the story. I got it fixed now. It should make more sense.

Today I cleaned up the handle piece.




As you can see the handle dosent quite fit the core. Ill have to trace off the deflex onto my block and use the bandsaw and beltsander to get it to fite all nice and snug.



What I have to do next is to mark off the center, fades, and grip on my block.


Now for the fun part. Marking off the fades and cut them out with the bandsaw and then beltsanding them exactly the same.
You have to sand down the fades to where they are paper thin or your belly lam with gap.



You might ask why I made it so thin? I had a brain fart and decided to run the lams up the riser and glue on a handle block tomorrow. It will make more sense when I show you.


Now time to glue up the rise and belly lams. First clamp my rise and lams on the way I want. Just using spring clamps. I trace off the limbs onto my belly lams and cut them out with the bandsaw.




I wipe the belly lams and core belly with acetone. I tape off the belly with painters tape and begin the glue up. I first get the rise in place and clamp it.



I then put glue on the belly lams and clamp them down with innertubs.


I put it back in the form just to hold in the shape it already has. I have had a little reflex pulled out, in the past, when I didnt put it back in the form while the belly lams dried. Sometimes, ive even added some reflex this way.