Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting How to build a laminated bow

Before I can go any futher with Josh's bow, I need to build the form that the bow will be glued together on. There are a lot of ways to go about this and forms can be made many ways but I chose a way that seemed easy to me.

I bought a nice straight 2 x 10 and traced the form that I came up with onto the wood.



Then cut it out with a jig saw.





I then went over the entire length of the curve with a square to make sure there were no twists in the form. Any irregularities were taken out by sanding.

In order to keep the form straight over time and in the heat of the oven box, I screwed a few 2x4's along both sides. They will also act as feet to keep the form from tipping over. Next, I covered the entire curve with a piece of 1/8th inch thick by 1 1/2 wide aluminum strip. This will make the the curve a much better surface to build the laminations on and it will be more repeatable should I want to build more bows from this form. This form will build bows up to 70 inches in length. This bow will be a 66 inch model.





I need to drill a bunch of clamp holes along the curve for the spring clamps.

When I assemble the bow, I plan to use spring clamps to compress all the layers of wood, fiberglass and epoxy together.

I drilled big round holes and then used a jig saw to square up the side of the hole closest to the top surface. This will give the clamps a little more room.



[img]http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c239/212007154/josh%20bow/joshbow117.jpg[/img]

I will use one clamp on each side of the limb. Like this.

[img]http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c239/212007154/josh%20bow/joshbow118.jpg[/img]

I also got a package in the mail today from Old Master Crafter of Waukegan, IL. I ordered the wood laminations a few days ago and these things showed up a lot faster than I was told they would. (Great Service) It does not look like much for about $60 but what it is, is 6 taper ground action wood strips that are .065" thin on one end that taper at .001" per inch of length. The strips are 36 inches long and 1 1/2 inches wide. they came protected by two nice looking strips of Zebra wood. I will use them for knife handles at a later date.

[img]http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c239/212007154/josh%20bow/joshbow119.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c239/212007154/josh%20bow/joshbow120.jpg[/img]