Any Bow makers out there? What are "Bow Laminations" ?

[dirk martin]

So I bought me a pile of thin boards.
I guess these are for making hunting bows.
The boards are from 20 to 36" long, and most of them taper from one end, to the other. On one end they are about 1/8" (or less), and they taper down to the other end, down to about 1/32" or so. The boards are about 2" wide, and each bundle is bookmatched.

Some have some writing on them, and I'm not sure what it means.

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I'm hoping there's some bow makers out there, that can tell me what I have here.
I've got a lot of these bundles...all different species of wood.

Not sure if some of this is even wood. Almost looks like a lamination.

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Are these worth anything?

[dirk martin]

And I found this stamped on some of them....

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[dirk martin]

Some of it is colored.
Is this that stuff I think I've seen called "Diamond Wood", and they've sliced it?

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[John T Barker]

This site appears to have wood laminated like yours http://wookieswords.blogspot.com/2011/12/first-recurve-bow-build.html

[Justin Ludwig]

The laminates get glued together and clamped to a jig for making recurve bow arms.
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I only make self-long bows, but one day may attempt a laminated recurve.

[Jim Finn]

http://www.buildabow.com/thebowyersden.html
You may find an answer in this forum or others like it.

[William Adams]

As noted, these slats are taper ground for use in making laminated bows --- as noted, the lengths look to be suited for recurves, but you may be able to get limbs for a takedown longbow out of them. The markings denote thickness at the thicker end and the degree of taper. As the note implies, please don't mix them up --- it's important that top / bottom limbs be constructed as similarly as possible.

If you don't want to make bows, I'm sure you'd get a lot of interest in a specialty bow making area if the price is right, esp. if there's an interesting bit of history behind them --- wish I were in a position to buy them. Making a laminated bow has been on my list of personal projects for a long while.

One of the more prominent archery dealers is 3 Rivers Archery, they list bow laminations at $23.99 - $31.99 a pair. www.3riversarchery.com/bow-laminations.html (though some consider their prices a bit high).

[russell lusthaus]

For a better education on what you have, check out Binghams (a site and store devoted to making laminated fiberglass bows). What you have is valuable to the right people. If you want to trade them, send me a PM and we can discuss. I too have only made made self longbows and recurves - what you have are the cores for for making fiberglass laminated bows. A good set of lams, depending on species, go for 20-40 a pair.

Russ

[dirk martin]

http://www.buildabow.com/thebowyersden.html
You may find an answer in this forum or others like it.

I was excited to check out that site, and see if I could sell some of these, but it appears most of the links on the site are broken.
Anyone know of a good archery forum on the web, that I might sell some of these on?

[Robert Hayward]

http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/

Scroll down a little and you will find the archery forums for bow makers.

[Mike Kees]

Dirk you could post at Archerytalk.com. Someone there may be interested. It is one of the biggest forums for archery out there.

[russell lusthaus]

trad gang is another good archery forum.

[dirk martin]

"trad gang" ?
Where do these people come up with these odd forum names?

[russell lusthaus]

The Trad is short for Traditional and Traditional Archery is all the rage these days (in some small circles :-). Some sites, like Primitive Archer, will affectionately refer you to trad gang for any talk about FG. Only natural materials allowed. LOL.

[Andy Giddings]

Dirk, you could always try building your own recurve or get one of the bowyers in the fora recommended to trade a completed bow in exchange for materials. Shooting a recurve bow at a straw target (never been a hunter) is challenging and satisfying, especially when you increase the distance to 100yds with the wind blowing sideways :-)

[dirk martin]

Great idea, Andy.....great idea....
Could be fun!

[Mike Holbrook]

I did a stint as a serious target archer, shooting recurved bows. Hoyt and Black Widow use to make most of the competition bows. As I understood it they held the information on exactly how they made their bow arms pretty close. I have waited for months for bow arms especially made for competition shooting. I think the hardest part is matching the two arms to each other so they work exactly the same. Talk about your technical woodworking.

[Andy Giddings]

Mike, I did the same but in the UK before I moved to the US. Had a Hoyt as the UK recurve manufacturers were not in the same league back then. Competition target archery was a very social event - lots of time between shots for talking with your colleagues and most events attracted well over 100 archers, good times. Needless to say in the UK, dry, windless sunny days were a rare and happy occassion!

[John K Jordan]

"trad gang" ?
Where do these people come up with these odd forum names?

One way: Run a random company name generator and a random user or general name generator and pick out the pieces that grab ya.

http://online-generator.com/name-generator/company-name-generator.php

Look at some categories under Other Names:
http://fantasynamegenerators.com/evil-group-names.php#.V-UabTUns8I

JKJ

[Mike Holbrook]

Andy, I live in Metro Atlanta. South Atlanta was home of "The Archery College", run back then by Lt Colonel Millan E. Elliot and his wife Sandy. Yes, very social. The colonel had been all over the world pursuing archery relics.

I use to have a hand tooled leather archery quiver made by the Colonel himself. After I was done shooting the Colonel and I would often play chess. Good times. The Colonel had a relationship with Black Widow Bows, they custom made the limbs for his serious target archers. The colonel even made a thing called an overdraw that allowed one to use smaller stiffer arrows, but boy they were hard to shoot, very unforgiving of any hand movement. I have spent many an hour, with Colonel Elliot, tuning a recurved bow to shoot bare shafts as close to perfectly as possible.

Once I started traveling a good deal for work I could not keep up with it. But someone had to get the internet started back in the 70's.